Czytelnia Polska w Nowej Żadowie (1907–1945)

Abstract

The implementation of constitutional citizens’ rights in the Duchy of Bukovina (Herzogtum Bukowina) looked entirely different than in Galicia of the autonomy period. As a result, the Bukovina Poles at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries did not use the benefits of education in their native tongue. Under a constant pressure to speak German, Ruthenian or Romanian, the Poles had to fight for Polish education with Polish as a language of instruction. Before this principal goal could be reached, they endeavoured to preserve their native tongue and culture on their own. Opening private schools and Polish reading rooms by the Folk School Society (Towarzystwo Szkoły Ludowej, TSL) was a means of coming closer to this goal. During the first years of the 20th century a dozen of such reading rooms were opened. So far there has been no study discussing comprehensively the problem of Polish TSL reading rooms in Bukovina. Likewise, there is also no detailed study dedicated to at least one of such reading rooms. Since the rooms played a vital role in the preservation of the native tongue and the national identity of the Bukovina Poles as well as their relations with the entire nation, they deserve to be researched and described as far the archive materials allow this, provided the materials have been preserved at all. Luckily, there are sources concerning the Polish reading room in Nowa Żadowa – in Bujakówka two Volumes documenting its work over a stretch of time have been preserved together with remnants of the collection and press material – and the author has used them to discuss this particular reading room. The paper reconstructs only an outline of the reading room’s history, which evolved with times and changing political circumstances and finally ceased to exist when Nowa Żadowa was taken over by the Soviet Union.