Culture may be understood as a manifestation of rational and free human action; as such it is distinguished from, or even opposed to, nature. All that one does in expressing oneself as human through one’s action is culture. This is the most general, anthropological understanding of culture. Culture can also be taken in a distributive sense; then it is understood as the manifestation of the identity of a given social group, society or a nation. In this sense we speak of an American, Chinese, French or Polish culture. We differentiate particular cultures for we are convinced that they have specific features that make them distinct one from another.

In both the anthropological and the distributive approaches culture is seen as a specific totality. Here we are interested above all in the cultural whole of society and nation, especially of the Polish nation. However, before we pass to more detailed questions concerning this matter, we have first to answer the question of what forms the cultural whole of a society, nation, or any other social group. To put the question in another way we can ask what differs the cultural whole of one group, society or nation from the cultural entirety of another group, society or nation. There are different answers to this question, but all of them may be reduced to three categories which distinguish the different methodological approaches to the problem of social groups, societies, and nations.

Former voyagers, missionaries and early inquirers into culture, as well as present tourists coming into contact with a culture that is new to them describe its elements, especially those they did not meet in their own culture and which strike them with their distinctness. They pay attention first of all to the differences between cultures. They are interested first of all in language, beliefs, rites and customs, literary texts, objects, buildings -- generally speaking with the products of a culture. Today such an approach to culture is specific to ethnographers. As it is easy to describe products of culture and to delineate the borders of their appearance, so they are treated as the main determinative factors of culture; through them are characterized the cultures of societies, minor social groups, cities and villages. From such a view on culture emerged the so called descriptive and enumerative definitions of culture. For example Edward Tylor writes: "Culture or civilization is a complex totality including knowledge, beliefs, art, laws, morality, customs, and all other capacities and habits acquired by men as members of a given society."

Together with the development of research on culture, especially on the cultures of primitive societies, a tendency arose to look into the cultures of all societies and nations first of all for the connections between their elements and for the essence of their integration. But, as notes a leading representative of this investigative approach to culture, Ruth Benedict, such an object of study is beyond the reach of our experience, and therefore it is difficult to comprehend and to determine. This task is even more difficult to perform in the case of developed cultures, of societies having a long and complicated history, than it is with cultures of primitive societies. Culture is seen here not as a set of original elements, but above all as a specific system with its proper and unique organization of these elements.

Since the thirties of the twentieth century this systemic or structural approach has prevailed in cultural research. In every system of culture four categories of elements are distinguished: material-technical, social, ideological, and psychic (emotions and attitudes). These elements are so intertwined as to form a specific harmonious whole. Therefore, a culture of a given society is more than just a sum of products and personal features. According to Clyde Kluckhon, what is essential for a culture are not its elements themselves, but the relations of connection and dependence between them.

The connections between the elements of a culture, the essence of their integration, endow with specific features the human behavior and products of each society. They too determine the specificity and distinctness of a culture. A social researcher pays more attention here to acts of behavior and to their connections than to objects. He or she links culture to traits of personality characteristic of members of a society, to the predominant personal types and to the stereotypes ascribed to it. On the basis of this understanding of culture Ralph Linton defines culture in the following way: "Culture is a configuration of learned patterns of behavior and of their results, whose components are shared and transmitted by members of a given society."

The third systematic approach to understanding culture seeks its significance, that is, the meaning of the culture of a given group, or society. It, too, grasps culture as a system of interconnected elements, but begins from the position that the most important phenomenon proper to these connections is that they endow the particular elements as well as the whole with meaning. It is these connections that determine that in various cultures even identical elements mean something different, evoke different impressions, cause different experiences, and incite different actions.

The connections of elements create specific significative codes, that is, particular elements and their whole systems are understandable only for those who endow them with meaning and who use them as they are used in interpersonal communication. Systemic understanding of culture is here inseparably interlaced with interpersonal communication. Hence, culture is a definite set of specifically interrelated elements, where both these elements and their connections bear definite meanings for the people who use them. Umberto Eco, continuing in this respect the stance of Ferdinand de Saussure, says that "culture is a system of signs used for interpersonal communication."

The culture of a society is formed by these elements and such of their connections that serve interpersonal communication in the frame of this society. They produce a specific net of meanings, woven over generations, in which only those are able to move easily who grow up in it and cocreate it. Cultural products and their connections derive their cultural character from persons who currently are aware of them and use them. In this dependence upon persons who make use of them is rooted the personal character of culture, a trait that no culture is able to eliminate. That is why the culture of each society is just such as are the members of this society or group. On the other hand, the personality of the members of a given community is the same as its culture.

This is a semiotic understanding of culture. Florian Znaniecki was a precursor of this approach. He stressed that we should not examine the elements of culture, or even their connections, but the way they are understood and the role they play in motivating human action, that is, how they present themselves to participants of a given social situation.

Such an approach to exploring culture was not called by Znaniecki semiotic (that is to say, pertaining to significance), but humanistic. Talcott Parsons consistently applied this approach in his works, understanding culture as a specific organization of ideas, models and values, as well as artifacts of action, playing a symbolic and a communicative role. Such an understanding of culture now prevails among researches. They emphasize that it is not material objects, products of art, or ideas that determine the specificity and distinctness of culture of a society -- these may be common to many societies. The determining role falls to meanings attributed to the thoughts and actions of members of a society within which they occur. In this approach culture appears to be a dynamic phenomenon, in an objective as well as in a subjective sense.

Culture is a dynamic phenomenon in an objective sense for in certain periods the same elements of culture and their connections may be vivid and rich in content and play an important role in a society’s interpersonal communication, but in other periods they may even be forgotten. Societies also constantly create new elements of culture and new connections of already existing elements, thanks to which interpersonal communication is expressed in still new forms and consolidated in still new artifacts.

Culture is dynamic in a subjective sense for the same individual may use certain elements of a culture and their connections in interpersonal communication in a more active and creative way in one moment, and forget them utterly, or even reject them in another. For instance for someone in some particular moments of life a cross, a Polish national banner or a wedding ring can bear intense communication with oneself and others, but on other days, or even over many years, these elements may play no role at all.

In such an understanding, culture constitutes for members of each group, of every society a certain universum of symbols. All the individuals that belong to a group or a society grow up and live in it. It encompasses them in all aspects of their lives: it determines values and norms, it shapes their way of seeing themselves and the world, their emotional reactions and behavior, their judgments of the past and their vision of the future, as well as forms of creating and ways of using cultural artifacts. It urges them to pose questions about the sense of life of individuals and societies, about the sense of culture itself.

An individual living in the symbolic universum of his or her society oscillates between: a) an attitude full of adaptation to the symbolic universum, assuming in most cases a form of conformism, and b) an attitude of open rebellion against it, taking most frequently a form of a durable discontent with one’s symbolic universum and its total critique. The most desirable attitude is the creative autonomy of an individual. This expresses itself in acceptance and continuation of the basic elements of an established symbolic universum, in discontent with some of its elements or even in rebellion against them, and in introducing new values and innovative actions. A stance of this kind guarantees the preservation of a cultural identity and a development of the symbolic universum. Each symbolic universum is a work of all its members: of the greatest, most creative artists, as well as of unknown, average individuals, for all realize themselves in it as human beings.

Culture understood as a system, above all as a system of symbolic communication, presupposes the existence of subjects of this communication. Culture is always somebody’s culture. Human subjects create it, communicate it and express themselves in it. They enter into various dependencies (Robert K. Merton) or interactions (T. Parsons). These subjects are, according to F. Znaniecki’s formulation, actors who in acting enter into numerous relations with one another. To put it simply, persons as subjects of communication are interrelated with one another in various ways and form specific social systems, called also social groups or structures.

A social system is a set of interpersonal dependencies, distances, hierarchies, actions in an organized and unorganized form. The essential elements of this system are human persons as subjects and objects of action; the system functions thanks to culture in which it perpetuates itself. Culture forms "a platform of social contact" or, as C. Geertz puts it, its "context." It facilitates and fills with content human interactions, it directs human actions and evaluates them. Without cultural interaction individuals would not be possible, for people would not be actors.

