Antonina Kloskowska
Methodology and the impact of techniques on research data
In sociological theory and practice there is a constant controversy and discrepancy between the exigencies of formalized research techniques and the complexity of the subject matter under study. This suggests the need for a multiple strategy resorting to methods more subtle but also inherently less amenable to strict empirical control. This dilemma was presented most clearly by Robert Merton (1957) in his consideration of the sociology of knowledge. The same tension between exact findings on trivial problems and less precise knowledge concerning important ones obtains in the domain of nation and ethnicity studies. The use of a multi-method approach or “triangulation” would appear, therefore, indispensable in view of the factual and axiological complexity of the subject matter.
Ethnic and national problems should be considered in several perspectives:
historical, sociological (i.e. relating to social structure and its functions), culturological and anthropological-psychological. This necessitates the use of interdisciplinary co-operation and materials, even in what is essentially a sociological study.
The use of historical methods means two things here: not only resorting to past events and longitudinal studies but also using descriptive methods rather than a nomothetic approach aimed at the discovery of universal regularities and the formulation of general laws. The anthropologist’s “thick description” (Geertz 1975) can be very useful here in the presentation of inter-ethnic relations.
Special attention should be given to the use of personal documents, i.e.
autobiographies, personal diaries and the recorded recollections of migrants involved in a transformation of their national milieu, or people living in polyethnic regions (especially in borderland territory). This type of material has been very popular in Polish sociology since the seminal publication The Polish peasant in Europe and America by W.I.Thomas and F.Znaniecki (1918).
Content analysis may be included in the category of more formalized methods, especially if applied to mass media, but in the domain of literary fiction
much can be done, not through quantitative but through less “formal” analysis.
Survey methods, questionnaires and scales on the other hand are widely used in the study of ethnic attitudes, national stereotypes and social distance research (Allport et al. 1953, Klineberg & Lambert 1959).
The present author used such methods on national attitudes and constructs of Polish children (Kloskowska 1961, 1962). The more formalized the instruments of research (e.g. closed questions) the more unambiguous the results obtained.
But the very clarity of the results is deceptive. “Race” and “national relations”
belong to the realm of “sensitive” issues and accordingly the results of direct studies may be very much influenced by the research situation itself. However this problem can be alleviated by additional, less obtrusive techniques, and particularly by observation, projective methods, and the analysis of “cultural”
texts produced and “consumed” by the population under study.
Direct questions on “national characteristics” invite stereotyped answers. The present author has observed that somewhat different descriptions of foreign nations were obtained by asking the subjects “What are they like?” —as in Klineberg’s study—rather than asking: “What do you know about them?”. In the study of national problems it is especially important to avoid questions which lead the respondent in a biased or non-neutral fashion.
Poland as a ªtesting -groundº for national and inter-ethnic problems
The First Polish Republic, comprising from the 14th century the Crown territories (i.e. western and central Poland) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was a multi-nation country in which Poles, Byelorussians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Jews, Germans, Armenians and Tartars lived side by side. The Polish State, recovering its independence after the period of partition (1795–
1918) lost two-thirds of its former eastern territories but the national or ethnic mosaic remained, albeit reduced in number. No less than one-third of the Second Republic’s population was made up of “national mino rities”: about 16 per cent Ukrainians, 10 per cent Jews, 6 per cent Byelo-russians, 2.4 per cent Germans and 0.3 per cent Lithuanians (Tomaszewski 1985).
These ethnic or national peripheries represented a serious political problem.
Each of the minorities was the subject of different attitudes and evaluations by those from the dominant cultural group. Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Lithuanians were accepted as autochthonous populations and their respective cultures regarded as mere regional variations of the national culture. As such they were positively evaluated as attractive folkloric additions to the dominant culture.
However, this attitude ran counter to the national aspirations of minority groups. Cossack and Ruthenian (later Ukranian) irredentism has exploded periodically since the 17th century, and the 19th and 20th centuries brought a real nationalist “awakening” of these minorities. In former times their upper
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classes were absorbed into Polish culture and enjoyed the privileges of Polish
“democracy of the nobles”. But the new intelligentsia of peasant origin tried to reject Polish political and cultural authority.
