The New Society of the Western and Northern Territories of the People's Republic of Poland as a Laboratory of Formal and Informal Behavior

• In Event: "Polish" and "Ukrainian" Cases of the Socialist Model of Modernization: Case Study of Formal and Informal Behavior after 1945

Abstract

Socialism and the socialist path of modernization, due to Soviet inspirations and oppressive character, strengthened informal behavior in the society of the Western and Northern Territories of the People's Republic of Poland.Using historical and sociological sources, I would like to show how the Western and Northern Territories of the People's Republic of Poland became not only a field of ideological struggle, but also a laboratory in which not only new but old models of social behavior were formed, penetrating from the East to the West despite socialist modernization, such as: attachment to the land, entrepreneurship, a sense of freedom, ownership, underground resistance movements, alternative culture, cultural freedom, pluralism, religiosity and traditional values (family, parish, neighborhood). This analysis will allow for a better understanding of the processes of social transformation in post-war Poland and their impact on contemporary Polish society.

Author

• Konrad Walerski, European U Viadrina (Germany)