The interdependence of the system of culture and the social system is strongly accentuated by T. Parsons and R. Merton. Both ascribe to the cultural system a unifying, orienting and normative function with regard to the social system. Theirs is a relation of dynamic interdependence. Changes in one system entail changes in the other. Changes in social systems are caused by the occurrence of new social, economic and political situations, not compatible with some hitherto existing elements of cultural systems. Changes in cultural systems are most frequently induced by values and patterns of behavior flowing from other cultures. As a result of changes taking place in one or in the other system there occurs a disintegration that manifests itself in crises pertaining to some of the systems or to both of them. In striving for reintegration also new elements of culture are being formed and new connections between them, as well as new forms of interpersonal communication. If this does not happen a system of culture and the social system collapses.

Systems of culture correspond to given social systems and vice versa. M. Fortes highlights this aspect, writing: "culture is a totality only inasmuch as it is tied up with a clearly distinct social structure." Therefore each social system has its structure; conversely, each culture is related to a concrete social system. The overlapping of these two systems strengthens the specificity and distinctness of both of them. It makes them sufficient for the individuals and groups existing within their frames. The same individuals belong at the same time to a social system and to its system of culture, forming together one sociocultural complex.

By a sociocultural complex we refer here to social groups that are sufficiently rich and creative for members to make versatile development within their frames. Thus we are talking about huge pluralistic sociocultural systems referred to most often as societies -- for instance a Polish, German, Ukrainian, or American society. Most frequently mentioned among factors or notes that play a great role in shaping the complex are ethnic groups (in most cases one nation), religions and groups that managed to create their own independent state.

The Role of Nations in Shaping Sociocultural Systems: Nation may be defined and characterized by means of many and manifold features. Among these the following seem most relevant to our topic:

- A nation is a large social group. Its members are convinced of their descent from common ancestors; they are therefore tied by bonds of blood. This conviction evokes in principle positive attitudes towards their own nation as a totality and towards its particular members; it constitutes an important basis for the vivid character of national bonds. A nation has a common language which enables unrestrained mutual communication by its members, an evident sign of the distinctness of the nation in relation to others.

- A nation occupies a certain territory, or at least dominates it, which contributes to frequent and multiform contacts.

- A nation has its common history and its common treasure of laws, beliefs, costumes, edifices, literary works, songs, heroes, and various material products.

- A nation shares events and experiences, as well as a common destiny, and it is often persuaded about its particular mission among other nations.

Within a nation there exist and interweave with one another multiform groupings and categories of individuals. They influence one another mutually in a direct or indirect way; their mutual relations may or may not be normalized. There are subordinated, often enforced relations, or relationships based on a consensus that has been worked out together, at the roots of which lie common interests; or else there may be mixed relationships, having in themselves something from both of the above mentioned types, which in most cases assume a form of subordination. The population forming a nation is tied by organizational and structural bonds. In this multitude of groups some are more numerous and influential; these play a leading role in shaping the totality of the life of a nation.

A nation having such features is a dynamic group, capable of autonomous development, and forming its own social system and culture. A crucial role in this process is played by leading groups, that is, elites. They endow a nation’s social system as well as its system of culture with final form, creating an appropriate social structure and promoting certain values, norms, patterns of behavior, and material products. Nations want to be sovereign and autonomous in creating their own social and cultural systems. That is why in our contemporary history, where a form of democratic coexistence of nations has not yet been worked out, nations strove, and they still do, to gain their own statehood. Examples are states that have been recently created: Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia. These nations strive to create their own states because it guarantees them sovereignty and autonomy in shaping their social systems and systems of culture. A majority of today’s existing European states emerged on the basis of a nation. Many in Europe shed much blood in their struggle for sovereignty and autonomy. They did not always attain the goal of their struggle, but strengthened their culture, which developed often in spite of the efforts of dominating powers.

The Role of Religion in Shaping Sociocultural Systems. Processes similar to those described above in relation to nations occur also in the case of religion. Its impact in shaping social systems is great, but it plays an even greater role in forming systems of culture. Generally speaking often a nation forming its social system assumes one religion or one of its denominations, for religion is a particularly important factor. It integrates and maintains social systems and systems of culture, and does so for two fundamental reasons:

a) religion has a universal character and contributes to overcoming ethnic and social limits; and

b) religion draws on ultimate reasons, and by the same token provides people with the strongest kind of motivations, not only for the sake of individual sanctification and salvation, but also on behalf of sociocultural systems. Hence the majority of European states acknowledged one religion (or one of its denominations) as established, making it a state religion or at least favoring it among the others.

Nationalization of religion in Europe took place in consequence of assuming the Treaty of Augsburg in 1555. The prevailing majority of states then accepted the principle formulated by this treaty: "cuius regio, eius religio" ("the one in power decides the religion"). In the majority of German lands and in all Scandinavian countries Protestantism was in force; Catholicism was dominant in Austria and France; in Russia the Orthodox denomination already reigned for a long time. The king of Poland and Lithuania, Sigismund II Augustus, holding that "he is not the king of human conscience", did not introduce the Augsburg principle. Therefore on the territory of the Polish Commonwealth, even if its population was chiefly Catholic and Catholicism had a privileged position, there lived and developed communities of different Christian denominations, as well as Jews, Moslems and Karaites.

Religion (in the sense of an ideological system and of an institution) as a factor integrating social systems can ennoble and strengthen actions on their behalf, but can also favor the development of fanatic attitudes, ideologization and politicization of a nation. It then supports, or even initiates, actions directed against other religious and ethnic groups.

Both nation and religion play an important role in shaping sociocultural systems. They can be more or less national and more or less religious. Taking these two criteria into account, we can distinguish three types of sociocultural systems:

Uninational Sociocultural Systems. The social system and system of culture are based on one nation by which both are formed. An example of such a structure is Israel. Here social system, system of culture, nation, and religion are so strictly interconnected that they are identical in the practice of life. These four systems are unified even more strongly by the state. So there is no citizen of the Israeli state who would not at the same time be a Jew, engage in Jewish culture, transmit it to the next generation, and create it. The Jewish sociocultural system does not accept a not-Jew, that is, somebody who ethnically and culturally is not a Jew. It is an exceptionally closed society for the ethnic bond, that is, the bond of blood is an indispensable condition of being a member of the Jewish society. This is a feature an individual must be born with; it cannot be acquired. Affiliation to the Jewish sociocultural system is rather a matter of being attached or ascription than of voluntary membership.

Throughout the ages what changes is only the groups which lead, but always in the frame of the mentioned systems. In ancient Israel it was priests and Levites, now it is business people and politicians. This change is proof of a diminishing role of religion in shaping this sociocultural system. Apart from God -- Jahweh, who hitherto was its basis -- an increasing role is played by a consciousness of the nation’s common destiny, especially of the so-called holocaust from the period of the last world war, which fact and ideology unites Jews dispersed around the world with increasing power. Thus, for instance, the monument of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising commemorating thousands of Jews who died in it plays a much greater role in unifying Jews than the Warsaw synagogue. The museum of the holocaust in Washington probably will mean more for the unity of Jews in America than the most splendid synagogue in the USA, or perhaps even in Jerusalem.

National Sociocultural Systems. The case of Israel is exceptional in the history of currently existing societies, where in most cases the situation is more complex. That is, apart from the basic nation playing a major role in forming a sociocultural system, there exist still other ethnic and religious groups which are of minor or even no importance in this process. Either they are not numerous, or they are not admitted by the leading nation to participate in the entire life of a sociocultural system, or they separate themselves from the leading nation and close themselves in their own sociocultural system. In all these cases minority groups, if they join at all the general sociocultural system, do so in a rather external way; that is, they find a way of living within it without shaping it. They adapt to the social system, but they still remain in their own system of culture. Individuals that are fully incorporated into the totality of a sociocultural system assimilate and cease to belong to the group of their origin which treats them as aliens.

Such a society has an eminently national character. Gradually groups of ethnic and religious minorities melt into it. Such a process took place in the majority of European countries in the XIX century. Classical examples are Prussia and subsequently the Second and the Third German Reich. France also has to be reckoned among the typically national states.

