Suchergebnisse

Engl. Zsfassung u.d.T.: Cracow as seen by the city's young population

Monografia zawiera liczne ryciny. ; The end of the 80-ties and the beginning of 90-ties years is the period when new trends occur in the wandering movements of the population in Poland, including considerably higher inflow of foreigners than up to now. For the first time in the post war history of our country we have to do with a considerable selected temporary as well as permanent immigration. Thus Poland has emerged as an attractive country to live and to manage business activity and is able to draw more and more immigrants. While examining the phenomenon of permanent immigration to Poland since 1946 (Fig. l), few phases can be shown. The first is 1946-1960, the second one lasts until 1990 and the third immigration phase is beyond 1990. The subject of our analysis is the third immigration phase after 1990, because from that time markedly increased the inflow of foreigners to Poland. Jointly during the period 1990-1995 over 35.1 thousand persons have settled in Poland (Fig. 1). Analysing the inflow of population from abroad we can say about the permanent escalation of this process. It is indicated by the comparison of the immigration magnitude in following years and by the fact that from 1989 to 1995 the yearly inflow has grown al most four times, from 2.2 thousand to 8.1 thousand persons, respectively. A characteristic feature of the immigration from abroad is the great disproportion in the scale of inflow to towns an villages. Majority of the foreigners proceed to larger centres, therefore in the country this is only a marginal phenomenon. Since 1989 over 30 thousand foreigners have settled in towns, thus this makes 83% of the inflow in this period, while in the country less then 7 thousand. In the structure of the inflow to Poland (1991-1995) al most half of the persons have secondary education (45%), 33% university education and 7%. So almost 85% of the immigrants are persons with secondary or university education (Fig. 2). Of this about 80% of the persons are at productive age, the rest makes of children up to 18 years of age and persons over 60. (Fig. 3). The proportions between the number of men and women are al most equal (55% and 45%, respectively), but according to the origin country some differentiation can be observed (Fig. 4). In the structure of inflow according to countries 65% of the immigrants come from European countries and the former Soviet Union. 3.5% from Northern America and 8.6% jointly from Asia and Africa. The highest number of immigrants come from Germany (24.1 %), from the USA (16.2%) and from the form er Soviet Union (15%). Examining the problem summarily for the last 6 years, from 1990 to 1995, we can notice that the greatest inflow of foreigners was noted in the voivodeships: Warszawa (4.9 thousand), Gdańsk (2.9 thousand), Katowice (2.5 thousand) and Wrocław (2.1 thousand). In the next five voivodeships (Szczecin, Poznań, Opole, Kraków and Łódź) the inflow was for l to 2 thousand persons. Generally these voivodeships are characterised by a high degree of social-economical development and low degree of unemployment. In the shadow of the immigration streams there are such voivodeships as Bielsko-Biała, Chełm, Piotrków Tryb., Sieradz, Leszno and Ciechanów voivodeships. The joint inflow over the period 1990-1995 was 35.1 thousand persons (Fig. 7). Reassuming, we can state, that starting from the 90-ties years the immigration to Poland is continuously growing.

France is a country where the problems of local development as a means of rational utilization of local factors and conditions of growth have been studied for more than 20 years. It has been so due to the activity of the French social movement called "mouvement des pays", which opposes to the traditional model of managing the socio-economic development. That movement propagates the conception of microregions Which would embrace the territories of so-called "pays" with their population committed to common social and economic interests and bound by common traditions and history. The crisis of the '70 heightened the interests of the State in the problems of local communities and resulted in undertaking actions towards creating microregions and promoting local development. However, it was not before the period of preparations of the decentralization reform of the '80 that a more intensive dialogue and some assimilation of standpoints of the social movement and the State administration took place. In her article, the author presents the evolution of views of the social movement and the State central administration on the conceptions of microregions and local development. Particular attention was paid to solutions adopted in the course of the decentralization reform and to the possibilities of adapting them to Polish conditions. Since nowadays, due to the implementation of the economic reform, similar issues are of current interest in Poland, it seems useful to observe intently French developments, especially that despite obvious political and social differences, France seems to be a good point of reference for comparisons. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016

