Polish Brazilians

Polish Brazilians (Portuguese: polono-brasileiros) refers to Brazilians of full or partial Polish ancestry who are aware of such ancestry and remain connected, to some degree, to Polish culture, or Polish-born people permanently residing in Brazil. Also, a Polish Brazilian may have one Polish parent.

Polish Brazilians
polono-brasileiro  · Polacy Brazylii/Polonia brazylijska
Total population
1,800,000[1]  [2]
Regions with significant populations
Brazil: Mainly Southern and Southeastern Brazil
Languages
Portuguese · Polish · Yiddish
Religion
Roman Catholicism (ethnic Poles) · Judaism (Polish Jews)
Related ethnic groups
White Brazilians, White Latin Americans

Polish immigrants began arriving in Brazil in the late 19th century, but their numbers were small until 1920.

Immigration
Polish house in Paraná

The first Polish immigrants arrived in the port of Itajaí, Santa Catarina, in August 1869. They were 78 Poles from the area of Southern Silesia. Commandant Redlisch, of the ship Victoria, brought people from Eastern Europe to settle in Brusque.

Brusque, in the State of Santa Catarina, received many Polish immigrants.

They were in total 16 families, among them: Francisco Pollak, Nicolau Wós, Boaventura Pollak, Thomasz Szymanski, Simon Purkot, Felipe Purkot, Miguel Prudlo, Chaim Briffel, Simon Otto, Domin Stempke, Gaspar Gbur, Balcer Gbur, Walentin Weber, Antoni Kania, Franciszek Kania, André Pampuch and Stefan Kachel. The Poles were placed in the colonies Príncipe Dom Pedro and Itajaí, in the area of Brusque.[3]

Fewer Poles immigrated to Brazil than Portuguese or Italians, but many Poles have settled in Brazil. From 1872 to 1959, 110,243 "Russian" citizens entered Brazil. In fact, the vast majority of them were Poles, since Poland was under Russian rule, and ethnic Poles immigrated with Russian passports.[4]

The State of Paraná received the majority of Polish immigrants, who settled mainly in the region of Curitiba, in the towns of Mallet, Cruz Machado, São Matheus do Sul, Irati, and União da Vitória.

Immigrants living in Curitiba and outskirts (1878)[5]
OriginPopulation
Poles6,000
Italians2,500
Curitiba population (1872)12,651

Most Polish immigrants to Southern Brazil were Catholics who arrived between 1870–1920 and worked as small farmers in the State of Paraná. Others went to the neighboring states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina and São Paulo, which is a state as well as a city. After the 1920s, many Polish Jews immigrated seeking refuge from Europe, settling mainly in the State of São Paulo. Today most Brazilian Jews are of Polish descent.

Religion

In a 1991 poll with Polish immigrants residents in Southeastern Brazil, 48.5% reported to be Jewish, 36.4% Catholic, 10.7% adherents of other religions and 4.5% non-religious.[4]

Polish culture in Brazil

The State of Paraná still retains a strong influence from the Polish culture. Many small towns have a majority of Polish-descendants and the Polish language is spoken by some of them, although nowadays most Polish Brazilians only speak Portuguese. The city of Curitiba has the second largest Polish diaspora in the world (after Chicago) and Polish music, dishes and culture are quite common in the region. Curitiba was largely influenced by a mayor Jaime Lerner.

Polish communities
Polish old architecture in Curitiba
A Polish old-style house in Paraná

After the proclamation of the Republic, the Brazilian government practically opened the doors of the country to immigration. In the first years of the Republic, the greatest immigration to Brazil occurred. The Polish appeared in the statistics in significant numbers. This period was known in Poland as "Brazilian fever". Important Polish communities appeared in several Brazilian states:

  • Paraná: Eufrosina, São Mateus, Santa Bárbara, Prudentópolis, Ivaí, Apucarana, Cândido de Abreu, Castro, Piraí do Sul, Palmeira, Cruz Machado, Guarapuava, Irati, Curitiba and others.
  • Santa Catarina: Lucena (current Itaiópolis), Rio Vermelho, Massaranduba, Grã-Pará, Nova Galícia, Brusque and others.
  • Rio Grande do Sul: Alfredo Chaves (now Veranópolis), Antônio Prado, Bento Gonçalves, Dom Feliciano, Mariana Pimentel, Ijuí, Guaraní das Missões, Áurea, Gaurama, Alpestre, Jaguari, Erechim, and others.
  • São Paulo: São Bernardo, Pariquera-açu, Rio Claro, City of São Paulo, and others.
  • Espírito Santo: Águia Branca, Santa Leopoldina, and others.

Notable Polish Brazilians

The image of Polish Brasilians in Polish culture

Polish writer Maria Konopnicka published in 1910 a poem Mister Balcer in Brazil (Pan Balcer w Brazylii). Balcer fails to accommodate and returns to Poland. Mieczysław Lepecki had visited several South American countries, including Brazil, preparing mass emigration from Poland, and published several books about South America. Kazimierz Warchałowski returned to Poland and published there books about Brazil.

gollark: Exhaustive search is impractical. There are probably better ways.
gollark: See, this (and me not knowing the rules) is why I just ignored it for now.
gollark: If I figure out the moderator rules and get this simulator working (and hook it up to a genetic algorithm library) I hope it will be possible to design reactors which are stupider than any before.
gollark: Mine is 9x9x9, runs LEN-236 oxide at 34kRF/t or so, and is entirely passively cooled at the cost of several thousand glowstone.
gollark: Won't do 600H/t though.

See also

References
  1. "Polish Brazilians remember their culture: But many are forgetting their grandparents' language". The Economist. 25 November 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  2. "Polonia w liczbach: Polska Diaspora na świecie (dane szacunkowe 2007)" [Polish numbers: Polish Diaspora in the world (estimated 2007)] (in Polish). Wspólnota Polska. Archived from the original on 26 March 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  3. Brazil Archived 2009-07-13 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Uma história oculta: a imigração dos países da Europa do Centro-Leste para o Brasil "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-02-25. Retrieved 2009-02-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. http://www.revistas.usp.br/ceru/article/viewFile/56989/59985
  6. "Kauan Von Novack". Speakers Academy® (in Dutch). Retrieved 2019-12-16.
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