Culture-based Society. Within the structure of a social system there exist various ethnic and religious groups, rather numerous and dynamic. But most often by reason of its significance one nation plays the role of creator of the social system, creates a state and either imposes on other groups features of its own social system and culture, or they joint it voluntarily and spontaneously. In mutual coexistence all ethnic and religious groups progressively form a common sociocultural system, based on assigning or subordinating all groups and categories of individuals to general social interests.

The basic structure of a social system is formed here by a state-creating nation. On the basis of its culture a general social culture is shaped which integrates all individuals and particulars as well as the ethnic and religious elements. But this does not mean that all a society’s members think and feel the same way or that they strive towards identical goals. Ties shaped on the basis of culture are wider and more inclusive than class, professional, or administrative ties, or even than bonds of family and religion which are fundamental for social systems. On the other hand, close interconnections between a general culture, a state-creating nation, and other ethnic or religious groups provide culture with a strong emotional accent and root it in local communities, as well as in its historical context. In cultures shaped in this way, even if the culture of a state-creating nation is dominant, it is enriched by other ethnic and religious groups which are included as well into its frame.

A general social culture preserves regional and environmental diversity. It unites a social system which it dominates in the sense of creating a common symbolic universum, that is, a basis of interpersonal communication. Affiliation to a culture thus shaped, having national traits and maintaining at the same time its universal character, is decided neither by bonds of blood, nor by place of residence. In this type of society and in the frame in which occur the strivings of its constituent categories of individuals and groups meaning is decisive.

Pluralistic Sociocultural System. This society is formed by various ethnic and religious groups. Even if some of them are more numerous and influential than the others, they all have equal rights and are tolerant and open to one another. In principle such a system is supraethnic (that is, supranational) and suprareligious. Its stability and potentials are based not on one nation or on one religion, but on acceptance of higher values by all ethnic and religious groups, by all categories of citizens. These values cannot be too many. The most basic of them seem to be: respect for human rights, the sovereignty of a sociocultural system, safety, liberty, development and welfare. Here it is the social system that dominates the culture. It is more uniform, consistent, and above all operates more efficiently. Consequently, its culture, especially in the domain of its products, is more diversified. Various languages and their dialects continue to be spoken, a variety of literary texts occurs, as well as a diversity of edifices, costumes, customs, songs, and other similar elements. In any case, ethnic groups tend to defend their cultural distinctness, being much more willing to accept a common social system.

Such a sociocultural system is rather a model than a factually realized pattern. In present sociocultural systems some ethnic groups still dominate, imposing their cultures on others. Even societies that constitutionally accepted pluralistic models of culture, such as Canada or Australia, are still far from their realization. In both societies the culture of the English ethnic group dominates and the population of English and Irish descent plays a key role in their social systems. Anglo-Saxon domination is a fact also in the USA, where much is being said about multiculturality. In southern states of this country the leading role is taken over by the Hispanic population.

A question arises, therefore, whether a sociocultural system can be shaped without a leading role being played by some nation or ethnic group in this process. If yes, then that is still a rather distant future.

Mutual relations between a state-creating nation and other ethnic and religious groups in the frame of the same society can take very different shapes: from harmonious coexistence, expressed in mutual toleration and cooperation, to destroy and persecuting one another. This depends on many and diverse factors. Let us highlight here specifically the ideologization and politicization of a nation.

Ideologization of a nation is a transitory attitude in the passage from accepting one’s nation as a basic social and cultural value to elevating it to the rank of the highest value, to ascribing to it perfection and superiority, and to a conviction that the nation has been chosen to perform a mission in relation to other ethnic groups. This attitude assumes forms of ethnocentrism, megalomania, nationalism, xenophobia and chauvinism. Having achieved the highest social and cultural value in the consciousness of its members, the nation claims to be also the highest political value. It then seeks to strengthen its position in the structure of the state in which it exists, as well as among other nations. This tendency is in most cases accompanied by a Manichean division of ethnic groups into good and bad, developed and undeveloped, friendly and hostile. These evaluations entail awakening or even persecuting other ethnic groups in one’s own social system and in the societies of neighboring nations, and an effort to develop an inferiority complex in them. This constitutes a serious obstacle to be proper development of the nation’s own sociocultural system.

Ideologization and politicization of one’s own nation form in principle two radically different types of attitudes towards other ethnic groups: a) separation and isolation, and b) destructive aggression. Between these two extremes there are many intermediate attitudes.

The attitude of separation and isolation manifests itself in cutting oneself off from other ethnic groups, in raising barriers protecting one’s own nation from alien influence, always considered noxious. This is done out of concern to preserve the integrity of one’s nation and to maintain all the positive features ascribed thereto.

The attitude of destructive aggression manifests itself in subjugating, conquering, exploitating, or even exterminating ethnic and religious groups.

Both attitudes may appear simultaneously, as was the case of German national socialism whose concern about the "purity" of the German nation isolated it from other ethnic groups, at the same time subordinating some of them and condemning other groups to extermination. In the case of the development of both one and the other type of attitude -- the more so if both occur at the same time -- the sociocultural system becomes uninational and monocultural. By the same token, it sentences itself to closure and underdevelopment.

This phenomenon occurs in cases of rich and developed cultures, where culture plays an exceptionally active and creative role with regard to the nation, of which it is at the same time its own social system. Culture is more creative and consolidated than its own social system. Such a state of things develops above all in two situations.

In the Situation of a Pluralistic Sociocultural System. Each ethnic or religious group, in order to preserve its identity, is active and creative. They learn how to cocreate culture with other ethnic and religious groups without loosing their identity. By the same token, each maintains its own sociocultural system, being a subsystem in relation to the general system of a society and culture.

In the Situation of Threat Weakening, or even Destroying the Social System by another State. Culture then comes to the fore performing an integrative function in support of the social system. Such a situation can exist over a long period of time, as was the case for instance in Ireland under English domination, in Serbia when ruled by Turkey or in Poland in times of partition. Austria, Prussia and Russia divided Polish territory among themselves and incorporated it into their states. In spite of that, the weakened Polish social system continued to exist. It existed thanks to its culture and the culture then developed strongly, crystallized and became more visibly distinct from the German, Austrian and Russian cultures. The nation lived and developed without its own sovereign social system, but it was sovereign thanks to culture. It is also thanks to culture that an awakening of national awareness took place in the lower layers of the Polish society. The Polish nation in all its social strata became increasingly aware of its ethnicity and cultural distinctness. Hence, even if the state is helpful in the development of a national culture, it is not indispensable. Many nations and their cultures were shaped without the blessings of their states, and often in spite of the state.

The sovereignty of the nation through culture corresponds perfectly to a presently popular conception of a federation of nations. In order for a nation to be able to exist and to develop, it does not have to have a fully self-sufficient state. It can develop also in a federal national union. Its distinctness and permanence is guaranteed in this case not by a sovereign state, but by culture. A confederation of nations with distinct cultural identities reduces conflict between them, which constitutes a sore point in the existence of national states.

The Polish sociocultural system, like all European societies existing today, has been shaped on the basis of one nation and one religion: of the Polish nation and of the Christian religion in its Catholic denomination. But both the social system and the system of culture were formed in creative cooperation with many ethnic and religious groups. The Polish nation, by means of mutual treaties or of hegemony, included into the organism of its state large groups of Slavs and many other ethnic groups. Throughout centuries there dominated a model of multiculturality, with concurrent domination of the Polish culture. Multiculturality became particularly apparent and fruitful beginning with the moment of creation of the Polish Commonwealth and of the Great Duchy of Lithuania.

In the same social system there lived together in relative peace and solidarity Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Germans, Jews, Belorussians, Ruthenians, Tatars, Armenians, Karaites, and many other minor ethnic groups. This multiethnicity often generated tensions and impeded effective functioning of the social system, but culturally it enriched this system to a great extent. Gradually unification of the multiethnic and multireligious society was achieved, in political terms through unions with Lithuania (the first in 1385, the last in 1569), in the domain of religion through union with the Orthodox Church (1596), on the sociopolitical level through endowing Polish, Lithuanian, and Ruthenian noblemen with the same privileges, and on the cultural level through assuming the Polish culture and language first by nobility consolidated in the common fatherland of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and then by townspeople and peasants.

