Bookvica

[POLISH PIONEERS] Bądź Gotów. Elementarz [Be Ready! Primer]

Moszkowska, Łogowska

Item #2642

Kharkiv—Kiyv: Ukr. Państwowe Wydawnictwo Mniejszości Narodowościowych, 1932. 76 p., ill. 20 x 13 cm. Original illustrated publisher’s covers. One of 14 000 copies. In Polish. Overall good condition. A 2 cm tear to the bottom of the front cover. Creazed lower right corner of the book. Minor defects of the spine. Numbers in ink, numerical stamps and traces of a rubber stamp on the back cover. Inside clean. Partially uncut.

The primer’s contents are aimed at kids educated in native language right from the 1st grade: following the ABC and starting from syllable reading up to topical chapters on a five-year plan and the communist way of living. The last page features different types of Polish ABC, with examples of typed and hand-written letters. The early 1930s still followed the agenda of indigenization thus relative freedom for Polish minorities in UkSSR existed. Poles, Germans, people of Jewish origin and other widely represented nationalities were all entitled for state support of their own school programs.
According to the 1926 census, the territories of Eastern Ukraine, by that time incorporated into the Soviet state, housed some 476 000 Poles and the neighbouring Belarus — over 97 000. In both republics, Poles were the 4th most represented nationality after Russians, Ukrainians and Jews. And from the mid-1920s the state willingly supported the ethnic homogenization of the regions, welcoming linguistic and cultural diversity as such.
This primer stands out among earlier ones as it shows Stalin’s cult of personality rising: even though the primer begins with V. Lenin’s iconic portrait, Stalin’s face is featured at least three times (pp. 32, 71, 73). It also can be found in text.
Just a year after the primer was published, already in 1933, the state politics took a 180 degree turn and Polish schools were either reformed or simply closed down. From hundreds of active Polish schools by 1938 only 50 of them were providing education in native language. Others were Russified or Ukrainised.So this example should be one of the last Polish primers published in the USSR ever. Deportations and ethnic repressions followed. This, combined with the deadly Holodomor, resulted in a drastic decline of Poles living in Ukraine. Their numbers dropped by hundreds of thousands and the era of Polish culture in the USSR war simply ended.

Very rare, especially outside Eastern Europe. Not in WorldCat. Not in KVK. Not in the Polish NUKAT database. A copy is found in the Russian State Library.

Price: $950.00

Status: On Hold