FROM KRESY TO KAZAKHSTAN: THREE GENERATIONS OF POLISH MINORITY

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the transformations of ethnic identity of three generations of Kazakhstani Poles and their ancestors who were deported from Ukraine to Kazakhstan in the 1930s. Deportation and Sovietization led to the impoverishment of ethnic identity, therefore in independent Kazakhstan Poles had to look for new sources of identification. One the base of preserved ethnicity Poles pursue two opposite trends: the reconstruction of identity on the basis of preserved ethnicity or try to distance themselves from it by assimilation. The base of the research is collections of memoirs and fieldwork data in the village Kamenka in North Kazakhstan. Thesis uses the generational approach to show how the boundaries of ethnic identity have been changed inside the community. Using this approach, we emphasize the importance of historical memory. We cannot exclude the historical narrative and use only recollections to save the objectivity of the presented facts, recollections show the transmission of specific characteristics and their erasing from generation to generation