Multiethnicity and religious diversity of the Polish sociocultural system was maintained throughout centuries. Even before the outbreak of the Second World War Poland belonged to the most ethnically and religiously diversified states of Europe. The census of 1931 registered, in a total population of 31,915,800, the following linguistic and ethnic groups: 21,993,400 people spoke Polish (68.9 percent), 3,222,000 (10 percent) Ukrainian, 2,732,600 (8.6 percent) Jewish (Hebrew), 1,219,600 (3.8 percent) Ruthenian, 989,900 (3.1 percent) Belorussian, 741,000 (2.3 percent) German, 138,700 (0.4 percent) Russian, 878,600 (2.8 percent) used other languages or did not declare their native language. Nationality was joined with religion: Poles were most frequently Roman-Catholics, Belorussians and Ukrainians Greek Catholics (Uniates) or Orthodox, Germans Protestants, and Russians Orthodox. Catholics formed the largest group -- 75.2 percent.

After World War II Polish society became almost monoethnic and uniconfessional. Today ethnic minorities constitute about 3 percent of the population. But the traditions of multiethnicity and multiculturality are deeply rooted. Polish culture still is characterized by both a broad openness and a relative closedness as well. Its openness makes it assimilate elements of other cultures, perhaps excessively in recent years; its relative closedness determines the rejection of elements that could threaten its coherence and persistence. Consequently, Polish culture today possesses such a set of elements and interconnections that distinguish it from the cultures of the neighbors with which it is still in touch. Stressing its distinctness from the neighbors’ culture is important, for its difference from the Spanish, American, or Chinese cultures is evident and does not constitute the basis of identification for persons living in the area between the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea, between Belorussia, Ukraine and Germany.

The specificity, strength, and significance of Polish culture became apparent especially during the last two centuries (the periods of partition, Nazi and Soviet occupation, and the post-war period till 1989), when the Polish social system had to function without its own state or without a sovereign state. It was then that the culture united it, protected it against russification and germanization, and at the same time strengthened it. It developed and consolidated to such an extent that today it dominates the social system. Due to this, Poland is not a national state in the sense, for instance, of Germany, France and England, but a state having a national culture. If we attempt to order hierarchically the three mentioned systems, in the case of the German society the order would be: state -- nation -- culture, while in the case of the Polish society it would be: culture -- nation -- state. Strong ties linking Poles to the Polish culture make them still feel Pole even after having lived for many years in other societies as emigrants. They enter relatively easily into new social systems as well as into systems of alien states, but they perdure for a long time in their own cultural system.

Compared to other nationalities, Poles integrate more slowly into new societies, and in many only partially. Not rarely they return to the shores off the Vistula, to their native culture, as did Henryk Skolimowski who wrote:

The most important elements in a culture are its values; they are at the basis of its existence and development. "All cultural phenomena embody some value acknowledged by people." This view is expressed by F. Znaniecki, in whose opinion the world of culture is the world of values. They are primary objects of human experience, irreducible to any categories of the natural sciences. Everything that we call culture is related to them; they determine the culture. They decide about the Polish or German way of life, about a specific way of behavior, about contents and forms of cultural products in Polish or German societies.

What is a value? Today it is one of the most ambiguous concepts. There are many definitions and classifications of values. In the social sciences there are three groups of values: psychological, sociological and cultural. We limit ourselves here to the cultural understanding of values, as this aspect is here of the greatest interest. The cultural approach defines value as: a) objects of a symbolic or a not symbolic character, commonly desired in a given society; b) existential and normative judgments (valuing orientations) commonly accepted in a given society; c) convictions diffused in a given society, determining the desirable judgments and behavior of the members of that society; and d) convictions concerning a system of values and norms held to be desirable for a given society.

The above understanding of values highlights the following features: a) values are transcendent in relation to individuals, that is, they exist independently of them; b) values have a supraindividual and supratemporal character, and therefore are universal; and c) values have binding power.

In the cultural understanding values exist beyond individuals. Individuals learn values, they experience them and either interiorize them or do not; if they accept them as their own, they also realize them. Cultural values often demand from individuals sacrifices and renouncement; yet they generate happiness and bring benefits. An example of this is death in defense of the liberty of the fatherland, faith or justice: it is not the valuable that brings benefit or happiness to individuals, but what is valuable that renders individuals happy and brings benefits.

A cultural value, which is what we mean here, may then be defined in the following way: a socially sanctioned value typical of a certain culture, which is interiorized by their society’s members and helps them make choices; it directs them to their goals and points to means of action; it also strengthens actions in the frame of the same sociocultural domain in which it is rooted. An objective criterion of its significance is its place within a given cultural system of values, or, in other words, its role in this system. A subjective criterion of the significance of a cultural value is its place (role) in the structure of the personality of a concrete individual. From such a definition of cultural values we may draw three deductions.

a) Not all cultural values are equally important for a society, but they form a specific hierarchy. Some of them are so essential that without them a given society would not be what it is; if it lacked them, it would decompose or change essentially. Apart from them, many other values function in a society. They can even be widely spread and popular, but they are not typical. A society loses nothing of its character if they weaken or entirely disappear. The basic criterion of hierarchy of cultural values is the extent to which a particular value serves the maintenance and development of a given society as well as its members, of course in a concrete context with its various conditions.

b) Individuals as well as whole societies in different periods of their lives may appreciate more or less highly some values at different times. This depends above all on the degree of awareness as to their essence, as well as on needs. For instance today people are more aware of a value of their psychic health than were their ancestors, and they know better how to take care of it.

c) The same values may be understood differently and realized in various ways in private life and in the public life of a society. Two factors play a crucial role here: consciousness and external conditions. The same value is realized by individuals fully in certain periods, and only partially (or may even be rejected) in others. For example, an average Pole in times of the partitions or of German and Russian occupation did not work effectively in the state administration sector or in state enterprises, for he was convinced that if he did he would disadvantage his own society. He loafed about, simulating work or even boycotting it. The invaders stated that Poles do not appreciate the value of work, that they were sloppy and lazy. The judgment was in fact overhasty, for the same Poles worked solidly and creatively and were thrifty while working in the private sector, especially while working "on their own".

Cultural values are not given to individuals as ready-made directives for life, they do not impose on actors some clearly settled plan of life, nor do they lay out the way to various kinds of success in society. Being present in society in multiple forms and ways they are recognized, assimilated, deepened, and realized by individuals in individual manners. They play a double role: they stimulate to actions which accord with them and hinder any action that would be contrary to their content. The barrier which cultural values sometimes pose to innovation may be so strong that even the best organized or rationally planned contrary action, even if beneficial for the society, is smashed upon colliding with them. An example of this phenomenon was the unsuccessful attempt to nationalize private farms and organize State Farms (PGR) in Poland after World War II. The new socialist government tried by all available means to put this plan into practice, but the cultural barrier was so strong that the plan failed. State Farms have been successfully organized only on the grounds of former manors of great freeholders who were legally deprived of their property, and on Regained Territories. Altogether such State Farms included only a quarter of all cultivable grounds, the rest of which remained in the hands of private farmers. Polish peasants did not agree to any form of nationalization of their farms. This was unusual in the whole bloc of socialist countries, for in other countries the new governments managed to put nationalization of agriculture into action much more than in Poland. The Polish peasant valued private ownership of his land. He fought for it in the times of partitions. In all the three sectors into which Poland was divided, he defended it to the last. A private farm was for him not only his place of work and his source of income for maintaining his family, but also a symbol of personal freedom and independence and a bastion of his Polish identity. His grounds had for the Polish peasant almost a sacral character, which made it impossible for him to pass them into alien hands.

