Creating Kashubia
History, Memory, and Identity in Canada's First Polish Community
A groundbreaking work that looks at the changing ways in which Canada’s first Polish community views itself.
Description
In recent years, over one million Canadians have claimed Polish heritage - a significant population increase since the first group of Poles came from Prussian-occupied Poland and settled in Wilno, Ontario, west of Ottawa in 1858. For over a century, descendants from this community thought of themselves as Polish, but this began to change in the 1980s due to the work of a descendant priest who emphasized the community’s origins in Poland’s Kashubia region. What resulted was the reinvention of ethnicity concurrent with a similar movement in northern Poland. Creating Kashubia chronicles more than one hundred and fifty years of history, identity, and memory and challenges the historiography of migration and settlement in the region. For decades, authors from outside Wilno, as well as community insiders, have written histories without using the other’s stores of knowledge. Joshua Blank combines primary archival material and oral history with national narratives and a rich secondary literature to reimagine the period. He examines the socio-political and religious forces in Prussia, delves into the world of emigrant recruitment, and analyzes the trans-Atlantic voyage. In doing so, Blank challenges old narratives and traces the refashioning of the community’s ethnic identity from Polish to Kashubian. An illuminating study, Creating Kashubia shows how changing identities and the politics of ethnic memory are locally situated yet transnationally influenced.
Reviews
"This study is well researched...and written in a style that flows and draws us into a world that has previously been a mystery. Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is its integration of primary archival, secondary, and local sources for his narrati
"Blank's work is thorough and his approach is multidisciplinary. His conclusions reach beyond the experience of Poles in Canada and have application for the entire Polish diaspora as well as other ethnic groups." Anna D. Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, Eastern Connecticut State University
"In Creating Kashubia, Blank combines archival materials and oral histories with locally produced community histories to critically examine the evolution of historical myths and narratives about the first Polish settlement in Canada. This work makes an important contribution to scholarship on the history of Polish migration to Canada, and is a welcome addition to the field of Canadian immigration and ethnic history." Canadian Slavonic Papers
"The very act of publishing this book is a significant event in the history of the Kashubs in Canada. Students and scholars can benefit from the bibliography in the area of immigration history, evolution of Canadian society, and multiculturalism. The stud