Immediately after the dicision of the Ambasador's Council of July 28, 1920,concerning the division of the Cieszyn Silesia, it became clear thet the said delimitation did not win the acceptance of any serious political forces in Poland. The Polish state's difficult international situation, however, made the Polish authorities abandon the idea of resolving the Zaolzie question by force. Fruitless negotiations were, at the same time, conducted to obtain the cossion of at least a part of the disputed territory in Poland's favour and various diplomatic interventions were undertaken to improve the situation of the Polish population inhabiting the Zaolzie Silesia. In spite of the low efficiency of such initiatives, in 1925 the political relation between Poland and Czechoslovakia were normalised and a liquidation agreement was signed, which led to a normalisation of mutual relations in the divided area. The actions of the Polish Republic in relation to the Zaolzie were influenced by various factors that were difficult to harmonise. One of them was the necessity to subjugate the Zaolzie question to the atate's general interests, which included an acceptance of the Versailles status quo, and attempts to find a platform of co-operation with Czechoslovakia in view of the growing German threat. Another factor was the desire to maintain the Polish national character of the Zaolzie motivated by the reluctance to give up that territory in an unequivocal way. The expectation of a cooperation with Czechoslovakia in the international context led to the policy of letting bygones be bygones. The democratic nature of the Chechoslovak state afforded a possibility of making the defence of the Polish national rights the responsibility of the Polish deputies in the parliament in Prague. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried then to persuade the leaders of the Polish community in the Zaolzie to assume a more activistic attitude. At the same time, the Polish Consul in Moravska Ostrava supported financially the institutions of the Polish national life nad tried to resist the assimilating policy of the Czech authorities. This tactics brought, up to a point, some results, but it did not prevent all attempts at an assimilation on the part of influential Czech organisations and bussiness circles, neither did it safeguard the conditions of the national life in the Zaolzie so as to obviate the need for the steady flow of the Polish financial aid without which the Polish educational and cultural institutions would not survive. In the late 1920s and early 1930s a rapprochement between Warsaw and Prague seemed to substantiate the hopes for a betterment of the situation of the Poles in the Zaolzie. In the wake of such hopes there appeared Polish-Czechoslovak societies and Czechoslovak-Polish clubs. These clubs reised high expectations in the consular centre in Moravska Ostrava, which hoped that they would help to break down the barriers between the Polish and Czech population and to obtain the support of influential Czech circles for the postulates of the Polish minority. The most committed members of the clubs (just like all, with no exceptions, Polish cosuits in Moravska Ostrava) were treated, however, with great suspicion and aversion by the Czech nationalist circles, as well as by the personalities representing the views of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The most far-reaching initiative, that is the idea of calling a reconciliation conference concerning the matters of the Cieszyn Silesia in 1932, ended in a fiasco. Such factors as the way the 1930 sensus was carried out, the obvious deterioration of the living standards at the time of the Great Depression, and the attitude of the persons responsible for the Czech foreign policy who insisted on all Polish citizens leaving Czechoslovakia before "equitable" negotiations with Poland could begin, signalled the end of the period in which a positive and active conduct of the Polish population could seem an efficient antidote to the growing pressure for assimilation. The political events of 1933 changed the perception of the chances for a cooperation between Poland and Czechoslovakia, both of them being situated between Germany and the Soviet Union, which, in early 1934, made the representatives of the Polish Republic change their policy in the Zaolzie. From then, on the support of the Polish authorities and society for the Polish minority was emphasised, also a pressure was being exerted on the Czechoslovak government by means of an organised press campaign in Poland. The Czechoslovak government, however, did not yield under pressure, and assumed an intransigent attitude, taking this opportunity to get rid of a certain number of the Poles in the Zaolzie. The assimilation of the local Poles both of a natural kind and enforced by political and economic pressure seemed to the Czech authorities to be the best way to pacify this important borderline region. The tactics to which the Polish side resorted did not then lead to an improvement of the situation of the ethnic Poles in Czechoslovakia, it had, however, a different result, namely it aroused the national feelings and kindled the hopes for the Polish state's stronger support for the minority aspirations. In Poland, on the other hand, the internal situation in Poland's southern neighbour state, beginning with the elections of 1935, started to be looked at from the perspective of the apparently imminent crisis. In view of this, while the idea of an intensive propaganda camping was abandoned, the Czech policy in relation to the ethnic minorities was carefully watched, and the internal integration of the Polish community in the Zaolzie was strongly supported.

