Editing Curzon Line (section)

== Early history ==

[[File:Polska-ww1-nation.png|thumb|250px|Polish pre-[[WWI]] ethnographic boundaries and territorial claims]]

At the end of World War I, the [[Second Polish Republic]] reclaimed its sovereignty following the disintegration of the occupying forces of three neighbouring empires. Imperial Russia was amid the [[Russian Civil War]] after the [[October Revolution]], [[Austria-Hungary]] split and went into decline, and the [[German Reich]] bowed to pressure from the victorious forces of the [[Allies of World War I]]. The Allied victors agreed that an independent Polish state should be recreated from territories previously part of the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian and the German empires, after 123 years of [[Partitions of Poland|upheavals and military partitions]] by them.<ref name=hp1>{{cite book |title=Historia Polski 1914-1939 |trans-title=History of Poland 1918-1939 |year=1984 |publisher=[[Polish Scientific Publishers PWN]] |location=Warsaw |isbn=83-01-03866-7 |author=Henryk Zieliński |language=pl |pages=84–88 |chapter=The collapse of foreign authority in the Polish territories |chapter-url=https://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/Historia_Polski_%28Henryk_Zieli%C5%84ski%29|author-link=Henryk Zieliński }}</ref>

The [[Supreme War Council]] tasked the [[Commission on Polish Affairs]] with recommending Poland's eastern border, based on spoken language majority, which became later known as the Curzon Line.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Curzon Line {{!}} Definition, Facts, & Border {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Curzon-Line |access-date=2022-10-09 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Their result was created December 8, 1919. The Allies forwarded it as an armistice line several times during the subsequent [[Polish–Soviet War|Polish-Soviet Wars]],<ref name=":0" /> most notably in a note from the British government to the Soviets signed by [[George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|Lord Curzon of Kedleston]], the British [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]]. Both parties disregarded the line when the military situation lay in their favour, and it did not play a role in establishing the Polish–Soviet border in 1921. Instead, the final [[Peace of Riga]] (or Treaty of Riga) provided Poland with almost {{convert|135000|sqkm|sqmi}} of land that was, on average, about {{convert|250|km|mi}} east of the Curzon Line.

===Characteristics===
The Northern half of the Curzon Line lay approximately along the border which was established between the  [[Prussian Kingdom|Kingdom of Prussia]] and the Russian Empire in 1797, after the [[Third Partition of Poland]], which was the last border recognised by the United Kingdom. Along most of its length, the line at least in principle was intended to follow a generally ethnic or ethnolinguistic boundary - areas West of the line generally contained an overall Polish majority while areas to its East less so- borderland areas were inhabited by [[Ukrainians]], [[Belarusians]], [[Polish people|Poles]], [[Jews]] and [[Lithuanians]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Zara S. Steiner|title=The Lights that Failed: European International History, 1919–1933|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rJ9JJIVmFpkC&q=curzon+line+ethnographic&pg=PA149|isbn=978-0-19-822114-2}}</ref><ref name=anna2>{{cite book|author1=Anna M. Cienciala|author2=Wojciech Materski|title=Katyn: a crime without punishment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SyimWfkx0-MC&pg=PA9|access-date=3 February 2011|year=2007|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-10851-4|pages=9–11|quote=It also happened to coincide with the eastern limits of pedominantly ethnic Polish territory.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Aviel Roshwald|title=Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, 1914–1923|year=2001|publisher=Routledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ef0wXYsJATwC&q=curzon+line+ethnographic&pg=PA162|isbn=978-0-415-17893-8|author-link=Aviel Roshwald}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Joseph Marcus|title=Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919–1939|year=1983|publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=82ncGA4GuN4C&q=curzon+line+ethnographic&pg=PA15|isbn=978-90-279-3239-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sandra Halperin|title=In the Mirror of the Third World: Capitalist Development in Modern Europe|year=1997|publisher=Cornell University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/inmirrorofthirdw00halp|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/inmirrorofthirdw00halp/page/41 41]|quote=curzon line ethnographic.|isbn=978-0-8014-8290-8}}</ref> Its 1920 northern extension into [[Lithuania]] divided the area disputed between Poland and Lithuania. There were two versions of the southern portion of the line: "A" and "B". Version "B" allocated [[Lviv|Lwów]] (''Lviv'') to Poland.