Town dwellers versus village dwellers in Poland
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10072693 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stefan Nowakowski (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1969 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 111-122 |
| Publication date | 1969-07-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/002200946900400307 |
| OpenAlex | W2014347585 |
| Language | NL |
| Citations received | 2 |
After the second world war, the urban population of Poland was nearly double the pre-war level. In my researches into urbanization in Poland and into the assimilation of peasant groups to the urban milieu, I was struck by a characteristic phenomenon. My Warsaw respondents, both skilled and unskilled workers and even white-collar workers of peasant origin (the last-named to a lesser degree), complained of a prejudiced attitude towards them on the part of the traditionally urban population. Most of the complaints came from young unskilled workers who said that their factory mates, salesgirls in shops, people in trams, etc., disparaged and ridiculed them. This derogatory attitude of town dwellers towards the newcomers from the countryside was also reflected in the various nicknames which ridiculed their peasant origin, lack of breeding, and alleged lower level of intelligence in general. A quite different state of affairs prevailed in Opole Silesia, an area that is being rapidly urbanized; from the answers to my questions, addressed to workmen and graduate engineers from all parts of Poland who were rather new to the town, I concluded that they did not grasp my point; in any case the general opinion was that there was no prejudice against people of peasant origin. These observations made in two Polish urban centres suggest more general conclusions about the origin and persistence of the anti-peasant stereotype among Polish town dwellers, and also about the structure and character of the urban culture in which that stereotype is to be found. The subject has so far not been covered by any wider sociological investigation in Poland, but even so many hypotheses force themselves upon the researcher; these require verification by studies to be carried out in the various regions of Poland, differing
Archaeology · Economic growth · Ethnology · Geography · Peasant · Political science · Population · Prejudice (legal term · Sociology · Stereotype (UML · Urbanization · Agricultural economics and policies · Central European Literary Studies · Demography · History · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2024 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |