Osadniks (Polish: osadnik/osadnicy, "settler/settlers") was the Polish loanword used in Soviet Union for veterans of Polish army that were given land in the Kresy (Western Belarus and Western Ukraine) territory ceded to Poland by Polish-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 (and regained by Soviet Union in 1939). A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken into by one language from another. ... A veteran refers to a person who is experienced in a particular area, particularly referring to people in the armed forces. ... The name Kresy (Polish for borderlands) (or more correctly Kresy Wschodnie, Eastern Borderlands) is used by Poles to refer to the eastern part of Poland in the inter-war period. ... Western Ukraine (Західно-українська Народна Республіка, West-Ukrainian Peoples Republic) was a short-lived republic that existed in late 1918 and early 1919 in eastern Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia and included the cities of Lviv, Kolomyja, and Stanislav. ...

During 1920-1929 about 77,000 of osadnik families received over 600,000 hectares of land which formerly constituted the property of Russian tsar, nobility (dvoryanstvo) and Government. A hectare (symbol ha) is a unit of area, commonly used for measuring land area. ... Tsar (Bulgarian цар, Russian царь, Serbian цар) â–¶(?); often spelled Czar or Tzar and sometimes Csar or Zar in English), was the title used for the autocratic rulers of the Bulgarian Empire in 913-1396/1422 and 1908-1946, in Serbia in the middle of the 14th century, and in Russia from 1547 to... Dvoryanstvo ( Russian: дворянство) refers to a category of Russian nobility. ...

After the 1939 invasion of Poland, osadniks were deported to Northern European Russia, Ural and Siberia accordig to the Sovnarkom Decree about special settlement and labor engagement of "osadniks" deported from Western areas of USSR and BSSR of December 29, 1939. Estimated 140,000 osadniks were deported in February 1940. In GULAG paperwork, osadniks were in a separate category of deportees: "special settlers — 'osadniks' and 'foresters' ". Combatants Poland Germany, Slovakia Soviet Union Commanders Edward Rydz-ÅšmigÅ‚y Fedor von Bock (Army Group North) Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group South) Strength 39 divisions, 16 brigades 1 million soldiers[3] 4,300 guns 880 tanks 400 aircraft 56 divisions, 4 brigades 1. ... European Russia can be considered the western areas of Russia, where most of the population is centred. ... See: Ural Mountains Ural River IMZ-Ural Russian motorcycle Ural automobile This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Siberia Siberia (Russian: , common English transliterations: Sibir’, Sibir; from the Tatar for “sleeping land”) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of northern Asia. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... GULAG (Russian: Glavonoye Upravleniye Lagerey, Main Camp Administration) was the branch of the Soviet secret police (the NKVD and later on the KGB) that dealt with concentration camps. ... Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union took several forms. ...

After that three more waves of Polish deportations were carried out, classified with different categpries. The largest deported Polish population was in Arkhangelsk Oblast; e.g., the whole Polish labor settlements existed in the Kotlas area. Arkhangelsk Oblast (Russian: ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). ... Kotlas is a Russian city (61° 15 N, 46° 35 E) in the Archangelsk oblast that lies at the confluence of Northern Dvina and Vychegda. ...

See also

• Polish minority in the Soviet Union

The Polish minority in the Soviet Union refers to former Polish citizens or Polish-speaking people who resided in the Soviet Union. ...

References

Not by Their Own Will...

1. Павел Полян, Не по своей воле... (Pavel Polyan, Not by Their Own Will... A History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR), ОГИ Мемориал, Moscow, 2001, ISBN 5-94282-007-4
2. Janina Stobniak-Smogorzewska, "Kresowe osadnictwo wojskowe 1920-1945" (Military colonization of Kresy 1920-1945), Warsaw, RYTM, 2003, ISBN 8373990062