Introduction to Urban Questions in Poland

Author(s): Krzysztof Frysztacki

Source: Urban Anthropology , FALL-WINTER, 1983, Vol. 12, No. 3/4, POLISH
ETHNOGRAPHERS AND SOCIOLOGISTS (FALL-WINTER, 1983), pp. 209-216
Published by: The Institute, Inc.

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 Introduction to Urban Questions
in Poland

Krzysztof Frysztacki
Institute of Sociology
Jagiellonian University
Krakow, Poland

Urban questions in Poland and the ways in which the

are explained by the social sciences, are almost unknow
to the Western reader. This is due not only to the langua
barrier and the difficulties with the exchange of information
for a number of other studies of various aspects of Poli
life have found their way to the foreign readers. To explain
this situation, even summarily, is beyond the scope of th
introduction. Let us stress, however, that the phenomen
and processes of urban life-one of the key features of ou
times-correspond to the intensive and differentiated
manifestations in our country. Here in a brief and selecti
introductory outline I would like to present the mos
important features of urbanization on the Polish territor
and the directions of Polish urban social research.
The slow but unceasing processes of demographic
urbanization have lasted since the mid-1 9th century. The
basic ceasura was World War II, after which this process
has accelerated. The percentages of the urban population
in the past years were as follows:

209
ISSN 0363-2024, © 1983 The Institute for the Study of Man, Inc.

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210 URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY VOL12(3-4), 1983

1872 - 16.2% (within the Kingdom of Poland, un

the Russian rule)

1921 -24.0%

1938-30.0%

1946-34.0%

1960-48.3%

1980 - 58.7% (the total population: 35.6 million

It seems that in the second part of the 19th ce

urbanization was favored first of all by the develo
industry on a broader scale, as well as the agrarian
strengthening the peasantry in the legal and m
respect and introducing them to the general m
exchange of goods and money. But the significant
and influence of the nobility and their peculiar m
based on a hostile attitude towards any activity in
and commerce, was an unfavorable element of the
situation. A similar effect was the discriminating policy
towards the historically Polish areas and towards Polish
society which was characteristic of the governments of all
the three partition states: Russia, Germany, and Austria. In
any case, the centres of urbanization and industrialization,
such as upper Silesia and Lodz started to develop.
Undoubtedly, the role of the largest urban centre was
played by Warsaw.
The limited power of the industrializing factor is the main
reason for the slow speed of urbanization in the reborn
Polish state in the interwar period. The new industrial and
urban investments were not a turning point and they gave
employment mainly to inhabitants of the cities whose
number was growing due to natural processes. With
endemic unemployment, the chances for moving from the
overpopulated country to the cities were minimal. Among
other consequences of these barriers, there developed an

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 Frysztacki INTRODUCTION 2 1 1

acute opposition between the coun

social consciousness. Moving to the city was associated
with an opportunity for social mobility.
The historical disaster of the World War II changed
Poland's demographic situation. The country experienced
the extermination policy of the Germans. It is estimated that
about six million Poles were killed, mainly of urban origin.
In particular, over three million Jewish people and several
hundred thousand inhabitants of Warsaw were
exterminated. On the other hand, the shift of state
to the west had a positive correlation with the p
urbanization for the new northern and western territories
which were characterized by a better developed urban
structure. In spite of the extent to which it had been
destroyed by military operations or abandoned by the
German population, western Poland was soon settled by in-
flowing Polish inhabitants, including many repatriates from
the East.
However, the decisive stage of urbanization took place
in the postwar period. The increase of the urban population
was caused by the granting of new urban rights and by
broadening administrative borders of cities, by the natural
increase of the urban population and by the migration of the
rural population to the cities. The administrative changes
caused what looked like an artificial growth of the urban
population. But one should not conceive these changes as
merely formal steps; they covered the changes of the socio-
occupational structure, the economic investments and the
future further increase of the population. The birth-rate in
Polish cities, in turn, was characterized by its own, almost
exceptional features. Even against the background of the
generally significant demographic increase in Europe in the
post-war years, it was very high. And in some years at the
end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s, the cities had
a higher rate of population growth than the countryside.
The mechanisms of the postwar compensation worked here
and the newcomers from the countryside, right after settling
in the cities, started to procreate. Massive migrations from
the countyside to urban centres became the basic factor.
These migrations were caused by the intensive

