"Curzon Line The history of the Curzon Line, with minor variations, goes back to the period following World War I. It was drawn for the first time by the Supreme War Council as the demarcation line between the newly emerging states, the Second Polish Republic, and the Soviet Union. The proposal was put forward by British Foreign Secretary George Curzon, to serve as a diplomatic basis for the future border agreement, and in that form, it never materialized because the war went on. The line became a major geopolitical factor during World War II, when Joseph Stalin invaded eastern Poland"
"line and, in Galicia, an armistice near the current line of battle. On 11 July 1920 Curzon signed a telegram sent to the Bolshevik government proposing that a ceasefire be established along the line, and his name was subsequently associated with it. Curzon's July 1920 proposal differed from the 19 December announcement in two significant ways. The December note did not address the issue of Galicia, since it had been a part of the Austrian Empire rather than the Russian, nor did it address the Polish-Lithuanian dispute over the Vilnius Region, since those borders were demarcated at the time by"
"but also extended further south and portioned Galicia along the rough ethnic border between Poles and Ukrainians. Though accepted by the Bolshevik government, the line was ignored by Poland, and after the Polish-Soviet War's conclusion, on the Treaty of Riga, Bolshevik Russia recognised a new border almost 250 km east of the Curzon Line. The border was recognised by the League of Nations in 1923, and confirmed by numerous Polish-Soviet treaties and delimited in due course. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 provided for the partition of the Second Polish Republic between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Following the corresponding"
"February Churchill publicly announced his government's support for a Curzon Line Polish-Soviet border anyway. In June 1944, Mikołajczyk officially traveled to the United States, where President Roosevelt suggested that he visits the Soviet Union to conduct political discussions. Roosevelt also asked Stalin to invite the Polish prime minister for talks on a resumption of bilateral relations. On 30 July Mikołajczyk arrived in Moscow accompanied by Foreign Minister Tadeusz Romer and Stanisław Grabski, chairman of the National Council. The PKWN had already been established and Stalin proposed negotiations between the two Polish representations aimed at their unification. The talks with Bierut,"
"countries of the United Nations Charter and as such it was allowed an additional vote at the UN, on top of the Soviet Union's vote. Vigorous postwar reconstruction promptly followed the end of the war and the Byelorussian SSR became a major center of manufacturing in the western USSR, creating jobs and attracting ethnic Russians. The borders of the Byelorussian SSR and Poland were redrawn, in accord with the 1919-proposed Curzon Line. Joseph Stalin implemented a policy of Sovietization to isolate the Byelorussian SSR from Western influences. This policy involved sending Russians from various parts of the Soviet Union and"
"Allied representatives were largely unsympathetic. Grabski signed an agreement containing several terms: that Polish forces withdraw to the Curzon Line, which the Allies had published in December 1919, delineating Poland's ethnographic frontier; that it participate in a subsequent peace conference; and that the questions of sovereignty over Vilnius, Eastern Galicia, Cieszyn Silesia, and Danzig be remanded to the Allies. Ambiguous promises of Allied support were made in exchange. On 11 July 1920, the government of Great Britain sent a telegram to the Soviets, signed by Curzon, which has been described as a ""de facto"" ultimatum. It requested that the Soviets"
"the 19th century frosty British–Russian relations prompted more of an interest in an independent Poland from Britain. Amongst the British populace too sympathy for Poland and the other oppressed peoples of Europe was popular. During the Polish–Soviet war the support of the British government was truly with Poland, but peace was by far the preferred option resulting in Lord Curzon's drawing of the Curzon Line as part of an attempted mediated peace. This agreement was not adopted in time and Poland soon took the upper hand in the war pushing its border further to the east. During the 1920s and"
"the Polish-Soviet border to be drawn according to the so-called ""Curzon Line"". Consequently, the agreement was ratified on 5 February 1946. In February 1946, Lviv became a part of the Soviet Union. It is estimated that from 100,000 to 140,000 Poles were resettled from the city into the so-called Recovered Territories as a part of postwar population transfers, many of them to the area of newly acquired Wrocław, formerly the German city of Breslau. Little remains of Polish culture in Lviv. But Polish history and heritage is still visible. Many buildings in the old part of the city are great"
