What does it feel like to be a Kashubian?

Kashubian history and culture

Kashubians are one of the oldest nations of Europe. They are descendants of the first Gothic settlers who landed in the Vistula Delta from Scandinavia.

For more than 2,300 years Scandinavian tribes on their  migrations south first arrived in the Vistula Delta before moving on further into other regions of this part of Europe.  Those who settled in this region in times long before Germanic and Slavic tribes emerged as such, are the ancestors of contemporary Kashubians.

Kashubians are therefore looking back on their own history in a way comaparable in source and age to those of the Danes who are commonly known for their language being more than two thousand years old. By the 7th and 8th Century, Kashubians having established the first Scandinavian settlements developed their particular identity as a defined part of the West-Slavic group of tribes, inahibiting the entire southern shores of the Baltic coast between the Elbe and Vistula. 

Around the first Millenium however, the Kashubians were pushed back from the West to the Oder river. Between the 12th and 13th century first under The Brandenburg Dukeship, and then later as the Kingdom of Prussia they were continuously pushed eastward and so most of Kashubia, today called Western-Kashubia, found itself incorporated in the Prussian state for many centuries. 

In the Prussian part of Kashubia the authorities pursued a policy of Germanisation of the population, and in many cases succeeded. 

Kashubians are traditionally Catholic. The Western-Kashubians often converted to Protestantism as a component of the overall, and often forceful Germanisation by Prussia. Nevertheless the Kashubian language survived in West-Kashubia largely because it was nurtured and cultivated in the everyday settings of daily life but also consciously hidden from view from the authorities. 

Those who lived to the east of the West-Prussian border always voluntarily sought alliance with Poland, as much to do with the fact of the sharing of the Catholic religion, as well as a shared Slavic origin, and most of all due to the strategic and trading importance of the  Kashubian Baltic shores to the Kingdom of Poland, being its only access to the seas. 

Kashubians today are faithful and proud citizens of Poland, but oppose attempts of various intellectual and political circles who are seen as undermining the Kashubian identity and language by downgrading the language to a Polish dialect. 

Kashubian is a West Slavic language belonging to the Lechitic subgroup along with Polish and Silesian. Although commonly classified as a language in its own right, it is sometimes viewed as a dialect of Pomeranian or Polish, but this designation is often be challenged amongst those in Kashubian population who use the language in everyday life and as their mother-tongue. 

Many scholars and linguists debate whether Kashubian should be recognized as a Polish dialect or as a separate language. From the diachronic view it is a Lechitic West Slavic language but from the synchronic point of view it is a Polish dialect.

Kashubian is closely related to Slovincian, while both of them are dialects of Pomeranian.

Many linguists, in Poland and elsewhere, consider it a divergent dialect of Polish. Dialectal diversity is so great within Kashubian that a speaker of southern dialects has considerable difficulty in understanding a speaker of northern dialects. The spelling and the grammar of Polish words written in Kashubian, which is most of its vocabulary, is highly unusual, making it difficult to comprehend also written text by native Polish speakers.

Like Polish, Kashubian includes about 5% loanwords from German (such as kùńszt "art"). Unlike Polish, these are mostly from Low German and only occasionally from High German. Other sources of loanwords include the Baltic languages.

In Poland, this language speaking group has been an officially recognized ethnic-minority language since 2005.  Approximately 108,000 people use mainly Kashubian at home. It is the only remnant of the Pomeranian language. It is close to standard Polish with influence from Low German and the extinct Polabian and Old Prussian.

The cultural situation is comparable to that of the of the Irish, who after centuries of English domination and near-extinguishing of their native Gaelic language nowadays take every effort to revitalize Gaelic.

The traditionally positive politcal stance of Kashubians as to the union with Poland is similar to the attitude of Unionists in the United Kingdom. The National Motto today: "Nie ma Kaszeb bez Polonii, a bez Kaszeb Pölsci" - means: There is no Poland without Kashubia, and no Kashubia without Poland.

The closest ethnic relatives of Kashubians are the Sorbs ( germ. Sorben ), who still live at the western shores of the Oder river on German territory bordering with Poland.

Well known Kashubians include: Donald Tusk , former Prime Minister of Poland and currently President of The European Council, and Günther Grass - writer, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Die Blechtrommel , The Tin Drum).

Donald Tusk belongs to the Kashubian minority in Poland. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in December 2008, Tusk compared his own family history to the Jewish experience, describing the Kashubian minority as a people who, "like the Jews, are people who were born and live in border areas and were suspected by the Nazis and by the Communists of being disloyal".

Tusk's religious views were a matter of a debate during his presidential campaign in 2005. To avoid further speculations, Tusk requested a Catholic marriage ceremony with his wife Małgorzata, whom he had married in a civil ceremony 27 years earlier, just before the presidential elections.

