Eastern Provinces of the Republic of Poland - The Conditions for Construction Borderland Assets

Abstract

For years the Polish eastern borderlands were marked by the stigma of worseness, peripheral, backwardness, etc. It seems that the various forms of pressures, applied for many years, caused that both in the aptitudes of the individuals, as well as in public life, and even in scientific publications, a generalized belief has appeared, that indeed there is such a phenomenon objectified as Eastern Poland, characterized by many distinct features in relation to the Western Poland and these traits are most often of negative value. Meanwhile, Eastern Poland is a category constructed on the basis of continuing use, in the social consciousness of the inhabitants of the country, of imaginations of the east, the borderlands, Orient. Its internal structure should be subjected to empirical research. However, one can determine in what purpose it serves. It is used, among others, to explain a number phenomena and problems of economic, social, cultural, and even political nature within the areas located in the eastern part of the Country, for justifying the lack or the low effectiveness of undertaken actions aiming at the solution thereof, and, more broadly, for the development of regions. Moreover, it is being used for achieving various collective and individual aims. How to get out of the stigma worseness and peripheral? One of the directions is to construct and put into practice the assets of the borderland as the important source of endogenous development of eastern provinces.