"It was sent to Soviet diplomatic representatives for acceptance. The earlier compromised version of Curzon line which was debated at the Spa Conference of 1920 was renamed Curzon Line ""B"". After 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état, Anti-Polish government came to power. Lithuanization of Poles and spread of Anti-Polish propaganda was usual. In March 1938, border clash on Polish-Lithuanian border in which Polish Border Protection Corps officer was killed. After this, Marshall Edward Śmigły-Rydz send ultimatum to Lithuanian government which demanded immediate diplomatic relations between both countries. In the politics of inter-war Germany, anti-Polish feelings ran high. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg"
"the Polish and the Galician Ukrainians (Ruthenians). During the First World War, the Russian Civil, the Polish-Soviet and Polish-Ukrainian wars, the territory passed hands several times, and each of the controlling powers tried to create its own administration on the region. During the conflict, the Supreme War Council, tried several times to intervene and create an agreeable border between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, the most notable outcome, was the border presented by the British Foreign Secretary George Curzon, after whom the proposed line was named. The line mostly followed the 19th century border between the Vistula Land,"
"Poland. Her western borders cut her off from the coal-basin and industrial regions of Silesia, leading to the Silesian Uprisings of 1919-1921. The eastern Curzon line left millions of Poles, living east of the Bug River, stranded inside Russia's borders. Poland was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. Most if not all of the newly independent neighbours began fighting over borders: Romania fought with Hungary over Transylvania, Yugoslavia with Italy over Rijeka, Poland with Czechoslovakia over Cieszyn Silesia, with Germany over Poznań and with Ukrainians over Eastern Galicia (Galician War). Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians fought against"
"invasions, a new border was drawn up, though based on the Curzon Line, deviated west of it in several regions. Most notably, was the Belastok Voblast, that was added to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, although most of the region was populated by Poles. After Germany's invasion of the USSR, the territory in question was also re-partitioned by the Nazis. Ukraine and Belarus were administered by the occupation Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine Reichskommissariats. Galician territory east of the 1939 border and the Belastok Voblast plus adjacent territory to the east of this were transformed respectively into the Distrikt Galizien and"
"Polish–Soviet border agreement of August 1945 The Border Agreement between Poland and the USSR of 16 August 1945 established the borders between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Republic of Poland. It was signed by the Provisional Government of National Unity (Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej) formed by the Polish communists. According to the treaty, Poland officially accepted the ceding its pre-war Eastern territory to the USSR (Kresy) which was decided earlier in Yalta already. Some of the territory along the Curzon line, established by Stalin during the course of the war, was returned to Poland. The treaty"
"Jewish populations, were greatly reduced. As a result of Joseph Stalin's policy of expansion to the west, it was decided during the Yalta Conference that the Polish eastern border shall be set along the so-called ""original"" Curzon Line. Based on this decision, the left-bank part of Grodno town would be kept within the borders of Poland. It is actually not clear till today, how the original Curzon Line near Grodno has been moved by around 20 km to the west. When the so-called ""mistake"" (today regarded rather as deliberate sabotage within British ministry structures) became obvious to negotiators, Stalin refused"
"quarreling factions. At the Moscow Conference of foreign ministers of the three Allied great powers (October 1943), at the request of the Polish government borders were not discussed, but US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had already expressed his support for Britain's approval of the Curzon Line as the future Polish-Soviet boundary. The powers represented divided Europe into spheres of influence and Poland was placed within the Soviet sphere. The Poles were also disappointed by a lack of progress regarding the resumption of Polish-Soviet diplomatic ties, an urgent issue, because the Soviet armies were moving toward Poland's 1939 frontiers. In November–December"
"It was so successful that it was reproduced in stone, and still stands. In 1918, during World War I, as Britain occupied Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Curzon tried to convince the Indian government to reconsider his scheme for Persia (modern Iran) to be a buffer against Russian advances. British and Indian troops were in Persia protecting the oilfields at Abadan and watching the Afghan frontier – Curzon believed that British economic and military aid, sent via India, could prop up the Persian government and make her a British client state. However, the agreement of August 1919 was never ratified and the"
