Folk culture at the turn of the 20 th and 21st century. Tradition and change

Abstract

Until the middle of 20th century, traditional folk culture was an unthreatened system in Poland. Serious changes stared after 1945, as a result of deep social and economic, business and political transformations that occurred in the country at that time. Gradually, the process led to bilingualism in villages – dialect / rural substandard. As a result, the dialect was used in the contacts between family members and neighbours, and the rural substandard was used in official situations and while talking with people from outside the folk cultural environment. At the same time, the communist government tried to impose on traditional folk artists, who often were non-commercial or anonymous, one obligatory model of culture called “Cepeliada”. The second significant wave of changes in rural language and culture came after 1989, when Poland started to undergo great political, social, economic and business transformation. The changes became particularly important after 2004, when Poland joined the European Union. Two opposite, but complementary trends started to influence the culture of the village at that time: globalisation and regionalisation. Due to the process of globalisation, a lot of alien elements permeate the traditional, rural cultural system and become its part. As a result, certain determinants of that system have become similar on the trans-regional level and even on the international level, which makes them lose their local character. Regionalisation, in turn, is oriented to the local nature of a given culture, i.e. finding and showing the world one’s own identity marks. Thus, while the village is trying to maintain its identity, it does not reject civilisation.