Stosunki narodowościowe na Warmii i Mazurach 1945-1997

The study concerns historical, sociological and political questions. Durning the stormy history of Warmia and Mazuria different people, nationalities and ethnic groups flew into this region. The author shows how they overlapped each other and disappeared. This has always been a land of prostrate people driven away from their homes. Geographical names are all that has remained of the ancient Borussian who lived here centuries ago. The end of World War II brought to an end the world created by Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Dutchmen, Salzburgians, Scotchmen, Frenchmen, Jews, Russians, Warmians and Mazurians. After 1945 new inhabitants began to arrive in these territories; they were Poles from central Poland, Poles from Poland's pre-war eastern borderland and Ukrainians whom war had deprived of their homland, as well as Bielorussians, Roms and other ethnic groups. Warmia and Mazuria now differ substantially from the other regions of Poland. It is their inhabitants, a post-migration community, who have impressed a specific stamp on this region. The author shows to what exent this community has shaped a sense of regional identity, of being distinct from people in other regions, and the inhabitants, emotional ties with their region. He also examines the nationality policy pursued by the authorities in the past fifty years.