Osadnik

Osadniks (Polish: osadnik/osadnicy, "settler/settlers, colonist/colonists") were veterans of the Polish Army and civilians who were given or sold state land in the Kresy (current Western Belarus and Western Ukraine) territory ceded to Poland by Polish-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 (and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939 and ceded to it after World War II).

Shortly before the Battle of Warsaw on August 7, 1920, Polish Prime Minister Wincenty Witos announced that after the war, volunteers and soldiers who served on the front would have priority in purchase of state-owned land, while the soldiers to receive medals for bravery would receive land free of charge.

In reality, however, there were more applicants than free land and even the recipients of the Virtuti Militari medal had to pay for their plots.

[4] Permanent economical difficulties of the newly-re-established state and strong opposition to the idea of creation of soldier settlements along the eastern border of Poland caused the action to be halted in 1923.

Because of the Great Depression, the prices of basic food products dropped, and all settler farms were losing money, with the average debt reaching 458 złoty per every hectare of land (that is between 800 and 1700 modern euros, depending on the conversion method).

[citation needed] After the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, Belarusian communists murdered a number of osadniks such as in Trzeciaki, Budowla and Lerypol of the Grodno County (1919–1939).

[9] That led approximately 10% of the settlers to abandon their homes and to escape through the so-called Border of Peace to German-held General Government.

Since late 1939, osadniks were being deported en masse to Northern European Russia, Ural and Siberia, according to the Sovnarkom's Decree about special settlement and labor engagement of "osadniks" deported from Western areas of USSR and BSSR of December 29, 1939.

[citation needed] The original settlers formed a much smaller group than those who were labelled as osadniks by the Soviet authorities.