Polish territorial self-government has been reactivated 40 years after its abolishment in 1950. During the past period, the powers of self-government were taken over by lrcal organs of central state administration. Subsequently, the latter organs were subject to decentralization. However, due to political reasons this process could not have achieved its objectives. The change of the political system in 1990 could bring self-government back to life. Nevertheless, its formation meets many obstacles. A strong need is felt to work out a new model of self-government, adequate to a considerable increase in social and economic functions of a modern state. The scope of the self-government activity is nowadays much larger than in the past and thus it is no longer possible to reactivate the traditional system of self-government whose activity could be financed from its own revenues. Besides, it is equally difficult to make a self-government system in the Polish socio-economic conditions similar to the one operating in modern West Europen countries, with its wide scope of activity and powers. A particular difficulty arises from the fact that the Polish self-government model must take into account a critical state of economy and budget during the process of implementing the economic reforms. In effect, the Polish self-government system of today retains some elements of mechanisms functioning during the decentralization of central state administration, especially the mechanism of adjusting subsidies for local organs~to the scope of their tasks. Difficulties in balancing the central budget make it impossible for self-government to carry out its functions. Moreover, it turns out that it is far from easy to subsidize the self-government activity without limiting its independence. In such conditions there exists the danger of weakening the position of self- -government and obliterating the differences between self-government and central state administration. The democratic procedure of electing the self-government organs cannot alone be considered sufficient for the realization of aspirations of the local population to decide independently about the satisfaction of its own needs. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016

The Polish Slavophile concepts at the time of the Second World War were part and parcel of the general tendencies and suggestions based on the assumption that Poland's future, political power, and safety will be guaranteed through the tightening of its links with other states of the East-Central and Southern Europe. The said territories were predominantly inhabited by the Slavs, who found themselves in the war time under threat of losing the very foundations of their national and political existence, so it was, in a sense, natural that many theorists and publicists representing various political orientations saw the ethnic affinity of the Slavs as an important factor in bringing together the nations of Central Europe. This did not have to imoly any deep theoretical consequences, but, as in the past, the historical affinities, and the sense of an ethnic solidarity inspired the creation of political programmes and entire historical and philosophical systems based on the utopian conviction that the blood relationship and the cultural and linguistic links will enable the Slavs to unite politically, economically, and even spiritually and to form, together with some non-Slavonic but culturally close nations, akind of Central European community (a federation, a confederacy, a union, an empire etc.), which would also give some new quality to the dvilisational development of the whole international community. Such convictions, based on the myth of the Slavonic unity, could be found in the thought of all the main ideological and political currents of Poland's independence movement, apart from the socialists and the last remnants of Pilsudski's followers, and in many circles existing on the margins of the main political formations. Various political forces had their different, depending on their ideological colouring, models of the Slavonic community and saw differently its tasks, possibilities, and character. The political and military groupings which represented the nationalistic, or national Catholic, orientation, such as the "Secession" National Party, The National Armed Forces, the Confederacy of the Nation, saw the Slavonic ethnic unity as a chance to construct a Greater Poland, and multiply the power of the nation through links with other nations seen as "close in blood and spirit", i.e. mainly the West Slavonic ones. Similar conceptions could encountered among the Christian Democratic, or rather national-Catholic circles (such as the Union, or the Party of Labour) with the difference that they put more emphasis on the reconstruction by the civilisationally still immature Slavonic nations of "the ideals of liberty and Christian ethics", and of international and interpersonal relations based on the Christian morality. For the political forces representing the peasants' movement (the "Roch" Popular Party, the "Orka" Union of the peasants' Labour) the Slavonic idea was a natural completion of the concept of the union of the Saving nations of East-Central Europe, whose population was largely composed of peasants, on the basis of agrarianism. The theories about the dvilisational backwardness of the Slavs combined here with a fascination with the peasantry; and with the belief that the peasants, representing the healthiest, morally and spiritually, part of the nation, and being intimately linked to the soil, can understand better than others the ideals of freedom and democracy. The attitude of the democratic political forces, mainly the Democratic Party, to the Slavonic idea, was, on the other hand, usually devoid of elements of mysticism and exaltation; and might be called the most rational. In this case, the Slavonic community, based naturally on the linguistic and cultural affinities, was to be ideologically founded on the Slavs' understanding of the community of interests, especially with regard to the safety of the Central European region. In the case, however, of the Polish Workers', the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR, and later the groupings connected with the National State Council, the Slavonic idea was understood as the safeguarding of Poland's interests and those of the other states of the region by means of an alliance and close co-operation with the Soviet Union and the Slavonic nations that inhabited it. It is worth emphasising that the Polish concepts of the Slavonic co-operation from the period of the Second World War only rarely postulated that the Slavonic nations should "merge" into one biological and spiritual whole. Instead, we have to do with proposals to form a more or less integrated confederate state or a union of states.