“Turkanized” Poles in Lithuania: from K. J. Sidorkiewicz’s book “My Vilnius Region and My Kresy”

I fell in love with this city, its picturesque location, its wonderful architecture, in its numerous traces of the Polish culture, as well as Russian, Jewish, Tartar, and Karaim. The multiculturalism of the Vilnius culture was visible with the naked eye, tangible. During my first visits in Lithuania, I wrote articles mainly for magazines from Bydgoszcz. After a dozen years, I established a permanent contact with the editors of “Kurier Wileński.” I started to delve more and more deeply into the topic of everyday life of Polish minority in Lithuania, into its significant cultural and political problems. Over time, the confrontation with the Lithuanian nationalists intensified.  I knew that one has to help compatriots in their need as much as possible. Compatriots with whom I felt connected to by means of the family ties. The book constitutes a collection of my articles on topics related to Kresy, predominantly to the Vilnius region, published between 1993-2014. The greater majority of the articles published in “Kurier Wileński” constitute short editorial commentaries. Perhaps, some of the readers will feel a bit tired of the repetition of the topic and overload of political and historical accents. Perhaps, there will be also accusations that I am partial when describing the Polish-Lithuanian relations, that I evince too little empathy towards Lithuanians. I do not want, however, to conduct an exegesis of my own texts, to further explain why I wrote in such a way, and not in another, as it would look too pretentious. The texts should defend themselves. The readers will tell the best if they do defend themselves.