In the Second Polish republic (1918–39) this met with condemnation and repression. Most Poles could not and would not comprehend the force of social change and were reluctant to abandon the historical traditions of their powerful state, stretching as it did almost from the Oder to beyond the Dnieper, and from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The national aspirations of the eastern minorities were regarded as an outrage to this historical legacy. Poland, in the 16th century (comprising the Crown territories and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) was linked by an intimate “personal” union, and as such can be likened to the United Kingdom. When Joseph Pilsudski, national leader and statesman of the Second Republic, protested that he was no Pole but a Lithuanian the opposition of the two identity constructs can be likened to those of “Welsh” and “English”—both
“British” (at least from an English perspective).
To understand the state of Polish popular consciousness it is worth noting that the most venerated poem of (national) canonic Polish literature begins with the verse: “Lithuania, o my Fatherland” (Mickiewitcz 1834). In the 19th century there was a “Ukrainian school” of Polish romanticist poetry created by eminent writers but incorporating several folkloric elements drawn from their native region. “Lithuania” and “Ukraine” were regarded in these cases as regions of Poland, and even more: in the poem by Mickiewicz “Lithuania” is a symbol, a synecdoche, representing the entire country, i.e. Poland.
Clearly, however, this view was held solely by the dominant “nation”; no longer by the minorities. One more aspect should be considered: Poles in the eastern regions had for a long time been the masters, the gentlemen, the gentry.
Ethnic Byelorussians, Ukrainians, and Lithuanians were peasants, and often servants. “The faithful Cossack”, a mounted servant and bodyguard was a very popular character in 19th century Polish literary fiction. But the new national intelligentsia in the eastern regions rejected the subjugation of their respective countrymen to such rôles. The nationalistic attitudes of the Polish majority towards the eastern minorities could be likened to those of “traditionally minded” white Americans from the South to the Negroes; the latter being tolerated (and even liked) so long as they knew, and kept “their place” in the social structure. Another complication in the ethnic and national situation of Poland’s pre-war eastern territories was provided by the active communist propaganda inspired by the Soviet Union, who aimed to incorporate Byelorussia and Ukraine into the Soviet state. Both the nationalist and the communist movements were harshly repressed by Polish local government.
Polish nationalistic attitudes towards the eastern minorities contained no explicitly “racial” elements, but there was undoubtedly a negative stereotype of the “blood-thirsty” Ukrainian. It was strengthened after the Second World War as a result of fierce fighting between Ukrainians and Poles in the former eastern territory under German occupation, and because of the active participation of
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Ukrainian units assisting the ss in the extermination of Jews. The anti-Ukrainian feeling was bolstered by inaccurate wartime reports, also implicating Ukranian units in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising of 1944. (It was in fact Russian- led units comprising various Soviet nationalities—the so-called Russian Liberation Army—who assisted the Nazis at this time.)
After the war Polish retaliation took the form of extremely harsh military repression of the continuing Ukrainian struggle. Then followed the deportation of the remainder of the Ukrainian population still living in territory belonging to the Polish State. (Most of the territory inhabited by Byelorussians and Ukrainians was incorporated into the Soviet Union under the Yalta agreement between the major powers.)
The German as archetypical outsider-stranger
The relations with Germans present a further insight into Polish national, or nationalist, attitudes. Poland’s western frontiers, with a Slavonic popu lation and culture, withstood the German impact much longer and more effectively than was the case with the southern Slavs. Despite some mixing of the populations due to German immigration a feeling of unease prevailed in Polish-German relations, as is evident even in the name given to Germans: Niemcy, i.e. the Dumb Ones, people not speaking the natural (our own) language (such was, at least, its popular interpretation).
The contrast between national relations in eastern and western Poland gives rise to a reflection on types of nationalism. A distinction is proposed between acquisitive and defensive nationalism. Polish nationalism in the east was mainly acquisitive, with the notable exception of Russian-Polish relations from the 18th to the 20th century. The term “acquisitive” does not necessarily mean
“aggressive”. Polish acquisitiveness in the east manifested itself successively in both the peaceful and aggressive variants. The other form, defensive nationalism, can also lead to aggressive measures, but this may be interpreted differently in axiological terms. It could be said that there existed a parallel between, on the one side, German acquisitive nationalism directed against Poland, and on the other, Polish acquisitive nationalism directed against her smaller neighbours.