In the culture of each society some values play a particularly significant role and are valued more highly than others. They constitute the essence of a culture, its specific character. Some authors refer to these values as fundamental, primary or central, others as leading, dominating or core. How we name them is not so important (here we shall use the term "core" or "central values"); what is important is how we understand them. Central or core values in the culture of a given society are those agreed upon by general consensus and which base the organization of a social system and cultural identity. Their removal by means of "modernization" or from domination by another society leads to the destruction of the social structure, to weakening, or even to atrophy of the whole culture. Jerzy Smolicz, analyzing the role of core values, states that

Around such values ideas -- as well as ethical, social, religious and political ideals, beliefs, norms, laws, systems of organization, management, and work, artistic creativity, activities of individuals and groups, patterns of everyday life, literary works, stories, fairy tales, edifices, places of public worship and of national memory, heroes -- all are integrated. These are various cultural products by means of which values perpetuate themselves. Those which most fully embody central values are also the most representative for a given culture; they express its specificity and are its outward emissaries. With the central values and products of the culture are inseparably bound specific states of mind of individuals, such as patterns of emotional reactions, structures of thought, visions of the past and of the future, and attitudes towards their own national group as well as towards other ethnic groups.

The center of a culture is shaped by the whole history of a given society. It determines its specificity and constitutes the basis of its integration, permanence and development. It marks out a specific vision of the past, present and future of the whole society, as well as of individuals and groups living in it; it directs and evaluates their actions and experiences. In its light individuals and the society evaluate everything that is new and strange, both internal processes and the changes going on in other societies. It decides what elements of other cultures are to be accepted, and which of them are to be resisted. A specific trait of a center thus understood is that it is hard to estimate which of its elements are more important, and which are less. All of them are essential; if one were to lack, the shape of the whole would begin to change. The axis of such a center of culture, around which focus all the others, are its values. But this totality is flexible, that is to say, at one time some of its elements come to the fore, while at other times others emerge. So when, for instance, the autonomy of the society is threatened, such values as liberty and sovereignty gain priority, accompanied by all the others: the whole center becomes more vivid. Such cases increase the popularity of national heroes, songs, national works of art and literature and monuments; they intensify religiosity, the sense of community and family, and the significance of children and mothers.

Each society has such a cultural center. Polish society is not exception. J. B. Orzechowski, a publicist for the Polish revolutionary left of the XIX century, described it in the following way: "Sharing undeniable European goals, we have our own virtues, our own character, laws, history, institutions, briefly: our nationality and individuality."

The duty to know and acknowledge the center binds all normal members of a society. Hence, if in Polish society someone is not aware of the elements which build the center or acts contrary to them, evokes such astonished remarks as: "How is it? You are a Pole and you don’t know about this?", or "How can you act this way being a Pole?!"

Passing from theoretical considerations to deliberations about Polish society, we must ask what is the center of the Polish culture, what elements compose it? Efforts at their codification are incessant. These are unusually important, for a relatively precise description of the components of the center of Polish culture would allow one to estimate at least approximately, who and to what extent one belongs to its circle -- whether individuals identify themselves with it and enrich it, or if they are indifferent to it, or even treat it as alien.

Already the above mentioned definitions of the center of Polish culture indicate that the authors analyzing this question are unanimous on some of its elements, but are not in accord as to the others. So the question of what belongs to the center of Polish culture remains open. Let us try to describe it using the three elements mentioned above: a) values, b) products, and c) psychosocial states.

Values and Psychosocial States. The literature on values in Polish culture is very rich and has above all a popular character. An analysis of several dozen works on this subject showed that their authors hold the following values to be typical for the Polish culture: family, family life, home, love of children, an important role of women as mothers, sense of community, sensibility for transcendent values, religiosity, ability to forgive, lack of revengefulness and cruelty, readiness for self-denial and sacrifices (on a spontaneous basis), respect for moral authorities, hospitality, sociability, generosity, magnanimity, openness to values of other cultures, tolerance, honor, intense sense of one’s own dignity, love of freedom, individualism, struggle for the independence and sovereignty of the state, historicism, traditionalism, democracy, distrust towards rulers’ decisions, lack of recognition for power, Messianism, irrationalism, search for unusual things, emotionalism, romanticism, care of ideals, optimism, hope in spite of hopelessness, sense of equality, sensibility to questions of justice and a high appreciation of creative work.

Values enumerated above are certainly firmly fixed in the Polish culture, but it is difficult to treat them all as central (core) values. In order to select these, the following procedure was assumed: a) Among the values enumerated above were chosen those that are the most frequently mentioned by authors of the works analyzed as values typical for the Polish culture; b) A list of the above mentioned values was presented to 56 "judges" (persons of various ages) with a request to choose those that are the most typical for the Polish culture. As a result of this procedure, the following values have been recognized to be the most typical for the Polish culture (this is not a hierarchical order): 1) family, family life, home; 2) community, sense of community; 3) love of children, an important role of women; 4) sensibility to transcendent values and to sacrum, religiosity; 5) irrationalism, emotionality, romanticism; 6) inner freedom, personal dignity, honor, individualism; 7) ability to forgive, lack of revengefulness and of cruelty; 8) hospitality, sociability, generosity; 9) readiness for self-denial and sacrifices, sense of service; 10) love of liberty, patriotism; 11) optimism, hope in spite of hopelessness; 12) openness to other cultures, tolerance, universalism; 13) respect for creative activities; 14) democracy, sense of civil responsibility, and criticism towards ruling forces.

The above values may be acknowledged as central (core) values of the Polish culture. They are permanently and vividly significant within its frame, and in spite of all changes of political and economical conditions, they do not lose their essentiality and relevance. We should add, however, that the values as described them above are psychosocial states of individuals and of the whole society. For instance, hospitality, patriotism and tolerance may be understood at the same time as values and as psychosocial attitudes. They both occur together, for values, if they are accepted, are inseparably joined with experience and acting. In concrete life, it is difficult to separate values from psychosocial states. They occur jointly and are so described; their separation is only a theoretical maneuver.

If, however, we touched upon the question of psychosocial states of Poles, it should be stressed that one of the fundamental states is rationality combined with emotionality. This juncture makes immediate experience and intuition play a very important role in the Poles’ acts of cognition and volition, and charges personal contacts with a rich experiential and emotional load. It should be mentioned also that the reactions of Poles are spontaneous and lively; they are strongly inclined to the past and plan their actions in a rather imprecise way, believing easily in an unspecified future.

Cultural Products. Among products of the Polish culture, strictly related to the above specified values -- known to average Poles, used by other nations to characterize Polish culture, and destroyed, prohibited and concealed by enemies as typical of Poland -- we should list:

- the Polish language (with all its dialects);

- the crowned White Eagle, the white and red national banner, such events as the baptism of Poland, the battle of Grünewald, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the struggle for the existence and subsistence of the nation in times of the partition, as well as of the German and Russian invasions, the nonviolent struggle with the Communist Soviet regime in the post-war years (the "Solidarity" movement);

- the rites and customs of the so called "Polish year", especially Christmas (above all the Christmas Eve supper and Christmas carols), Easter, All Saints’ day, weddings and name day celebrations.

In the history of Polish society, the center of culture often played the role of an ideological system, even replacing government in a way. Efforts were undertaken to keep it this way, namely, to urge Poles who were aware of the center of their culture to themselves discern what is in accord with the Polish character, and what is contrary. This was a basic criterion for shaping ordinary, as well as formal, behavior, and for evaluating events, people and entire political and economic systems. This core of Polish culture prompted noblemen and peasants under the Prussian partition to defend their grounds, to cultivate them solicitously, and to found agricultural companies and banks in order to stay ahead of the Prussians. It said to young girls under the Russian partition: "Remember, there are three categories of men whom you are not allowed to treat as men: married men, priests, and, of course, . . . the Muscovites." Such an apparently insignificant saying constituted a difference of the Polish community on the eastern Polish frontier from the Russian culture, where divorces were allowed, and married priests were normal, whereas in the Polish culture divorces were not accepted, and marriages of priests of the western rite were forbidden. The center of culture impelled Polish women under all the three partitions to wear mourning after the downfall of the January uprising (1863-64) as if they had lost the dearest and closest members of their families, so that they came to parties, or even to balls dressed in black, with iron rather than gold or silver jewelry. The same center that determined that Poland would be the only country in Europe to undertake from the very beginning a struggle with Nazi totalitarianism, and, in spite of the overwhelming prevalence of the enemy and of immense losses, did not give up. When the Communist regime was introduced, the country battled it as well or even more. To a great extent it is thanks to the center of Polish culture that the breakdown of the Communist regime began in Poland and not elsewhere. Communist regimes were more accepted in other Socialist countries than in Poland. It is a very common opinion that the society most adapted to the Communist regime was that of the former Prussia, where the cult of state and respect for its institutions and officers were well grounded. There was much less resistance in the Democratic Republic of Germany where loyalty to the system was better implanted than in the Polish People’s Republic. The centers of the cultures of the two societies were decisive in this regard.

