Kosznajderia: The German Historical Enclave in Pomerania in Light of the Analysis of the Polish Press During the Partitions Time and in the Second Polish Republic

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the definition of Kosznajderia (the now non-existent German eclave in Poland) by using the method ofsemantic field analysis. The subject of the research involved the Polish local and regional press as well as literary writing from 1873 to 1939. The analysis of the gathered sources revealed that there were no significant differences in the press release about the land and the Kosznajderia community that lived there at that time. Moreover, it is impossible to draw a line between the times when Kosznajderia was still in a privileged position as a part of the German nation and the times that we used to call the Second Republic of Poland. During that time, all national minorities were treated in clear opposition to the subjectivity of the Polish state, not to mention the German minority. This is why the definition of Kosznajderia covers all the features extracted from the analysis of the semantic field, including the partition times and the interwar period. As a result, it is one consistent definition. However, I do not consider it as a final one, but, rather, as a reference point for further research conducted by sociologists, ethnographers, historians, and press studies scholars. During my analysis, I take into consideration texts that were written by German authors who publish their work in scientific journals, although I omitted the German press that was not a subject of my analysis.