A clean sweep? : the politics of ethnic cleansing in western Poland, 1945-1960 / by T. David Curp.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Curp, T. David, 1965- author.

Series:

Rochester studies in Central Europe.

Rochester studies in Central Europe, 1528-4808

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Forced migration--Poland--Western and Northern Territories.

Forced migration.

Forced migration--Poland--Wielkopolska.

Population transfers--Germans.

Population transfers.

Western and Northern Territories (Poland)--Ethnic relations.

Western and Northern Territories (Poland).

Wielkopolska (Poland)--Ethnic relations.

Wielkopolska (Poland).

Poland--Politics and government--1945-1980.

Poland.

Poland--Relations--Germany.

Germany--Relations--Poland.

Germany.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 270 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

'A Clean Sweep? The Politics of Ethnic Cleansing in Western Poland, 1945-1960' examines the long-term impact of ethnic cleansing on postwar Poland, focusing on the western Polish provinces of Poznan and Zielona Góra. Employing archival materials from multiple sources, including newly available Secret Police archives, it demonstrates how ethnic cleansing solidified Communist rule in the short term while reshaping and 'nationalizing' that rule. The Poles of Poznan played a crucial role in the postwar national revolution in which Poland was ethnically cleansed by a joint effort of the people and state. A resulting national solidarity provided the Communist-dominated regime with an underlying stability, while it transformed what had been a militantly internationalist Polish Communism. This book addresses the legacy of Polish-German conflict that led to ethnic cleansing in East Central Europe, the ramifications within the context of Polish Stalinism's social and cultural revolutions, and the subsequent anti-national counterrevolutionary effort to break the bonds of national solidarity. Finally, it examines how the Poznan milieu undermined and then reversed Stalinist efforts at socioeconomic and cultural revolution. In the aftermath of the Poznan revolt of June 1956, the regime's leadership re-embraced hyper-nationalist politics and activists, and by 1960 Polish authorities had succeeded in stabilizing their rule at the cost of becoming an increasingly national socialist polity. T. David Curp is assistant professor in the Department of History at Ohio University.

Contents:

Introduction : hearts and minds and land : ethnic cleansing and the stabilization of postwar Poland

How the East was lost : Germany's struggle for the Polish-German borderlands, 1870-1945

Who won the West : the colonists and ethnic cleansers of Poznań and eastern Brandenburg in 1945

Acts of sacrifice : Poland's ethnic cleansing and the end of political pluralism, 1945-47

Counterrevolution from above and abroad : the delocalization of politics and the beginning of Polish Stalinism's antinational counterrevolution, 1947-49

Waging counterrevolution : the party-state's struggle for hearts, minds, and land in Wielkopolska, 1949-53

Revolutions before the revolution : national solidarity and the long retreat of Stalinism in Wielkopolska, 1953-56

The revolutions betrayed? : the Poznań revolt and the Polish road to national socialism, 1956-60

Conclusion : a near run thing : from national solidarity to Solidarity.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. [249]-260) and index.

ISBN:

1-282-08063-6

9786612080630

1-58046-684-2

OCLC:

666925244