“Gospoda Polska” Association in Harbin 1907-1947. Part One.

The main purposes of the Association were to build greater unity in the Polish community and maintain and strengthen the community’s national identity, in part through the development of Polish education as a preferable alternative to Russian schools, in which Polish children and adolescents could be Russified.  In the beginning, Gospoda Polska had an outward appearance of emphasizing entertainments and amusements, thereby making it somewhat more difficult for the Russian authorities to discern its Polish nationalist (and with regard to Poland, anti-Russian) focus. A full audience gathered every week to see plays or vaudeville performances in Polish at a rented theater.

Until 1913, Gospoda Polska was housed in rented rooms. In 1912, its board decided to buy land and construct a building close to the main railway station in Harbin. The new two-story building was ready for use in 1913. A theater for 500 spectators was added to the building in 1914. In the same year, Gospoda Polska, which by that time was facing constant suspicion from Russian authorities, was almost closed down based on a recommendation by the military police.Due to the outbreak of World War I, the recommendation was not followed. A third-story addition to the building was completed in 1919. At various times during the 1913-1949 period, the building contained, inter alia, the theater (1914-45), club rooms, meeting places used by the Polish Youth Association (Zwiazek Mlodziezy Polskiej) and by Polish scouts, athletes, and hunters, a library, a newspaper reading room, the unofficial (and later, official) Polish Consulate (1920-38), a museum of Chinese antiquities (1930-34), the primary school operated by Gospoda Polska (moved to the building ca. 1913 and was there until 1947), another primary school and a high school (in 1947-49), a publishing office and printing press, a small shop for school supplies, newspaper editors’ offices, and a department for providing assistance to indigent Poles.

The building was constructed with money lent to Gospoda Polska by well-off members of the Polish community. The Association and its lenders hoped that the Association’s activities would earn enough money to enable the Association to repay the amounts that were lent and to pay eight percent annual interest. But over the years, many wealthier Poles left Manchuria, and Gospoda Polska not only remained in debt but faced ongoing financial difficulties in maintaining its activities. Some lenders, either because of personal patriotism or because of lack of concern, did not make requests for payments. A subsidy from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the early 1930s finally made it possible for Gospoda Polska to pay off old debts.

The Association was intended to be a secular cultural and educational center for Poles in Manchuria. Education of the younger generation was of paramount importance. In the first decade of existence of the Polish community in Manchuria, well-off families sent sons to private schools in Poland (which then was part of the Russian Empire) and daughters to Catholic schools in Chefoo (Yantai), Tientsin (Tianjin), or Shanghai. Children in less prosperous families learned Polish in their own homes, sometimes with the aid of alphabet books from Warsaw, Krakow, or Polish prayer books. In 1908, Gospoda Polska established at Harbin a Polish-language co-educational primary school, with 35 children enrolled. Hosted in the building of Gospoda Polska, the school was the first such institution for Poles in all of Asia. The teachers at the school also provided evening courses in Polish for older Polish students attending Russian schools, and for numerous Polish soldiers who served in the Trans-Amur Area Border Corps (formerly the Chinese Eastern Railway Guard) and the 2nd and 4th Railway Brigades. The first female teachers at the school were Rozalia Michalowska (she and her husband Leon Michalowski were among the founders of Gospoda Polska) and later, Jozefa Brudzewska.

In 1912, Brudzewska and Fr. Wladyslaw Ostrowski established at the St. Stanislaus Bishop the Martyr Church vicarage, a Polish-language coeducational elementary school, known as Szkola Polska Powszechna im. sw. Wincentego a Paulo w Charbinie^[1](St. Vincent de Paul Polish Common School in Harbin). In 1915, largely through Ostrowski’s efforts, a coeducational Polish-language high school with eight grades/forms was created. In 1916, this high school was named in honor of famed Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz. The high school’s name was Prywatne Gimnazjum im. H. Sienkiewicza w Charbinie (H. Sienkiewicz Private Gymnasium  [or H. Sienkiewicz High School] in Harbin). After the creation of the high school, the St. Vincent de Paul school operated until 1949 as a primary school with four grades/forms. The high school was closed by Manchukuo authorities at the end of 1943 but was  reopened in August 1945 and continued until May 1949. Gospoda Polska never had authority over the high school or the St. Vincent de Paul school, but provided assistance to both schools in times of need. In 1947, when Communist Chinese military forces took control of the building used by the high school and the St. Vincent de Paul school, both schools moved into the Gospoda Polska building.

In 1919, the Gospoda Polska elementary school was given a new name, in honor of Dr. Waclaw Lazowski, a tireless proponent of Polish nationalism, and longtime president of Gospoda Polska’s board, who had died in 1918. The new name was Szkola Imienia “Dr. W. Lazowskiego” w Harbinie (Dr. W. Lazowski School in Harbin). Although Gospoda Polska was itself secular, this school did offer classes in religion, with due regard for the influence of the Catholic Church in the Polish community. Gospoda Polska established a special School Fund, from which the teachers’ salaries and the school maintenance costs were paid. The money in the School Fund came primarily from Gospoda Polska membership fees and various fund-raising social events. After Poland regained independence in 1918, some sparse grants from Poland’s Ministry of Education or Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided additional money for the school. The Association provided apartments (which it owned) to the Lazowski School teachers at no charge and  also helped any of those teachers who were in dire straits. With a goal of allowing  education in the school for all Polish children, including those from the poorest families and distant places in Manchuria, a scholarship commission granted financial help to the most needy. The small shop in the Association’s building delivered the students’ school supplies (books, copybooks, etc.). During World War II, despite widespread economic hardship in Harbin, tea was distributed to the Lazowski School pupils at no charge, and the Polish Relief Committee obtained additional rations of bread for them. When Manchukuo authorities forced the high school to close in 1943, Gospoda Polska reorganized the Lazowski School curriculum by adding Japanese language instruction and a fourth grade/form. The Japanese language instruction ceased in 1945, after Japan’s defeat. The fourth grade remained until 1947. Both Gospoda Polska and  the Lazowski School closed down in 1947.

The Association was interested in all aspects of education in the Polish community. At times, it arranged for instruction for illiterates and for evening Polish-language classes. To help Polish youth obtain office jobs in China, the Polish consular office, together with the Association and Harbin’s Polish Chamber of Commerce, established a Practical Business School (Praktyczne Kursy Handlowe) with a two-year English-language curriculum. The Director of this school was Edward H. Spence, an Englishman. The classes began at 6 p.m. in the Gospoda Polska building. Scholarships were available for those who were unable to pay the tuition. There was an extra charge for those who wanted to take the typewriting class. In 1932, there were 34 students enrolled at this school. The Association paid the travel costs for the high school graduates who wanted to study in Poland and also provided some financial assistance for the costs of education of graduates of the high school who continued their academic studies in Poland or at Harbin. At the beginning of the 1930s, 45 graduates were studying in Poland with some financial assistance from Gospoda Polska.

^[1] old spelling of the name “Harbin”.

Theater and entertainment activity