People of Polish Origin and of Polish Nationality in the USSR and in the United States. Their Language Situation

Abstract

Depending on the size of Polish communities abroad, the duration of their settlement, the form and force with which the society of the settlement country as well as the new State influenced these communities, the Polish immigrants (or else the autochtonie Polish community that settled abroad) and their offspring, differ from each other with respect to national consciousness, or - on the one hand - with what the scale of differences contains between the identification with the Polish nation (Polish national minorities), arid - on the other - with the identification with the nation of the settlement country (Polish ethnic groups, with the most characteristic example of Americans of Polish descent in the USA). For this reason it is difficult to speak exclusively about Poles abroad, and the areas of Polish settlement abroad. In order to designate the entirety of multigenerational communities consisting of persons connected genetically with the Polish national community, conscious of these bonds (though, for different reasons, the communities in question ended up outside the Polish ethnic territory in Europe, or outside the borders of the Polish state), and settled permanently on the territory of different countries (or beyond the territory of Poland in her boundaries after 1944-45), we adopt the term Polonia.