"Identity" is an equivocal term. First of all, we have to distinguish between the identity of individuals and that of social groups. Both of them are important for our area of study and both require further explanation. As individual identity, a concept introduced half a century ago by Erik Erikson, is better elaborated and more univocally understood, we will begin our explanations from this notion.

Individual Identity. Individual identity is most commonly understood as awareness of one’s own traits that contribute to the sense of the distinctness of an individual, as well as of his or her likeness with others. This is associated with a sense of continuity in time and with a consciousness of remaining the same person, in spite of changing conditions and of one’s own development. Due to identity, an individual distinguishes oneself from the world around one, has a sense of continuity of knowledge, experience and action, and interprets oneself in the context of other persons and objects. The individual’s traits are so stable and unique that, knowing him or her, one can foresee without a great risk of mistake his or her actions in concrete situations. This kind of judgments is perfectly expressed in opinions of the type: "it fits him/her", "we could have expected this from him/her," and "it was certain that he/she would say this or act in this way." H. R. Tome draws our attention to the fact that the identity of individuals is shaped in the process of recognizing oneself in the others’ reactions and of anticipating the reactions of the others. In other words, an individual with a properly developed identity knows who one is, what one is like, and knows what one wants and what the others expect. This kind of identity may be called the intrinsic identity of an individual or the identity of an ego.

Psychologists and sociologists stress that individual identity is formed in a long process of socialization. Its content is taken above all from one’s closest environment. One understands its elements in one’s own way, accepts them as one’s own, and acts according to them. Becoming aware of one’s identity, one answers the question: who am I?, at the same time evoking the further questions: where am I from? and what are my roots? These questions refer individuals to groups recognized as their own, with whom they identify more or less, and with whom they are bound through other persons. Above all these groups are family, ethnic (national), and religious. For individuals groups of this type are fundamental. In them the individual personality is shaped and to them it is tied. It can be for instance a Kowalski (Smith) family, a group of Poles, a group of Christians. These groups recognize the individual to be one of their members, and refer to themselves mutually as "we". On the other hand, others count them among this group, and not others. The content of such referents as "his/her", "our", or "alien" is perceived with particular intensity when a given group finds itself in a situation of threat or success, or when an individual that belongs to it is placed outside, for instance away from his or her family, or as an émigré.

Erving Goffman defines the social identity of individuals in a different way. According to him, it is a process of stereotypization and stigmatization of individuals, consisting in ascribing to them certain features and categories. Hence, on the basis of certain traits perceived in an individual, we would define him or her as a Pole, an American, or a German. We therefore have a conviction concerning what set of basic features a typical American or a typical Pole should be endowed with. Upon meeting someone, we state that she or he has these features to such an extent that we can count her or him among Poles or Americans, that is, we identify her or him with some concrete group.

The difference between these two approaches to the social identity of individuals is clear: the first presents the social identity of individuals as an intrinsic phenomenon, while the other (Goffman’s) presents it as a phenomenon existing beyond individuals, but directly pertaining to them. We could say that it is an identity ascribed to individuals. Both understandings of the social identity of individuals complement each other and, in reality, these two aspects occur together. Observing, for instance, an individual from a Polish family living in the United States, friends refer to him/her as a Pole on the basis of perceived features, but the person themselves do not have the sense of belonging to the Polish ethnic group. On the contrary, it may happen that third party observers hold an individual to be an Englishman, whereas the person has the feeling of belonging to the Polish ethnic group in America. Or it can happen that the individual’s sense of belonging to a given ethnic group and the identity ascribed by the others are in accord with each other.

Identity of a Group, or Collective Identity. In a most general way we can describe the identity of a group as follows: it is a similar mode of understanding, experiencing, behaving and acting by members of a group in the frame of a present generation, as well as in the life time of many generations. Maurice Halbwachs associates the identity of a group above all with collective memory. Group members have therefore a sense of community and continuity in time and space. They express it most frequently in such forms as "we", "our", "we know", "we feel", "we strive". The sense of community and continuity allows, of course, individual understanding and experience of particular values and products of culture, as well as a specific dissimilarity of psychosocial states. But in a group there exists something like a collective consciousness and a common thought structure, collective feelings, systems of work and action, and a collective image of oneself and of neighbors. In a group there are so many common elements that together they form as it were a kind of a collective soul for thousands and millions of people living in the present, past, and future in the frame of a given space. As individuals outside and whole groups perceive this collective identity, and at the same time perceive a dissimilarity with regard to themselves, they call them "aliens" or "strangers".

In the case of the identity of groups, as well as of the social identity of individuals, we have to do with two pairs of elements:

a) objective and subjective; and

b) self-defining and being defined by other individuals and groups.

The objective element in both cases is the center of the culture. It exists independently of the will and experiences of individuals, or even sometimes in spite of their personal life goals. It constitutes an invariably given proposal for their cognition, striving, and actions. Fluctuation in the members of a group associated with its uninterrupted identity is particular evidence of the fact that there exist in it elements that are more permanent than changing individuals who subjectively identify with the group. Individuals, as well as whole groups, embody in their own way the centers of their culture. They have an image of its importance, they guard it and try to make it vivid, for it is the foundation of the bonds existing within a group, its permanence and development. Because the social identity of individuals as well as the identity of a group are supported by the center of its culture, it may be called the cultural identity of both groups and individuals. This is a theoretical distinction, for in concrete life they occur jointly and most frequently they are described together.

Cultural identity has many functions with regard to both individuals and groups. As the most important we can enumerate the following:

Cultural Identity Roots Individuals in Social Life. Cultural identity, occurring at the same time in individuals and groups, constitutes in a sense a bridge between them, joining the individual and the social. It binds inseparably the individual existence of an individual and one’s private life with the communitary existence of a group. In turn, the communitary existence of, for instance, a family, national, or religious group realizes and expresses itself in the actions and personality features of individuals. So if one says of oneself "I" and the same time: "I am a Pole," "I am a Christian," and others define one just as "Pole" and "Christian", yet, one’s existence is not double: individual and national or denominational, but homogeneous. It has a peculiar form of simultaneous existence in two dimensions that are hard or even impossible to abandon. It is not easy to renounce one’s being "Polish" or "Christian," and if one decides to do so, one accepts being an "American," "German," Protestant or atheist. This passage, which may be called a second birth of one’s cultural identity, is often accompanied by various disturbances, impairments, or even psychic disorders. The original group often excludes such individuals from the set of its members, labeling them as "traitors" and "renegades," and counts them among "aliens".

Belonging to some group, taking root in it, is a basic human need. In this need man’s social nature is expressed. Simone Weil in her judgment on this matter goes so far as to state that "rooting and having roots is perhaps the most important and the most forgotten need of the human soul. At the same time it is a need that is very difficult to define. Human beings are rooted if they participate in an active and natural manner in the existence of a community preserving some treasures of the past and gifted with a sense of tomorrow." So if one already has taken roots in a certain group, it would not easy for them to pass to another; it is not be easy to abandon one’s original identity in favor of a new one. There is, however, a possibility of combining elements of both identities, but this is a difficult process demanding conscious control on the individual’s part and favorable external circumstances.

