Anti-polonism

The terms Polonophobia, anti-Polonism, antipolonism and anti-Polish sentiment refer to a spectrum of hostile attitudes toward Polish people and culture. These terms apply to racism against Poles and people of Polish descent, including ethnicity-based discrimination and state-sponsored mistreatment of ethnic Poles and Polish citizens. This prejudice led to mass killings and genocide or to justify atrocities during World War II, notably by the German Nazis, Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Soviet Communists.

Today, anti-Polish sentiment more often entails derogatory stereotyping and defamation, rather than open discrimination.

The French-language term antipolonisme ("anti-Polonism") was used by Polish historian Franciszek Bujak in his 1919 essay La Question juive en Pologne ("Jewish Question in Poland").

In Poland, the term antypolonizm was used by progressive Polish thinkers such as Jan Józef Lipski during the Solidarity years in connection with allegations of Polish antisemitism. It reappeared in Polish nationalist circles in the 1990s and eventually entered mainstream use, reflected in leading Polish newspapers such as Gazeta Wyborcza. In recent years, anti-Polonism, or Polonophobia, has been studied at length in scholarly works by Polish, German, American and Russian researchers.

Forms of hostility toward Poles and Polish culture include:

A historic example of Polonophobia was polakożerstwo (in English, "the devouring of Poles") – a Polish term introduced in the 19th century in relation to the dismemberment and annexation of Poland by foreign powers. Polakożerstwo described the forcible suppression of Polish culture, education and religion on historically Polish lands, and the elimination of Poles from public life as well as from landed property. Anti-Polish policies were implemented by the German Empire under Otto von Bismarck, especially during the Kulturkampf, and enforced up to the end of World War I. Organized persecution of Poles raged in the territories annexed by the Russian Empire, mainly under Tsar Nicholas II. Historic actions inspired by anti-Polonism ranged from felonious acts motivated by hatred, to physical extermination of the Polish nation, the goal of which was to eradicate the Polish state. During World War II, when most of Polish society became the object of genocidal policies of its neighbours, German anti-Polonism led to an unprecedented campaign of mass murder.

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