"Stalin Line The Stalin Line was a line of fortifications along the western border of the Soviet Union. Work began on the system in the 1920s to protect the USSR against attacks from the West. The line was made up of concrete bunkers and gun emplacements, somewhat similar to, but less elaborate than the Maginot Line. It was not a continuous line of defense along the entire border, but rather a network of fortified districts, meant to channel potential invaders along certain corridors. In the aftermath of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, with the westward expansion of the USSR in 1939 and"
"Stalin Line The Stalin Line was a line of fortifications along the western border of the Soviet Union. Work began on the system in the 1920s to protect the USSR against attacks from the West. The line was made up of concrete bunkers and gun emplacements, somewhat similar to, but less elaborate than the Maginot Line. It was not a continuous line of defense along the entire border, but rather a network of fortified districts, meant to channel potential invaders along certain corridors. In the aftermath of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, with the westward expansion of the USSR in 1939 and"
"such major cities as Lviv, Vilnius, and Grodno no longer in Poland. In the Second Polish Republic the term ""Kresy"" roughly equated with the lands beyond the so-called Curzon Line, which was suggested after World War I in December 1919 by the British Foreign Office as the eastern border of the re-emerging sovereign Republic following the century of partitions. In September 1939, after the Soviet Union joined Nazi Germany in their attack on Poland in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the territories were incorporated into Soviet Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania in the atmosphere of terror. The Soviet gains in the"
"However, increasing foreign resistance brought this plan to a virtual halt. Later on, Jews were transferred to ghettoes and eventually to death camps. Use of forced labor in Nazi Germany during World War II occurred on a large scale. The Germans abducted about 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two-thirds of whom came from Eastern Europe. After World War II, when the Curzon line proposed in 1919 by the Western Allies as Poland's eastern border war implemented, members of all ethnic groups were transferred to their respective new territories (Poles to Poland, Ukrainians to Soviet Ukraine). The"
"Prussia, Russia, and Austria. During the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, the Commission on Polish Affairs was created which recommended there be a passageway across West Prussia and Posen, in order to give Poland access to the Baltic through the port of Danzig at the mouth of the Vistula River. The creation of the state of Poland would cut off 1.5 million Germans in East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Poland also received Upper Silesia. British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon proposed Poland’s eastern border with Russia. Neither the Soviet Russians nor the Polish were happy with the demarcation of the"
"adjusted by agreement on 28 September 1939, the Soviet Union, annexed all Polish territory east of the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Bug and San, except for the area around Wilno (Vilnius), which was given to Lithuania, and the Suwałki region, which was annexed by Germany. These territories were largely inhabited by Ukrainians and Belarusians, with minorities of Poles and Jews (see exact numbers in Curzon line). The total area, including the area given to Lithuania, was 201,000 square kilometres, with a population of 13.5 million. A small strip of land that was part of Hungary before 1914, was"
"Zakerzonia Zakerzonia (, Trans-Curzonia; ) is an informal name for the territories of Poland to the west of the Curzon Line which used to have sizeable Ukrainian populations, including significant Lemko, Boyko and Carpatho-Ruthenian populations, before the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1939, and were claimed as ethnically Ukrainian territories by Ukrainian nationalists in the aftermath of World War II. ""Zakerzonia"" stands for ""territory beyond the Curzon line"", or in Ukrainian ""Zakerzons'kyi krai"". About 700,000 Ukrainians or Ukrainian language speakers lived in Poland after World War II within the new borders. They were a"
"estimate, in 1939 the population in the territories east of the Curzon Line gained via the Treaty of Riga totalled 12 million, consisting of over 5 million Ukrainians, between 3.5 and 4 million Poles, 1.5 million Belarusians, and 1.3 million Jews. During World War II, politicians gave varying estimates of the Polish population east of the Curzon line that would be affected by population transfers. Winston Churchill mentioned ""3 to 4 million Poles east of the Curzon Line"". Stanisław Mikołajczyk, then Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, counted this population as 5 million. Ukrainians and Belarusians composed the majority of"
"giving Germany more territory. By this arrangement, often described as a fourth partition of Poland, the Soviet Union secured almost all Polish territory east of the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Western Bug and San. This amounted to about 200,000 km² of land, inhabited by 13.5 million Polish citizens. The border created in this agreement roughly corresponded to the Curzon Line drawn by the British in 1919, a point that would successfully be used by Stalin during negotiations with the Allies at the Teheran and Yalta Conferences. The Red Army had originally sown confusion among the locals by claiming"
