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Nasza Przeszłość

Vol. 65 (1986): Our Past

Articles

Emigration from the Tarnów diocese in the light of consistory surveys from 1907 and 1910

  • Stanisław Piech
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52204/np.1986.65.145-197  [Google Scholar]
Published: 1986-06-30

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the slow economic development of Galicia, which did not keep up with the population growth, combined with the very effective promotion of emigration, resulted in mass economic migrations. According to the Consistory survey data, in 1907 approximately 44,700 people emigrated from the Tarnów diocese (almost 6% of the total Catholic population). This number, however, would seem too low, as the survey contained many incorrect answers and it is no exaggeration to say that the number of emigrants was approximately 70,000 people, or almost 10% of the population. The entire diocese was gripped by emigration fever, and in some deaneries this phenomenon was even cataclysmic (e.g. a loss of 14% of Catholics in the Mielec deanery, 11% in the Dąbrowa deanery). Of the 195 parishes of the diocese, 32 lost more than 10% of their population, and 17 lost more than 15%. It was the largest emigration from Galicia in history. Large numbers of people went to the USA. Emigration to Canada and Brazil was no longer so great. Seasonal emigration, in large numbers, benefited primarily from German-speaking countries (Prussia, Saxony) and Denmark. Much fewer workers went to Hungary, Cieszyn Silesia, Switzerland and France. Mass emigration, in addition to undoubtedly significant material benefits for individuals, brought with it religious dissatisfaction and moral corruption, especially affecting emigrant youth. In order to prevent such a negative impact of emigration on the emigrants themselves and, through them, on parish communities, emigrants and those returning from abroad were given special pastoral care. The clergy of the Tarnów diocese, apart from celebrating special masses for emigrants, maintaining correspondence with them and serving parishioners abroad (practices common to other dioceses), have developed several forms of pastoral care unheard of elsewhere. Such unique forms of pastoral care, not found elsewhere in Galicia, included: the pastoral letter "Archangel Raphael", retreats closed to emigrants and the Diocesan Council for the Protection of Emigrants.

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