This article explores the ways in which Polish, European, and American historiography has interpreted the eastern borderlands of Poland (kresy) and the wider Eastern European region during the interwar era, with particular emphasis on the Polish state’s programs of modernization and «civilizing» intervention between 1918 and 1939. Its primary objective is to demonstrate how Polish political and intellectual elites adopted and reshaped broader European narratives of progress, civilization, and orientalization in order to legitimize Polish authority over Ukrainian, Jewish, and other non-Polish communities.

The study is grounded in historiographical and discourse-oriented analysis. It critically reviews German, Anglophone, and Polish scholarship – including works produced during the communist period as well as those published after 1989 – examining how concepts such as «civilization», «backwardness», «modernization», and «Polish identity» have been defined and mobilized in historical interpretation. By combining insights from political, social, and cultural history, alongside memoir literature and documentary sources, the article traces how scholarly and public understandings of the borderlands and their inhabitants have evolved over time.

The article concludes that the rhetoric and policies of Polish civilizing efforts in the eastern borderlands can only be fully understood in relation to three interconnected conditions: uneven economic and institutional development, profound ethnic and religious diversity, and the strategic vulnerability of Poland’s position between Germany and the Soviet Union. Polish modernization discourse closely echoed broader European and colonial narratives of civilizational mission, yet its implementation encountered a socially complex population whose loyalties and identities were often fluid and context-dependent. These findings underscore the need for further research that moves beyond state-centered perspectives and instead examines local actors, everyday interactions, and the diverse ways in which national and cultural identities – including Polish identity – were shaped, negotiated, or even disregarded in the kresy.

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