KresyEastern Borderlands (Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands (Kresy, ˈkrɛsɨ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic, it amounted to nearly half of the territory of pre-war Poland. Historically situated in the eastern Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, following the 18th-century foreign partitions it was divided between the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and ceded to Poland in 1921 after the Peace of Riga.
Vladimir Lenin'Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin', was a Russian lawyer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party over the course of the Russian Civil War. Ideologically a Marxist, his development of the ideology is known as Leninism.
Curzon LineThe Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. Based on a suggestion by Herbert James Paton, it was first proposed in 1919 by Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, to the Supreme War Council as a diplomatic basis for a future border agreement. The line became a major geopolitical factor during World War II, when the USSR invaded eastern Poland, resulting in the split of Poland's territory between the USSR and Nazi Germany along the Curzon Line.
VolhyniaVolhynia (also spelled Volynia) (voʊˈlɪniə ; Volýnʹ, Wołyń, Volýnʹ, װאָלין), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and western Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but the territory that still carries the name is Volyn Oblast, in western Ukraine. Volhynia has changed hands numerous times throughout history and been divided among competing powers. For centuries it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
PolonizationPolonization (or Polonisation; polonizacja) is the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, in particular the Polish language. This happened in some historic periods among non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially under the influence of Poland. Like other examples of cultural assimilation, Polonization could be either voluntary or forced. It was most visible in cases of territories where the Polish language or culture was dominant or where their adoption could result in increased prestige or social status, as was the case with the nobilities of Ruthenia and Lithuania.
TernopilTernopil (Тернопіль, terˈnɔp(j)ilj; Tarnopol; Tarnapol; Tarnopol; Tannstadt; Ternopol; Tarnopal), known until 1944 mostly as Tarnopol, is a city in the west of Ukraine, located on the banks of the Seret. Administratively, it serves as the administrative centre of Ternopil Oblast. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical regions of Galicia and Podolia. It is served by Ternopil Airport. The population of Ternopil was estimated at The city is the administrative center of Ternopil Oblast (region), as well as of surrounding Ternopil Raion (district) within the oblast.
HolodomorThe Holodomor, also known as the Great Ukrainian Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union. While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute. Some historians conclude that the famine was planned and exacerbated by Joseph Stalin in order to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement.
IntermariumIntermarium (Międzymorze, mjɛnd͡zɨˈmɔʐɛ) was a post-World War I geopolitical plan conceived by Józef Piłsudski to unite former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth lands within a single polity. The plan went through several iterations, some of which anticipated the inclusion as well of other, neighboring states. The proposed multinational polity would have incorporated territories lying between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas, hence the name Intermarium (Latin for "Between-Seas").
Polish population transfers (1944–1946)The Polish population transfers in 1944–1946 from the eastern half of prewar Poland (also known as the expulsions of Poles from the Kresy macroregion), were the forced migrations of Poles toward the end and in the aftermath of World War II. These were the result of a Soviet Union policy that had been ratified by the main Allies of World War II. Similarly, the Soviet Union had enforced policies between 1939 and 1941 which targeted and expelled ethnic Poles residing in the Soviet zone of occupation following the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland.
Tambov RebellionThe Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1922 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik government during the Russian Civil War. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part of the Voronezh Oblast, less than southeast of Moscow. In Soviet historiography, the rebellion was referred to as the Antonovschina ("Antonov's mutiny"), so named after Alexander Antonov, a former official of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who opposed the government of the Bolsheviks.
