Emigracja Kaszubska. Zjawisko. Ludzie. Ośrodki

The quote above is from the book The Tin Drum, part of the so-called Danzig Trilogy by Günter Grass (1927–2015), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 and probably the most famous Kashubian writer of all time, who devoted most of his life and work to Polish-German reconciliation. In my opinion, it phenomenally captures the thought that must have guided the authors of the volume edited by Daniel Kalinowski.The reviewed publication is a collection of twenty-five chapters written by twenty-three authors who discuss migration of Kashubians on a global scale. It has already been established that “Kashubian emigration is a multithreaded issue, taking place not only in the sphere of historically considered social movements of the mid-nineteenth century that took place first in Europe and then on all continents of the world. It is also a zone of mental phenomena, related to cultural identity, the system of values considered in the plan of literature or the set of a film” (p. 5). The editor of the volume under review chose not to engage with the academic discourse along these lines; rather, the volume's aim is to popularize knowledge about the experiences of this particular ethnic group.The content of the book is organized into four sections: “Preface” (Zagajenie); “Scientific Voices” (Głosy Naukowe), which includes nine chapters; “Self-declarations” (Aurodeklaracje), which includes seven chapters; and “Annotations” (Wypisy), which includes another seven chapters. The first ten contributions mentioned above have an adequate scientific apparatus. The seven contributions that follow are written versions of accounts by witnesses of history and relate their personal approach to Kashubian heritage. The last seven texts are reprints of primary sources.In my opinion, “Preface” by Father Władysław Szulist and entitled “Bedeker kaszubskiej Polonii” (Bedeker of Kashubian Polonia) does not adequately fulfill its role or immerse readers in the context of the published collection. Unfortunately, the volume opens with a text written in the spirit of nineteenth-century patriotism, and its main task is to convince the reader that the Kashubian population unequivocally belongs to the Polish nation. However, this framing is inconsistent with the academic chapters that follow. These were written by ten researchers of various disciplines, including classical literature, history, history of literature, museology, pedagogy, and political studies. They represent Polish and American universities as well as various cultural and scholarly institutions. All of the chapters in “Scientific Voices” skillfully summarize and show in temporal, factual and spatial context the decades-long debate on the national identity of the Kashubian people. Just as Günter Grass pointed out in The Tin Drum, the authors draw attention to the problems of national identification of the Kashubian population.The authors largely agree that, despite the fact that successive generations of Kashubians in exile felt Polish, tried to cultivate, in their circles, Polish traditions and speak Polish, they turned out to be “not Polish enough” when meeting “real Poles.” This led to cognitive dissonance among the Kashubian population and a lack of harmonious cooperation between the fraternal communities. Three chapters explore this theme: “Canada's First Polish-Kashub Community: 160 Years Later” by Joshua C. Blank; “Świadomość językowa Kaszubów w Kanadzie, USA” (The linguistic consciousness of Kashubians in Canada, the U.S. and New Zealand) by Stanislaw Frymark; and “Głodno, ale swòbòdno. Obrazy emigracji w kaszubskiej literaturze pięknej” (Hungry, but free: Images of emigration in Kashubian fiction) by Daniel Kalinowski.Furthermore, this first section of the book contains chapters on Kashubian communities in diverse locations. Krzysztof Gradowski discusses “Emigracja Kaszubów do Brazylii w II poł. XIX wieku” (Emigration of Kashubians to Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century). He verifies an earlier thesis of Hieronim Derdowski related to the number of migrants who came to Brazil by the end of the nineteenth century. Through thorough archival research at Brazilian institutions, the author reduces previous estimates of 15,000 Kashubians migrating to Brazil at that time to 4,000 people from Pomerania, including Kashubians, Kocievians, and Poles.This story is complemented by a North American example discussed by Anne M. Gurnack, Aleksandra Kurowska-Susdorf, and Janina Kurowska. “The Saga of the Jones Island Kaszube Fishermen Returns Home to Poland in 2017” investigates a remarkable story of a group of Kashubian fishermen from the Hel Peninsula who began settling on Jones Island in the 1860s. Unfortunately, after losing a lawsuit with the Illinois Steel Company in 1902 and thus the rights to their plots of land, they had to leave the island. Nevertheless, to this day, descendants of former Kashubians from the Hel Peninsula hold an annual reunion to commemorate their ancestors who came to Jones Island in the old days. It was only in 2017 that the first exhibition on the history of Kashubian fishermen from Jones Island was organized, mainly due to personal engagement of the authors.Aleksandra Kurowska-Susdorf authored another chapter in this volume on the pedagogy of travel in the context of genealogical expeditions from Canada to Kashubia. It describes the phenomenon of travel journals made by descendants of immigrants and its educational dimension. The author focuses on the experiences of members