Catholic Periodicals in Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic (Part PART 1 – General)

Abstract

Reborn in 1918, the Second Polish Republic returned to the part of the territory lost in the East to undertake the hardships of developing the war-ravaged land. Its history was reflected in the local press and the memories of the “Polonuses” living in these areas. It was recorded in dozens of magazine titles issued mainly by the contemporary Catholic world. The titles mentioned in the present work indicate the life areas of people inhabiting those regions, which were penetrated by the press and which are, in a sense, equivalent only to the names of Polish old mansions in the East. Getting acquainted with their content requires meticulous study which would allow to discover and bring closer the worlds described there and still little known to us and which were deliberately and systematically destroyed by anti-Polish and anti-Catholic forces. The uneasy task of deciphering the Borderlands from its publishing legacy which is still, to this day, being rediscovered, will constitute the content of the second part of the study devoted to Catholic periodicals in Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic.

Keywords

• Eastern Borderlands
• the Second Polish Republic
• Catholic periodicals