Kresy - Etymology

Etymology

Polish word kresy (borderlands) is the plural form of the word kres, which can be translated as end, term, limit. According to Zbigniew Gołąb, it is "a medieval borrowing from German word Kreis", which in the Middle Ages meant Kreislinie, Umkreis, Landeskreis, Bezirk (borderline, circuit, district). Samuel Linde in his Dictionary of the Polish Language gives a different etymology of the term. According to him, kresy originally meant borderline between Poland and Crimean Khanate, in the area of the lower Dnieper. The word kresy was probably used for the first time in literature by Wincenty Pol in his poems "Mohort" (1854) and "Pieśń o ziemi naszej". Pol claimed that it was the line from the Dniester to the Dnieper River, the Tatar borderland. At the beginning of the 20th century, the meaning of the term expanded to include the lands of the former eastern provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to the east of Lwów - Wilno line. In the Second Polish Republic, the borderlands were equated with the land to the east of Curzon line. Currently, the term describes all eastern lands of the Second Polish Republic that do not belong to Poland any longer, plus lands further east, which had belonged to the Commonwealth before 1772, and in which existed Polish communities.