Stosunki społeczno-polityczne w Kodniu w latach 1918-1944

• Main Author: Andrzej Tłomacki
• Format: Article
• Language: Polish
• Published: Towarzystwo Nauki i Kultury Libra 2018-10-01
• Series: Radzyński Rocznik Humanistyczny
• Subjects: religious relations; political relations; lublin region; kodeń; xx century; stosunki narodowościowe; stosunki polityczne; lubelszczyzna; xx wiek
• Online Access: http://radzynskirocznik.pl/?sdm_downloads=stosunki-spoleczno-polityczne-w-kodniu-w-latach-1918-1944
• ISSN: 1643-4374; 1643-4374

The article describes the fate of the inhabitants of Kodeń (county: Bialski, province: Lubelskie) in the period from regaining independence in the first decade of January 1919, through a fiveyear period of German persecution, to the annexation of these lands by soldiers of the Red Army in July 1944. Discussed issues concern administrative and political-national topics. At that time, Poles, Ruthenians/Ukrainians and Jews lived in Kodeń. In the municipality of Kodeń (area 2320 ha) 1639 people lived in 09/30/1921 and 2544 in 07/01/1938. Despite the relatively small number of inhabitants, the political life in the commune was extremely turbulent. Kodeń in the 1920s was a poor settlement typical of south-eastern Podlasie. The basic source of income for the population were small, fragmented farms and about 50 craft and small shops. Even a dozen of wealthier farmers could not change their poverty. The lack of tradition of rational management, low agricultural culture and poor soils, in the majority of the Vth and VIth grade, were the cause of hunger especially in the pre-season. A relatively small, and at the same time the most significant social group in Kodeń, was intelligentsia and artisans. The core of the local social elite was created by teachers, clergy, doctors, commune officials, postmen and policemen. A part of craft workshops, a farm, a bakery, brickyards, mills and windmills belonged to the Polish population, unlike retail outlets, which in the vast majority were in Jewish hands. In the interwar period, Jews constituted the largest national minority in Kodeń. Their number was constant and did not exceed over 600 people. Only in the middle of 1939, it de-creased to 300. At the same time, 300 Russians and about 400 Ukrainians lived in the com-mune. They only dealt with agriculture and mostly did not engage into the social and political life of the village. Local authorities suspected Ukrainians of left-wing sympathies. In fact, from the middle of the 1930s, a significant part of them identified with the ideology pro-claimed by the leaders of the Nationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, aimed at the establishment of the Great Ukraine. Since the defeat in September 1939, there were some significant socio-political chang-es in Kodeń’s commune. Germans brought Poles to the second-category inhabitants, favoring the Ukrainian community. In September 1942, over 400 years of Jewish history of had Kodeń ended, when Germans transported all of them into the ghetto in Międzyrzec Podlaski, from where they were moved to the concentration camp in Treblinka. The Germans’ extermination from the Lublin region by Soviet soldiers in the second half of July 1944, did not mean the liberation for its inhabitants. The inhabitants of Kodeń, with the tragic baggage of personal experiences from the period of German occupation, entered a new period of life, marked by great uncertainty and fear related to the rule of the next, the Soviet occupant this time.