of the Kashubian diaspora living in Canada who return to the homeland of their ancestors to find their roots. She writes: “The pedagogy of travel allows us to see the educational potential of a pilgrimage into one's memories or a journey towards the history of one's ancestors—through it we can better understand and grasp what constitutes us” (p. 128). Among the academic chapters published in the volume, there are also interesting texts on Kashubian experience in the Americas.Adela Kuik-Kalinowska's chapter, titled “Z ziemi obcej na Kaszuby. Przypadek Stefana Bieszka” (From a foreign land to Kashubia: The case of Stefan Bieszke), introduces readers to the story of a significant figure in the history of Kashubia, Stefan Bieszke (1895–1964), a Kashubian writer, teacher, cofounder of the Zrzeszenie Kaszubskie (Kashubian Association), and promoter of Kashubian culture.The chapter “Canada's First Polish-Kashub Community: 160 Years Later,” by Joshua C. Blank, chronicles Kashubian settlement in Canada over the last 160 years. The author divides the mentioned time-space into three smaller periods, marking the stages of development of the Kashubian diaspora. During the first period, 1858–1915, the state granted land to Kashubian settlers. The second, lasting until the 1960s, is a time of development of second- and third-generation Kashubian communities. And during the last period, which lasts until the present day, Kashubians in Canada have sought activities outside the cultural centers, including trips to the areas where Kashubian ancestors lived in Poland.In “Świadomość językowa Kaszubów w Kanadzie, USA” (The linguistic consciousness of Kashubians in Canada, the US, and New Zealand), Stanisław Frymark discusses knowledge of Kashubian in Canada, the United States and New Zealand based on sixty interviews he conducted with members of Kashubian communities in those countries. The author also shows the five-phase process of mixing the language of immigrants with the language of the country of settlement.In “Głodno, ale swòbòdno. Obrazy emigracji w kaszubskiej literaturze pięknej” (Hungry, but free: Images of emigration in Kashubian fiction), the volume's editor, Daniel Kalinowski, familiarizes readers with images of Kashubian immigrants in the works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers who spoke and wrote in Kashubian. The author divided the works of Kashubian writers into two periods: the first until World War II and the second after World War II. The first period includes such Kashubian writers as Hieronim Derdowski, Alojzy Budzisz, Jan Rompski, and Anna Łajming, while the second period includes Stanisław Pestka, Artur Jabloński, and Grzegorz Schramke.Father Joseph Szymanski dedicated his attention to the work of the Kashubian pastors in the service of compatriots in the United States. The author shows the significant influence of priests of Kashubian origin in building the national consciousness of the Polish population in the United States. Joseph J. Hughes skillfully introduces the reader to the history of three Kashubians who fought in the American Civil War.The volume's second section, “Self-declarations,” as mentioned above, comprises written records of the stories of members of the Kashubian community abroad, who describe their lives, activities and various approaches to discovering and cultivating their Kashubian roots. The first two are interviews—one in Polish and one in English—with Father Paul Joseph Breza, who is the founder of the Polish Museum in Winona, Minnesota. The following chapters are the reflections of Blanche Krbechek, a descendant of Kashubians from the Michigan area, and David Martin Shulist from Canada, who talks about his personal discovery of Kashubian identity. Both are also published in two languages. This section concludes with Tomasz Antoni von Piechowski, who shares with readers his experiences as an immigrant in Germany. These autoethnographic records may be useful for researchers working on the topics of immigrant communities’ collective memory, sense of national and ethnic identity, and public history.The closing section of the book, “Annotations,” consists of seven source texts reprinted from publications dating from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, which are examples of Kashubian literary and journalistic texts related to the topic of Kashubian migration. Almost all of them are sources written in Polish, the exception being one text written in Kashubian. They are testimonies of their era, expressions of the interest in the issue of Kashubian migration, and at the same time evidence of the importance of this issue in Polish journalism. The authors of the chapters in this volume refer to these source texts, and I consider the inclusion of them in a separate section a nice nod to the readers.The final two sections complementing the academic chapters are an excellent addition for readers interested in the history and culture of Kashubian communities abroad, but can also become source documents used in the classroom, or by employees of cultural and scholarly institutions.The book is of scholarly and cognitive value. However, I would reconsider publishing alongside individual texts in both Polish and English but with no translation. Unless one speaks both languages, appreciating its content is hampered. The book summarizes research to date on the migration of the Kashubians, and therefore the texts included in it could be used in university courses on migration, ethnic minorities, as well as Polish, Canadian, Brazilian, and American history.