The article is devoted to the problem of analysis of saving the national identity of the ethnic Polish group on the territory of the Olonets province (modern Republic of Karelia, Arkhangelsk and Leningrad Oblast) in the historical perspective. Basing on the analysis of the resources of personal nature (memoirs), as well as the Russian and Polish historiography the main distinguishing characteristics of the national Polish identity on the hostile social-cultural environment were studied. Due to the research the authors concluded that the driving force of preserving the national identity was the religious factor, opening itself in the activity of the exiled priests and such traditional Polish leisure activities such as: choral singing, reading of religious and secular national literature, organization is the educational process.