(The existence of such a parallel is not readily recognized by Polish historiography).
In the 19th century, however, with Poland partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria, Polish nationalism became defensive on all sides. According to many authors (e.g. Gellner 1983, Tiryakian & Nevitte 1985) the essence of nationalism consists in making claims on behalf of national sovereignty. Polish nationalism in those times claimed the right to its own national language, culture, national institutions, and finally to liberation and unification. It was not a national revival after several hundred years, as in the case of the Czechs, but an unrelenting fight against foreign powers. The national deprivation was resented strongly, and
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deprivation does not make nations magnanimous and just, any more than it does in the case of individuals.
Thus, in this period great sensitivity was evident in relation to the loyalty of national minorities. Indeed, claims had often remained unfulfilled because national or ethnic minorities had no practical interest in demonstrating loyalty to the national culture of subjugated former masters. On the contrary, it was rather surprising to find that there were numerous cases involving the assimilation to Polish culture of Jews, Austrians and German civil servants or their offsprings despite the political situation. (This would represent an interesting object of sociological research using autobiographical and biographical materials.)
Generally, however, 19th century nationalism in Poland turned most strongly against the major occupying powers, Russia and Prussia. The attitudes towards these nations differ slightly: Germans were generally disliked, Russians often despised as well. Twenty years of independence between the two world wars gave the Poles too little time to rid themselves of their defensive nationalism, and the Nazi occupation brought to a head anti-German feelings.
The character of the occupation, differentiating Poland markedly from the war situation in Western countries, explains (if not justifies) the harsh treatment of the German population in the territories incorporated into the Polish People’s Republic after the war, following the Yalta agreement. The expulsion of Germans from these territories was accompanied by the eviction of Poles from the (more extensive) lands of the former Polish State ceded to the Soviet Union.
In general, the war strengthened for a long time the negative attitudes toward Germans, whom it was not easy to distinguish in wartime from the Nazis. This wartime image has been superimposed on the traditional folk-loric and literary representation of the arch-enemy, the stranger. This position has been, at least indirectly, strengthened by official socialist propaganda, because of the absolute silence imposed on the rôle played by Stalin’s Soviet Union in Poland’s (and Poles’) fate during the war (Dmitrow 1987, Szarota 1988). However, there was one factor which could prevent the totalization of negative relations towards all
“Germanness” in Polish society; German culture. Even at the climax of the war Polish intellectuals were able and willing to distinguish the great symbolic heritage of Germans from war atrocities, and thousands of Polish students from outlawed clandestine secondary schools were studying German literature and philosophy.
An important event in the history of post-war Polish-German relations was the message of Polish bishops to their German counterparts, containing the memorable declaration: “We forgive and ask for forgiveness” (November 1965).
This position was nevertheless hard to accept at that time for a section of the Polish population. As recent studies of public opinion show, the attitudes of Polish society reflect the actual political declarations and acts guaranteeing the security of Polish western frontiers. (There are also other shifts in the attitudes and stereotypes which will be presented later, as they have been the subject of sociological research.)
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The Jew as an insider-stranger
Despite large scale German immigration into Polish territories going back to the 13th century, and despite the high level of assimilation, Germans have been regarded first and foremost as representatives of a foreign, external power.
Jewish “immigrants”, even after seven hundred years of residence, have been generally regarded as “strangers”, albeit “insider” strangers. But this was a category different from Simmel’s stranger who comes and goes. They have lived among the dominant “nation”, native but always peripheral and secluded; often awakening distrust, fear, and sometimes aggression.
Once again some historical comments are needed to account for this situation.