Cultural Identity as a Link between Cultural and Social Systems. There is a close dependence between social systems and systems of culture, but -- as we have already said -- they are not the same. Cultural identity joins these two elements, and at the same time allows actors to belong to both of them in a different manner. Some people can identify themselves very strongly with their system of culture, but not so much with their social system. Polish emigrants abandon their own social system, but take the Polish culture with them; they still live in it and even develop it while working and acting in the German or American social system. But in normal situations cultural identity supports the individual’s participation in both systems at the same time. Social systems develop and perpetuate themselves particularly through their subjective elements. So when streets, buildings, places of work, organizations, social institutions, trees and flowers, that is, the basic elements of a social system are destroyed by some natural cataclysm or war, people living within its frame rebuild them with considerable effort, often with great sacrifices and much care. Many cities were thus rebuilt many times in their history, for example Warsaw, the capital of Poland. This happens because to these places, with their natural beauty and social infrastructure, are linked the ideas, experiences, strivings and visions of their inhabitants. These subjective elements of cultural identity urge them to reconstruct their objective world, to which they are permanently bound. Therefore, cultural identity causes a group to last in spite of changes, often in spite of its cruel destiny. It expands or reconstructs its environment, preserving something from its former form and creating something new. Cultural identity prompts groups to accommodate their environments to their developing needs, but also to protect these environments from destruction.

Cultural Identity as a Factor of Interpersonal Communication. Cultural identity, inseparably related to the symbolic universum guarantees at the same time, and certainly at least facilitates, mutual understanding between persons belonging to the same social group. A Pole communicates perfectly with another Pole, even if one of them lives on the shores of Vistula and the other in Chicago or in Vilnius. In interpersonal communication, it helps to transcend both space and time. So today’s Poles wholly understand those Poles who came to the rescue of Vienna, who fought for the Polish school and religious liberty under the Russian and Prussian partitions, who did not surrender the post of Westerplatte in spite of overwhelming numbers, who struggled for their Polish identity in the steppes of Kazakhstan or in Lvov. If they found themselves in similar situations, they would do exactly the same.

Interpersonal communication in the frame of a symbolic universum is something other than communication for practical and productive purposes. It is easy to imagine two engineers, a Pole and a Japanese, who fully understand each other in the domain of constructing bridges or cars. In these areas of competence they understand each other certainly better than do their compatriots who are historians or classical philologists. But when they both sit in the home of one, be it Japanese or Polish, in spite of mutual benevolence they have to deal with many incomprehensible symbolic acts and objects. At home they would communicate better with any of their compatriots than with a well educated stranger. Having the same cultural identity creates a climate that in many aspects facilitates interpersonal contacts.

Cultural Identity as a Selective Mechanism. Cultural identity acts as a sort of a filter or -- better -- a living membrane, recognizing at any moment which elements should be let in and which should be barred. Such a function is played by cultural identity, especially with regard to alien elements. It decides which of these elements are to be included in the patrimony of a national culture, and which should be treated only as a passing fashion. Secondly, cultural identity plays a selective role towards the cultural heritage of its own society. It approves and develops some of its elements, and rejects, or even combats, others. For instance the value of tolerance is deeply rooted in Polish culture. This is why all actions contrary to it are very sharply attacked, more violently than in societies in whose tradition this value is not so strong.

Cultural identity better performs its selective function if it is conscious since its realization implies a judgment about one’s own as well as about an alien cultural heritage, and about its distinctive elements. Underdevelopment of consciousness in this regard threatens to weaken cultural identity. If this lack of consciousness regards the center of culture and lasts for a longer time, that center becomes less and less understandable, loses its meaning and significance, drops out of interpersonal communication and dwindles. This may result in weakening a cultural identity, that is, in a change of the culture of a society, or even in its disintegration. This selective function of identity is exceptionally important in an era of great changes.

The cultural identity of ethnic (national), religious, or family groups is a dynamic phenomenon: it can develop or wither. To a great extent it depends on the following factors.

Richness and Vitality of Centers of Culture. The vitality of centers of culture manifests itself above all through the fact that these centers, as a whole or through their particular elements, inspire understanding by members of the society, stimulate positive experiences and feelings, shape bonds between people and stimulate them to action and reflection on cultural products. In concrete social life this makes itself manifest, among others ways, through the development of language and customs; through appearance of new ideas, strivings, and events uniting a large number of citizens; through sustaining regional cultures, the development of social consciousness, the building of visions of the future; and through overcoming conflicts and crises.

Harmonious Union of Past, Present and Future. Each society has its history, but it is not a living tradition in every society. It loses this property when in the collective consciousness there appear lacunae or "blank spots," as an effect of eliminating from general education disreputable, shameful, or even horrid events, when the sole task of general education is to provide students with unalloyed story of "social success". Complete knowledge of the past helps better to understand and shape the present, as well as pointing one toward the future. "If we are to know where we are going we have to know where we come from."

So is it also with a nation, as emphasizes Norman Davies. "A nation without history wanders as a man without memory." Joachim Lelewel convinced his compatriots about this truth over 150 years ago, writing: "weak is an edifice whose foundations are not rooted in the ground." So he advised the Seym of 1831 to learn "how to combine the past with the future." Full historical consciousness is essential because its content is composed of knowledge of the group, of acquaintance with its dominant values, norms, and patterns, as well as with a society’s weak points.

The knowledge of the history of all that is positive and negative in a society constitutes its cultural identity. The continuity of history is particularly important in a society in which any type authoritarian regime comes to power. "According to G. Orwell, totalitarian regimes bury history in the tomb of memory." They do it deliberately in order to cut the society off from proven effective methods of struggle with such regimes, and in order to limit access to material that could serve the society as a basis for elaborating models of its development more optimal than the one actually in practice.

The Self-image of a Society. According to Levi Strauss, "each culture has its theoreticians." Completing this statement, we could add that each society has its elites. Individual theoreticians and collective bodies of elites together form a full image of their sociocultural system; they determine the center of its culture. They point out factors of development as well as impending threats. They locate their society among others, defining its specific roles, or even its specific mission. So French theoreticians of culture advance the idea that France is a carrier of civilization for countries of Africa and Asia. German theoreticians of culture formulated a thesis that continues to emerge that Germans are carriers of cultures for the East. The idea of being a carrier of culture even justified their invasive wars with Slavic tribes and states. Theoreticians of culture in Poland, on the other hand, created a doctrine of "the rampart of Christianity," first in regard to the flood of Islam, and recently to the Communist invasion. There were also ideologists of the Polish Messianism who claimed among others that Poland, with its history and culture, is a carrier of higher values for the morally and spiritually decaying countries of Europe.

The image, doctrine or ideology of one’s own sociocultural system are important, for they offer a specific form of social and private life. This does not at all mean that all members of a society follow its patterns. Yet it binds all in a way, at least in this minimal sense that it rewards behavior consistent with its patterns and stigmatizes contrary behavior. This suggests what kind of action is appropriate and what is to be avoided.

The Balance between the Care by a Society of its Own Cultural Identity and Openness to the Cultural Identity of Other Societies. Care of a society’s own cultural identity may cause a dimunition of openness for other cultures, or even complete closure to them. Meanwhile, openness is indispensable for the development of one’s own cultural identity. "In isolation culture shrivels and perishes," concludes the Mexican Declaration. This thesis has been confirmed by the results of Ralph Linton’s research on the development of cultures. According to him, a particular culture draws only about 10 percent from its cultural heritage, borrowing the other 90 percent from other cultures, transforming or integrating the borrowed elements into its own body. A society’s own cultural identity must then remain continuously in touch with other cultures; it must be in dialogue with them. This need for the Polish culture was acknowledged, e.g., J. Lelewel when he counseled the Seym in 1831 to "relate our own Polish cause to the strivings of the century."

Sense of Threat. A sense of threat may be caused by external pressure, or any kind of interference with a sociocultural system with the intention of changing, taking advantage, or even destroying it. The threat may be real or imaginary. All these situations evoke counteractions that help the members of a society define precisely the center of their culture that deserves defense by all possible means. This, in turn, consolidates society and strengthens its cultural identity. All too many examples of this phenomenon are provided by history. At least two taken from the most recent period deserve review.

Germans, passing through a crisis of identity after the World War II, used foreigners to revivify it. Since the beginning of the eighties many nationally oriented politicians represent alien residents living in Germany as a threat for the German society, emphasizing the otherness of their culture and making of them the primary problem of internal state policy. These actions consolidated Germans, urged them to take deeper interest in their culture, to define its specific character and distinctness in relation to foreigners.

