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Thirty Years after the Great Change. The Process of Social Transformation in Poland in Biographical Research Perspective(s)
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Journal Article
Thirty Years after the Great Change. The Process of Social Transformation in Poland in Biographical Research Perspective(s)
2019
Overview
This year (2019) we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the great systemic change. The year 1989 has been symbolically set and accepted in the public discourse as the turning point for the political, social, economic transition. It is associated with two events—the Round Table in February 1989 and the partly democratic elections held on June 04. Poland became the first Eastern Bloc country where the representatives of the democratic opposition gained real influence over the government. This gave rise to political changes, which included “[t]hree components of the social system, that is, politics, economy, and social culture. And these components are known to be interconnected by a network of relations transmitting both the factor stimulating the development of the whole system, as well as the limitations determining the acceptable solutions. Attempts to evaluate the course of these transformations have been made many times. There is an almost continuous discussion and disputes over the results obtained, the costs incurred, and the need for further reforms” (Pisz 2000:101- 102). Although 19 years have passed since the quoted statements, the discussion has been continued up to now and, of course, from the very beginning, the Polish transformation has been carefully studied by sociologists. Until the mid-1990s, researchers dealt with change as such, describing the essence of crucial institutional reforms and only then dealing with the social consequences of systemic change (Kolasa-Nowak 2010:52). Even then most of the researchers concentrated primarily on changes perceived from the macro-social level. For instance, Juliusz Gardawski (2001; 2009) analyzed changes from the perspective of economy and sociology of work. Henryk Domański (1996; 2000; 2002; 2005; 2008) (relying on long-term quantitative research) pondered changes in the social structure, creation of the middle-class, or changes in the hierarchy of prestige. Andrzej Rychard (1996), Mirosława Marody and Anna Giza-Poleszczuk (2004), as well as Giza-Poleszczuk, Marody, and Rychard (2000) focused on the process of institutionalization, changing of social capitals, cultural dimension of the social transition, and the way social bonds were shaping after 1989. Sociologists, using profoundly quantitative research, began to describe individual ways of coping with systemic change and developing adaptation strategies (e.g., Marody 1997; 2002; Rychard 2005). Certainly, these are only some examples of sociological works—although deliberately enumerated here—that offered (macro)syntheses of the Polish transformation.
