What's peculiar about the village of Nurzec? I fishy 99% of Poles have never heard of it. It is located in Podlasie in the municipality of Boćki close Siemiatycz, just off the border with Belarus. What could be special?
We look at Wikipedia – from which we learn, among others, that "In the first half of the 18th century Nurzec became the property of the Countess Ronikier household of the coat of arms of Gryf. In the second half of the 18th century, the bubonician Michał Aleksander Ronikier built a larchy palace with 60 rooms and orangery. close he had a cross channel, an alley, a gazebo, a bridge, a walkway. The Ronikiers owned Nurca throughout the 19th century, until the death of Maria Ronikier around 1906, after which she inherited Nurc her daughter Florentina Narbutt, born in Nurc, whose husband was Tadeusz Narbutt.(...) During the 1920 war the palace was burned, but in 1921 the owner returned to Nurca... After entering Nurca in 1939, russian troops cut out orchards and part of ornamental trees.
During the Nazi occupation, in August 1942 the Germans created a ghetto for judaic residents. About 200 people were present. In November 1942, the Germans yet liquidated the ghetto. Jews were taken to the ghetto in Claw.
In 1944, the property of the Ronikers was parcelated in Nurcu, and a Production Cooperative in Tomiance was established in the court, which operated until the 1980s.”
And what's peculiar about that? Nothing.
Wikipedia, however, omits an interesting detail. Well, Nurzec is the only village from the area of the present 3rd Republic, which is in the Russian partition!
Virtually all Pole is convinced that this horrible Catherine II has hacked most of the present Poland, with Warsaw, Łódź and even Kalisz. In the meantime, GROK honestly states: “After the 3rd partition, the Russian partition line ran so that almost the full east Podlasie (including the Siemiatycz area) fell to Prussia. Only a tiny enclave around Nurca (then a tiny settlement/a village) remained on the Russian side.”
The fact is, the possessors had any logic. Well, the origin of the cuttings was the notorious folly of most Polish nobles. Foolishness utilizing the name "patriotism" – after all, the patriots themselves enrolled in the Bar Confederation. The same patriots, who in the Ukrainian parliament voted that the only language in Ukraine should be Ukrainian – which resulted in the declaration of independency by Crimea (and Sevastopol), the outbreak of uprisings in DonBas, the uprising of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic, Russian intervention... and the remainder of the misery.
One of the slogans of the Bar Confederation (and not only the Bar Confederation!) was counter-reformation, return to Catholicism. Barzans were exterminated and killed Orthodox, Protestant, and Jewish. It was this (unfashionable intolerance in the Age of Enlightenment) that became an excuse for dissection and caused Europe to look at them favourably enough. So in the partitions Prussia occupied lands with a large number of Protestants (Silesian, Wielkopolska, Pomerania, Mazury – but besides Catholic Warmia...), Austria Catholic lands with quite a few Jews – and Russia Orthodox lands: present-day Russia, Belarus, a part of Ukraine – but besides Catholic Lithuania and Protestant Infanty, or present-day Estonia and Latvia.
And the Boring.
There are no traces of the church in Nurcu itself – Catholic tradition dominates there (the Roman Catholic parish was established after the war).
GROK states: “Norrzec itself (Biała County, Boćki Municipality) is simply a tiny village with Unitsky/Legal traditions in the wider region of Podlasie. The inhabitants (mainly Belarusians) belonged historically to Orthodox parishes in the area (e.g. Boćki, Telatics, Żerczyce or Grabarka)’.
And that's why they found themselves in the Russian partition.
The reasons why Poles think that “Russia took Polish lands” are two.
First of all: Poles frequently think not in national categories, but in national categories – and by “Poland” they realize the areas erstwhile occupied by any “Polish” state – the kingdom, the country... They forget the fact that, on the occasion of the Lublin Union, the Crown impertinently robbed the Grand Duchy of the Ukrainian lands (in a way that the Soviets copied by joining the Western Ukraine in 1940 to the USRS and the Western Belarus to the BSRS). And then the Greater State treated the remainder of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as “Poland” – not as “The Republic of Both Nations”.
Then we wonder why the Lithuanians hatred us. Yet they conquered Belarus and Ukraine in their time.
And secondly, the Poles are incorrect about the partitions – with a later period erstwhile Napoleon I entered these
The lands, he gave Alexander I the full Belarusian ellipse (but without Nurc!) and formed the Duchy of Warsaw – 1 of 48 artificial states called to draw money and soldiers from them for various wars.
And stupid Poles paid not only to war with Russia, but besides with Spain and Santo Domingo. Oh, 1 of Haiti's football players in Mundial is called “Kazimir” – surely a descendant of a Polish soldier...
And then Alexander created a completely independent Polish Kingdom for himself.
But it has nothing to do with the taking!
Janusz Korwin-Mikke
Think Poland, No. 27-28 (5-12.07.2026)