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212 URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY VOL12(3-4), 1983

industrialization of the country. The directions of m

of rural population were determined both by the
development of the old industries and by the foundation of
new ones. These were the migrations mainly to big cities.
The same refers to the rural youth who were educated in
the cities and afterwards settled there and got employed in
a broader and broader range of jobs.
If we analyse this last period, we have to add, that it was
and is specially significant for urban theory and social
praxis, and conditioned by many factors. Let us enumerate
briefly the most important of those intermingled factors: (a)
the necessity of reconstruction after numerous and serious
war damages; (b) the attempts to introduce bold urban-
social solutions, often initiated in the study form already in
the earlier period and connected in their conceptual aspect
with foreign research; (c) the trend to create "good" housing
estates as relatively autonomous housing units within
whole cities; (d) the nationalization of large parts of the
urban areas and the legal possibilities of expropriation of
private lands; (e) the ideological pressures resulting, at
least partially, from the wish to reconstruct social life
according to the socialist ideals; (f) the political and
economic pressures in the tendency to achieve the material
and propaganda strengthening of the state authorities and
to actualize the unified, quick housing programs for the new
industrial staff; (g) the constant acute shortage of
apartments resulting from previous conditions of
overpopulation and from the need to provide housing for
very numerous young generations; (h) the spontaneous
social pressures resulting partly from tradition and partly
from the social structure which became more and more
differentiated (also materially) and from the decided drive o
certain groups to a possibly significant improvement of thei
own conditions; and (i) the relatively poor equipment and
low efficiency of the building industry. In consequence,
Polish cities are a mixture of interesting urbanistic an
architectonic solutions and popular uniform ugly structures,
of constructions of high value and more often of the new
ones that are slovenly, of rich private houses and poo
small apartments.

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Frysztacki INTRODUCTION 213

So as in case of many other na

questions in our country are replete with a rich and
differentiated literature. Obviously, these have been (but are
not only) academic undertakings. An important part was
played by the art. Let us look back at the end of the 18th
century and call to mind the beautiful cycle of paintings by
Canaletto, which reflects in such an expressive way the
"substance and spirit" of Warsaw of these days. Let us
remember the literary prose and journalism of B. Prus, more
valuable for the understanding of the Warsaw after the fall
of the January Uprising than anything else. And if we speak
about the more modern means of artistic expression (e.g. A.
Bujak's recent photographic landscapes of Cracow or A.
Wajda's film "CZLOWIEK Z MARMURU" [MAN OF
MARBLE]) about the violent and simultaneously dramatic
process of industrialization and urbanization in the fifties,
we see that they reflect the urban matters in an intellectually
and cognitively important way.
With regard to publications of a more scientific character,
their number is great if we take into account a relative
narrowness of the circle of researchers. There are
hundreds of brief empirical studies, and a smaller n
of books. A patient researcher would also be able to
considerable number of reports and papers about va
aspects of functioning urban organisms in the arch
many institutions.
This literature, can be divided into two categories: in
first one, the demographic and economic elements
dominate, and in the second one, the strictly sociological
and ethnological problems predominate. Within the first
one, we find a precise and quite easily imaginable analysis
of building and transformations of the structure of urban
population and of the economic functions of cities. It seems,
however, that for the volume the questions connected with
the second category are more interesting.
The characteristic feature of this sociological and
ethnological/literature is particularly the description of links
between culture, structure and social ties in urban
collectivities. The primary focus of this work is the broad
conception of the ways of life, according to which they are

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214 URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY VOL12(3-4), 1983

understood as all relatively stabilized activities perfo

definite social situations and aiming at the satisf
needs and actualization of drives of individuals an
Thus, this is a dynamically oriented analysis of the li
inhabitants, including the interpenetrating st
behavioral and normative elements and the ones of
consciousness.
I think that the main problem is the question of gro
and primary circles'. And within it, as the most important,
question of urban families analysed in the context
conditions and life aspirations raised in result of
professional work. The manifestations and transformations
of family ties were strongly emphasized against the
background of processes of urbanization of whole
collectivities (e.g., Ziolkowski 1960; Nowakowski 1967).
Thus, the well-known postulate of S. Rychlinski (1935)
appears to be continued. It stated that among the primary
topics of urban sociology is the research on the
transformations of family ties and organization which occur
under the influence of various elements of the social
environment.
Passing to the social frames broader than the small
groups, one of the major directions of research examines
the spatial component. Most significant here are the studies
on housing estates conceived as such units of collective
residence which either are or can be characterized by
considerable autonomy and completeness as regards the
satisfaction of human needs and which therefore are
supposed to lead to the social integration of inhabitants.
is possible to say that these works comprise both specif
empirical studies and postulational studies (e.g., Ossowsk
1946).
On the other hand, the non-spatial questions, (above all
the ones that are connected with social stratification)
include the issue of class solidarity which unites or
separates inhabitants on the basis of objective features of
their social situation, and of systems of values and socio-
political drives which are created in result and are not
realized (e.g., Malanowski 1967).

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Frysztacki INTRODUCTION 2 1 5

Let us also turn our attention to a

typologization which crosses the one above. In the
demographic-economic trend and the derivative ones, such
connections uniting the urban population are separated
which exist objectively. This does not mean, however, that
people are not aware of them. If so, then on the second
pole we can single out such approaches which emphasize
the subjective, emotional attitude to the city. In this field F.
Znaniecki's work (1931) is matchless up to the present
moment. The city as a value, as an element of human inner
experience, the "humanistic" component of attitudes and
actions, is a factor which, according to this approach,
creates the social tie.
Finally, to conclude this outline, I would like to mention
the contribution of Polish researches to urban studies of
other societies, including American society. The
distinguishing feature of these outward directed studies
seems to be a concern with ethnic questions in the broad
sense of the word.

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