Jewish immigration to Poland in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was triggered by the availability of vast lands depopulated by Tartar invasions. It was prompted, too, by the persecution of Jews in western Europe after the plague. In the 14th century this persecution amounted almost to a holocaust. In Poland and the Ukraine Jews found favourable conditions for their trade and craft activities;
such activities being rejected by Polish nobility as demeaning their social status and not accessible to the peasants tied to the soil since the end of the 15th century. In this situation Polish Jews enjoyed a large measure of local autonomy, but also on an even larger scale, in the form of Jewish Parliament. Occasional acts of aggression against Jews grew with the so-called “Catholic reaction” of the 17th century and the establishment of Jesuit schools with their intolerant, turbulent youth, but such acts did not exceed in harshness parallel events elsewhere in western Europe.
Arguably, though, the parallel situation lasted only to the end of the 18th century. At that time the emancipation of Jews in the West was based on the principle formulated by a French Enlightenment writer, Stanislas de Clermont- Tonnerre, who stated that “the Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals” (Encyclopedia Judaica 7:151). Polish political writers proposed a similar regulation of the Jewish population but their plans had been thwarted by the partition of Poland. The personal emancipation of Jews on Polish territories under Russian and Austrian rule was not realized until the 1860s, and the expulsion of Jews from some parts of the Russian Empire combined with their flight from the (Russian) pogroms in 1905–7 resulted in the growth of the Jewish population within eastern Polish territories.
In France and Prussia at the beginning of the 19th century Jews were forced to relinquish outward symbols of their culture, to send their children to communal schools and to acquire the language of dominant nations. Preserving their religion and family values, they became less conspicuous, less like strangers and much more acceptable as fellow citizens to members of majority communities.
This operation, enforced by administrative measures, was painful at the beginning, but subsequently drew the Jewish masses into the industrial and intellectual process which was the essence of the West’s progress towards
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modernity. However, it lost the potentially rich contribution which could have been made by elements of traditional Jewish culture.
In the Russian Empire, and in Austrian Galicia, Jews were abandoned to their traditional way of life. By this time, the former Polish territories had the largest concentration of Jews anywhere in the world. The great centres of Talmudic studies had developed here. It was here also that the Hasidic movement, with its spiritual leaders drawing the faithful from other countries, was born. Here too, the Yiddish language came to maturity and gave us important literary works (from writers such as Sh.Ash, Sh. Aleichem and I.B.Singer). Pre-war Poland was also an important centre for film productions in Yiddish (Tomaszewski 1990, Zebrowski & Borzyminska forthcoming, containing an extensive bibliography in English, Polish and Yiddish).
However, the carriers of this rich, but mainly traditional, culture were separated from the dominant Polish culture. Their social formation was caste-like (Hertz 1961, 1988); entailing life “on the periphery” and breeding mutual distrust and animosity in relations with mainstream social and political groups. It was a phenomenon incomparable (in terms of scale) with the marginal manifestations of traditional Hindu, Chinese or Jewish cultures in some parts of large Western cities. In the period 1918–39, Jews constituted almost 10 per cent of Poland’s population and between 40 and 80 per cent in many small towns in the Eastern territories. The estrangement of the core of this traditional group from the surrounding Polish, Ukrainian or Byelorussian milieu was aptly depicted by I.B.Singer (in, for example, In My Father’s Court 1986) and by other Jewish writers. However, this does not account for all Polish citizens of Jewish origin. In the 1931 Census, 25 per cent of those professing Mosaic religion declared Polish nationality. Yet they were also regarded by many Poles as taking on the character of the traditional population of Jewish city districts and “shtetl” (a Jewish name for a small town with a predominantly Jewish population, or the Jewish quarter of a small town).
From the beginning of the 20th century influential right-wing political parties with pronounced anti-semitic ideology have developed. In the Second Republic their political “bogey” was the triad: Jews, communists and freemasons. During the great recession they blamed Jews for what was essentially a result of the country’s general economic underdevelopment. They were opposed to assimilation policies and some of their views were not totally free from the influence of Nazi German ideology.
The paradox of history willed that some of the leaders of this nationalist movement risked their lives to save Jews from Nazi persecution during the occupation. Any assistance given to Jews in occupied Poland was punishable by death (Bartoszewski 1965, Kloskowska 1989). On the other hand, this did not necessarily change their nationalist ideology or their image of Jews as the main source of communist influence in Poland. This was the ideological brand of anti- semitism.
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