"which was formed in 1919 as the first communist state created after the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR). It was designated a people's democratic republic by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. Geographically, it bordered Romania and the Soviet Union (via the Ukrainian SSR) to the east; Yugoslavia to the southwest; Czechoslovakia to the north and Austria to the west. Following the occupation of Hungary by the Red Army, Soviet military occupation ensued. After seizing most material assets from German hands, the Soviets tried, and to a certain extent managed, to control Hungarian political affairs. Using coercion through"
"by Ukrainian extremists. The Soviet Union, thwarted in 1921, would see its sphere of influence expand as a result of World War II. After establishing its control over the People's Republic of Poland, the Polish-Soviet border was moved westwards in 1945 to roughly coincide with the Curzon Line. This shift was accompanied by large population transfers which led to the expulsion of the Poles living east of the new border, and also moved most of the Ukrainian minority remaining in Poland to the former German territories that were ceded to Poland in compensation. The unified Belarusian and Ukrainian territories were"
"to the Caspian. The question was still treated as a controversy in geographical literature of the 1860s, with Douglas Freshfield advocating the Caucasus crest boundary as the best possible, citing support from various modern geographers. In Russia and the Soviet Union, the boundary along the Kuma–Manych Depression was the most commonly used as early as 1906. In 1958, the Soviet Geographical Society formally recommended that the boundary between the Europe and Asia be drawn in textbooks from Baydaratskaya Bay, on the Kara Sea, along the eastern foot of Ural Mountains, then following the Ural River until the Mugodzhar Hills, and"
"September 1939, sixteen days after the start of World War II and with the victorious Germans having advanced deep into Polish territory, the Red Army invaded eastern Poland, stating as justification the ""need to protect Ukrainians and Belarusians"" there, after the ""cessation of existence"" of the Polish state. As a result, the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet republics' western borders were moved westward, and the new Soviet western border was drawn close to the original Curzon line. In the meantime negotiations with Finland over a Soviet-proposed land swap that would redraw the Soviet-Finnish border further away from Leningrad failed, and in"
"The German campaign of discrimination contributed to the Silesian Uprisings, where Polish workers were openly threatened with losing their jobs and pensions if they voted for Poland in the Upper Silesia plebiscite. At the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919, British historian and politician Lewis Bernstein Namier, who served as part of the British delegation, was seen as one of the biggest enemies of the newly independent Polish state in the British political environment and in the Polish territories. He falsified the earlier proposed Curzon line by detaching the city of Lwów from Poland with a version called Curzon Line ""A""."
"provisions to the treaty, but failed to notify the Polish government. ""m.""The lands expected to be taken from Germany were also considered a restored Polish territory by the Polish Underground State leaders. ""n.""The Polish communists attempted to obtain modifications of the Curzon Line that would result in Poland retaining Vilnius, Lviv and the oil fields of Eastern Galicia. Similar territorial conditions were postulated by the Polish government in London in August 1944, after Prime Minister Mikołajczyk's visit to Moscow. Joseph Stalin decided to satisfy the Lithuanian demands for Vilnius, Ukrainian for Lviv, and to annex for the Soviet Union Eastern"
"""demographic majority in many areas along a long border strip running from Chełm almost to Kraków"". The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), at the height of their control of the territories, claimed plans of creation of ""Transcurzon Republic"". The demography of Zakerzonia drastically changed by forcible resettlement of the Ukrainians, with major undertakings being the expulsion of Ukrainians from Poland to the Soviet Union (1944-1946) and Operation Vistula (1947). Zakerzonia Zakerzonia (, Trans-Curzonia; ) is an informal name for the territories of Poland to the west of the Curzon Line which used to have sizeable Ukrainian populations, including significant Lemko, Boyko"
"to their barracks along the Maginot Line. On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland, as agreed in advance with Germany following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Britain and France did not take any action in response to the Soviet invasion. France and Britain did not launch a full land attack on Germany. Poland was overcome on 6 October. In November 1943, the Big Three (USSR, US, and the UK) met at the Tehran Conference. President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill officially agreed that the eastern borders of Poland would roughly follow the Curzon Line. The Polish government-in-exile was"