"Lithuania - an extension of Poland": the territorial image of Lithuania in the Polish discourse

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Erdvinės koncepcijos; Teritoriniai Lietuvos vaizdiniai; Lenkijos diskursas; Spatial concepts; Territorial images of Lithuania; Polish discourse.

ENThis topic - the territorial image of modern Poland - has attracted the focused attention of researchers. Perceptions involved in the drawing of borders for the new Poland and the criteria used for establishing these borders have been investigated in the works of Brian A. Porter, Roman Wapiński, Piotr Eberhardt, and others. The topic of “borderlands” (kresy, in Polish) has also attracted the attention of historians, who have examined not only the territorial image of modern Poland but also the transformation of this image and the functioning of “the myth of borderlands” in Polish cultural memory. In this chapter, relying on the abovementioned historiography and primary sources (periodicals, political party programs, correspondence, educational literature, and maps) from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, we will not only briefly discuss the territorial image of Poland dominating Polish discourse but will pay particular attention to those aspects of the problem that have so far received less attention from researchers. These aspects include: the image of Lithuania as part of the “borderlands” of Poland; the mental map of Poland reflected in Polish-language discourse in Lithuania; and how the territorial images of Poland created by the Polish elite were used in the nationalization of the masses, above all, in the former lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). As mentioned in the book’s introduction, imagined national territory was closely related to the way the imagined community was understood. We will therefore start our discussion of the Polish case with an examination of how the modern Polish community (nation) was conceptualized by the Polish elite in the late imperial period. [Extract, p. 240-241]