“… So I Decided to Be a Pole”
“… So I Decided to Be a Pole”

Summary/Abstract: Conclusions like the one in the headline had been given by several of my interviewees when being asked about their own ethnic identity. But the respondents were no inhabitants of Poland, they live in the Western parts of Belarus or Eastern Lithuania, in areas that belonged to Poland between the world wars. In many of their family-histories we can still observe the mosaic of nationalities and languages that used to characterize this area and to a certain extend is present until today. All of the persons I present declared to be Polish. But there are various ways of how they describe their Polishness: they came on different ways to the decision or believe that they are Poles. In some cases we can remark a conscious creation of one's own ethnic identity, some even describe a moment in their lives, when they decided to be a Pole. Others were brought up as Poles and never questioned that they could be someone else. Some declare to be more Polish than Poles in Poland, others call themselves no real Poles and wish to be as Polish as people in Warsaw in their eyes are. So there are big differences between individual interviewees, but also between families, regions and the two countries Lithuania and Belarus. In all cases my interviewees present themselves in dissociation with the Belarusian or Lithuanian majority-culture and language, but also feel a difference between themselves and the inhabitants of the country of reference, Poland. In the paper I present different ways of how people construct and define their “being Polish” when belonging to an ethnic minority.

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