Wieś a tożsamość jednostki

Abstract

The paper deals with several questions referring to the self-identity of peasants in the social and historical conditions of Polish country life. An important place in the area for possible penetration of the history of changes of the peasants' self-conceptions is occupied by folklor with its diversified forms and methods of creation of the so called empirical "me” (after V.James) in the material, social and spiritual spheres. Second in importance is the historical and cultural heritage with the stylized self-portraits of the representatives of peasantry and the documents of popular movements regarded as a process of social and political emancipation of the stratum of peasants. The achievements of Polish sociology in the field have been exemplified by quotations from the works of Józef Chałasiński who masterly applied the concepts of the self-image and of the changes in the cultural definition of the self in his analysis of the historical growth of Polish culture in the personal, stratificational and national aepects. As far as the peasants identity is concerned it is possible to regard the legal warrant for the family holdings in the Polish People's Republic as a current stage of the two-century-old process of assuming citizenship by peasants. According to the author, since "The Polish Peasent..." by W.Thomas, F.Znaniecki the identity of the Polish peasant remains an unsolved riddle of Polish sociology.