WARSAW - "My family history, like that of many Polish, German and Jewish families from Central Europe in the 20th century, is complex," says Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is due to begin an official visit to Israel on Tuesday. He is alluding to the fact that his grandfather was forced to serve in the Wehrmacht, Hitler's army, during World War II. In an interview with Haaretz, Tusk claims he did not know about his grandfather's past until his political rivals - twin brothers Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski - publicized it as part of their smear tactics during the 2005 election campaign.

Tusk's family, which comes from the Baltic Sea port city of Gdansk, belong to the Kashubian people, a Slav community influenced by both German and Polish traditions. The Nobel laureate Gunter Grass described their history well in his novel "The Tin Drum." The Germans sometimes saw them as Poles and Slavs, while the Poles were suspicious of their foreign-seeming language and customs. Tusk's grandfather, a railroad laborer, was arrested by the Nazis after the occupation of Poland and sent to two concentration camps. In 1944 he was forced into the Wehrmacht.

"My Kashubian family, like the Jews, are people who were born and live in border areas and were suspected by the Nazis and by the Communists of being disloyal."

What are your personal feelings about this? Do you regret this part of your family's past?

"I have nothing to regret, it's my family's biography. As a historian and as a man, I prefer to know the painful truth over a pleasant lie. If there's one country that can be trusted to understand the complexity of history, it's Israel."

Not just a 'Jewish graveyard'

This will be Tusk's first visit to Israel, and the first visit by a Polish leader in nearly a decade.

"For anyone, and certainly to a Polish prime minister, a visit to Israel is important and special; my excitement is understandable. It's the Holy Land, the country that the whole world is interested in and it also has a deep connection to the special history of the relationship between Poles and the Jewish people."

Tusk, 51, is affable, with a ready smile. His visit will kick off Polish Year in Israel 2008-2009 with a sound and light show by two Polish artists on the facade of the Tel Aviv municipality building.

He says relations between the two countries are very good, so "on the face of it it is not a difficult visit. We have common interests and feelings and a long, complex history. Of course there's always room for improvement." One aspect of the improvement Tusk refers to is his desire for Israel to view Poland as more than what historians and politicians often term "the graveyard of the Jewish people."

"I'm not surprised, and I understand that for many Jews and Israelis Poland means Auschwitz, and they go there as on pilgrimage. I definitely understand the idea of the March of the Living. We Poles and my government don't seek to change that. It is a right and a duty to remember and not forget - and we must not minimize - the symbolism and the significance of Auschwitz.

"But other things can be added. The relationship between Poland and the Jews is centuries old. Poland was the homeland of various peoples, including the Jews. There is no Polish culture without Jewish culture. We want Israelis, especially the young, to experience this side."

What would you like to happen?

"Decisions must be made. Political will to vary the character of Israelis' visits to Poland is needed. My government is willing; we propose creating a joint mechanism or institution to deal with it. I hope that during my visit I will hear that Israel too is willing, and will demonstrate goodwill on the matter."

Why is this so important to Poland?

The Polish people was not partner to the Holocaust carried out by the Germans on Polish soil. We want awareness of this fact to be made public as much as possible in the entire world, and especially in Israel, but that is not the situation now. The key to change is in education and in cultivating the patience to learn history and to look at the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. We must take action so that Poles and Israelis will better understand our common history, the good and the bad."

Anti-Semitism and denial

Do you believe there is anti-Semitism in Poland?

"There are anti-Semites in Poland, but they are a minority, on the margins. But there is no public expression of anti-Semitism. If we do have an anti-Semitic minority it is painful to us and it more of a problem for we Poles than for the Jews. It is shameful that there are still people with this attitude. Anti-Semitism is of course an ugly thing but anti-Semitism after the Holocaust is evil. We are committed to fighting anti-Semitism and to extinguishing it once and for all. But if we compare Poland to other states in Europe, we have almost no anti-Semitic incidents and certainly no anti-Semitic attacks, at most we have people who are not smart and words that are not intelligent."

But in Poland there are expressions of Holocaust denial, like that voiced by Senator Ryszard Janusz Bender, who said that Auschwitz was a work camp, not a death camp, and claimed that the prisoners ate better than the Poles outside. And there are historians who are trying to rewrite history and anti-Semitic individuals connected with Radio Maryja, the Catholic nationalist station. What do you intend to do about this?

"Polish law is very clear on this. Denial of the Holocaust is illegal. The law is called the "Auschwitz-Lie law." Bender is an alien to me, politically, and I oppose his ideas. We try to fight such expressions but it's not easy. As a nation that opposed Communism and the Soviet Union we are attempting to draw the line between protecting freedom of expression on one hand and action against Holocaust deniers on the other. We have taken action against them in the past and I intend, together with the chief prosecutor, to take action against denial of the truth about the past."

Yossi Melman

Haaretz Correspondent