Jews in Poland after the World War II actually lost their identity. It began to revive only after the so-called March events in 1968, when a certain number of Polish citizens of Jewish descent, unknown to this day, were removed from their posts and quit Poland. These facts were widely reported and made vivid in the public mind. A sense of threat to Jews in Poland was artificially created with the impression that Jews were persecuted and forced to leave Poland en masse. It could not have been a great number since according to yearbooks the years 1968 and 1969 were not marked with any particular emigration of Polish citizens. In 1968 17,201 persons permanently left Poland; in 1969 it was only 22,473 persons, a number comparable to the year 1967, when 21,857 persons emigrated. Neither the reasons of the anti-Jewish campaign of 1968, nor the number of Jews that left Poland at that time are exactly known to this day. But creating a situation of threat turned out to be very fruitful for revival of the ethnic identity of Jews who were so integrated into Polish society that their neighbors and associates living or working next door did not know their origin. Since that time a revival of Jewish identity can be observed, and is now becoming a renaissance.

Polish Cultural Identity. The problem of Polish cultural identity achieved in recent years has become one of the most urgent subjects of literary and historical analyses, as well as of sociological and psychological research. Questions like: "who are we and what are we like?", "what is our origin and where are we going?", "what are we to hold to, and stand for?", "what can be abandoned without abandoning ourselves?" today require a new and more complete answer, for the reality in which we live becomes less legible for us or even incomprehensible, more divided and uncertain. This atmosphere is caused by rapid political changes and by economic transformations, by the development of general and technical sciences, by a broad opening to other cultures and the development of a mass culture that mixes forms and contents from different epochs and cultures, and creates new ones on their basis. We feel that something is going on with our cultural identity or that something can happen to it. Realizing its changes and its threats, we are more than ever aware of its value; we defend it and look for mechanisms to support its development in entirely new conditions.

The question of the cultural identity of Polish society seems to be particularly interesting, perhaps even more than other European countries, for in recent decades we deal with phenomena which confront Polish cultural identity with serious challenges. Among such phenomena we would enumerate the following.

Instability of the Human Factor. In the period of World War II Polish society lost more than 6 million citizens, and during two post-war generations its population increased by 13,949,000 (from 23,930,000 to 37,879,000). In the face of the present population (around 38 million in 1992) this means that almost half of Polish society was replaced during two generations.

In this period the Polish population was very mobile, both spatially and socially. This mobility was based on three factors: changes of the political system, displacement due to border changes, and industrialization and urbanization characteristic of the epoch. Change of the political system elevated thousands of people from lower social classes and placed them in responsible offices, while demoting other thousands. Industrialization and urbanization changed the proportion of village to urban population in the lifetime of two generations. In 1988 the percentage of urban population (61.2 percent) was close to that of village population right after the World War II (62.2 percent in 1946). Changes of boundaries of the Polish state evoked a real migration of nations. Millions of people moved inside the country from east and south westward and northwards. A huge number of citizens left: from 1952 to 1989 1,094,800 people emigrated from Poland.

These phenomena point to an extensive instability of the human factor, that is, of the group that creates and transfers cultural identity, and hence is of crucial importance for its preservation and development.

Official Change of the Profile of the Culture. In 1945 a socialist political system, based on the Marxist-Leninist ideology and on alliance with the USSR, was imposed by force on Polish society. This meant the rejection or even the persecution of an essential part of Poland’s cultural heritage, shaped on the basis of Christian values and connections with Western culture. The new culture, called socialist, imposed by all possible means and methods, was essentially different from that rooted in the Polish society throughout centuries. The greatest discrepancies occurred in the following domains: a) the new culture rejected the absolute value of God and the transcendence of man; b) it proclaimed the priority of the state above the human person; c) it raised struggle to the rank of a principle of social life and development; d) it instituted the primacy of the state above private property; e) it did not recognize the value of the past and of tradition, and even neglected them; and f) it attributed to the state the role of the sole patron of culture and completely subordinated to it all artistic and cultural activities.

In 1989, thanks to the firm nonviolent and solidary struggle of the society for sovereignty and democracy, the country underwent a change of political systems -- from atheistic totalitarianism to democracy. The new system searches support in an utterly different, even if inconsistent, ideology. One part of the society pleads for Christian principles of social life, another part for liberal and areligious rules and foundations, and still another is faithful to the socialist ideology.

In consequence of these changes many lacunae appeared in the social consciousness of many significant social groups. Uncertainty occurred as to what is true and what is wrong, along with mistrust towards authorities and lack of some clear vision of the future. Such psychosocial attitudes do not support the formation of cultural identity.

Deliberate Weakening Layers of Society Important for Culture and the Formation of New Cultural Elites. Extermination by both invaders in the years of the World War II -- Germany and USSR -- as well as the actions of the new socialist government in the years directly after the war almost completely destroyed strata of the populace important for social and cultural life: landed proprietors, gentry, bourgeoisie and rich townspeople. Above all the intelligentsia, which since the XIX century played a leading role in Polish society, was vitiated in this process. As a result of World War II, one third of all instructors in Polish schools in 1939 and almost one fifth of the diocesan clergy had been killed. After the war a majority of the former intelligentsia were removed from the official culture-creating milieus as well as from institutions of culture, or they were put under strict control. The new political order created a new social stratum destined to shape a new sociocultural system. This was the Polish United Workers’ Party. In 1988 there were 2,132,043 members, exceeding by almost half a million the number with university education (1,679,000 in 1987), that is, the intelligentsia. New people succeeded to important offices in all domains of social life. Culture had been politicized and threatened to infect the cultural identity of the Polish society.

The phenomena described above were dangerous for the Polish cultural identity, for they implied a so called de-radication, detaching culture from its ground understood literally and symbolically, that is, from our whole heritage. It is easy to maintain a family, regional, or national culture when people from one generation to another live in the same buildings, work in the same factories, and stick to the same structures and organizations; when all material possessions pass on to children and grandchildren; and when people are able to find entries with annotations on their birth, baptism, or wedding in parochial (or municipal) registers. It is, however, much more difficult when people move and their life environment is destroyed. Then the sociocultural system has consciously to maintain and develop its identity. Culture then becomes a main link between generations and grounds people who are in transition. Cultural identity has in such cases to gain its autonomous existence and to become not only a factor providing continuity of culture, but also a culture-creating factor. This was the case of the Polish society after World War II.

The phenomena mentioned above tore at the social system for a certain time. It damaged the system deeply in some domains, but did not manage to change Polish cultural identity. In spite of many changes in the domain of culture, generally speaking the cultural identity of Poles was the least damaged in comparison to neighboring countries which underwent similar situations. Moreover, in overcoming these difficulties it emerged strengthened, just as in times of the partitions.

Cultures delineate borders no less distinctly than do political treaties, and these borders are less expensive than political boarders. Without walls, barbed wire, watch-towers, soldiers and customs officers. People know where one culture ends and where the other begins. Even if the borders of cultures are made perceivable by dividing lines, the zones of contact or, to put it more precisely, of blending are relatively wide.

With the ability to travel and relatively easily to cross the borders of cultures we sense that we are more sure of ourselves and more unrestrained in our own symbolic universum, looking for a job or an apartment or shopping. Communication with the others also becomes easier. Recognition of this phenomenon entails greater interest in one’s own, as well as in alien, cultures. Culture is no longer taken for granted; there is increasing need to study it and consciously to cocreate it. Also the phenomenon of cultural identity ceases to be a quasi-automatic process binding individuals with the societies in which they were born and educated. Of course, birth and education still play a crucial role, but the cultural identity of individuals goes beyond these. It points toward the development of societies which individuals themselves choose and shape as their own, and which they find satisfies their needs and desires. This possibility -- much more frequent now than before -- imposes on societies a duty to pay greater attention to culture. It must allow all members of society to breathe freely, to produce, to be creative and to develop. It must be a culture rich in content and forms, and above all benevolent towards all people so that as human beings all feel well therein.