Sociability, hospitality, kindness, merriment and benevolence, honest openness was called "humanness" by the ancient Poles. It was expressed in socially accepted ways, forming the whole codex of social manners. Conforming to this codex was identical with manifesting good manners and humanity. It bound nobility (szlachta), which was more numerous in Poland than in other European countries, but through imitation it penetrated also other social layers. Manorial manners were held to be better and were the object of the ambition of young generations of peasants. Also in the town a leading pattern of behavior was the noblemen’s mode, and then the post-noblemen’s style of life and the forms of social life associated therewith. Hence, "humane" behavior may be recognized as a universal model of the old Polish culture functioning in the collective consciousness. It was, besides, very attractive for many visitors coming from all over the world.

Misanthropes were not liked, nor were people who were closed and gloomy. Every opportunity was used to organize social reunions. People banqueted, debated and prayed together; together they worked and feasted alike. Every great feast was at the same time a social reunion, and there were many feasts, both ecclesiastical and familial. Elder family members were always charged with the duty of seeing that everything happened according to binding custom.

Guests in old Polish houses were welcomed with joy. They brought news from the world, even if it was the closest neighborhood, new tales, new ideas, fresh ardor of play. Zygmunt Gloger writes that "there was among the Polish nation an old and common custom that in gentlemen’s parlors as well as in peasants’ chambers on a table -- in manors with a white table-cloth, in peasants’ houses with a towel -- there always lay bread and salt with which guests were welcomed according to ancient manners. When in noblemen’s houses they ceased to keep bread on tables in the living rooms, there remained, however, special haste in bringing food just after the guest’s arrival. In many villages in Mazovia and Podlasie, however, according to the old ways preserved by the folk, bread remains on the table, covered with a white or a grey home made table-cloth".

Also common in Polish manors was the custom of leaving several empty places at the table for those who could arrive.

"Almost never in Poland is a travellers refused help when in need", wrote J. J. Kausch, a German travelling through Poland in the second halfth of the XVIIIth century.

There were also cases of importunate and excessive hospitality: anecdotical gestures of taking wheels off the guests’ coaches, hiding luggage, besotting coach drivers, etc., as well as compelling quite accidental voyagers to visit one’s home in spite of their reluctance and violent objections. Ignacy Krasicki in Pan Podstoli, directed his critique against such customs. In the middle of the XVIIth century people sued importunate hosts in court, as for instance a certain Golski who "stops honest gentlemen on their way, draws them back, catches them, holds, and makes them prisoners". But this sort of excessive behavior was exceptional. The majority preserved moderation in practicing the virtue of hospitality. Ludwik Krzywicki explains its commonness in the times when, instead of being sold on the marked, fruits of the soil were stocked in granaries and pantries by the fact that "thrift happened then to be prodigality, for it rendered gifts of nature to insects instead of people". This factor may also have played a role, but certainly together with such other reasons as the needs of entertainment, common play, and hearing news from the world.

The old Polish hospitality was largely supported by religion. This fact is testified for instance by a popular Polish proverb: "When a guest comes, God comes". This proverb that probably emerged from the pre-Christian Slavic culture, founded on ancient beliefs and legends about wandering gods and their mysterious messengers. The whole world of Polish customs was strictly related to religion, and even -- as was the case of festive ceremonies -- with the liturgy of the Catholic Church. Guests in ancient Polish houses were a blessing and were to be welcomed with respect and generosity even if they were personal enemies of the host. Aleksander Fredro in his play "Revenge" (Zemsta) presents this feature excellently in a scene depicting the meeting of two quarreling neighbors in the house of one of them:

My ancestors’ great God and Lord

If he came to my thresholds

He is all under your shield

Old Polish hospitality is nothing unusual in our cultural region. As an example I will mention here only a certain Moldavian farmhouse from a Skansen museum in Bucharest. Just before its entrance, near the gate, there is a little roofed cabin set on a post as a shelter for bread, cheese and a pot with water or milk (merindar). Peasants, going out to work in the fields, provided in this way food for persons passing through their village, tired wanderers coming from afar. Passing by a temporarily empty cabin, they were yet able to satisfy their hunger and thirst.

In our country the most frequent guests, both in cabins and in manors, were neighbors. In the old szlachta houses there were people from the "close neighborhood", but also from the "far neighborhood". The noblemen’s Polish Republic was a federation of neighborhoods; informal neighborly bonds were strong and of great importance from the sociological point of view. In villages far away from the cities the fact of having neighbors was one of the essential conditions for a good frame of mind. "Don’t buy estates, buy neighbors"; "A good neighbor is better than a distant brother"; "A bad neighbor stands for an enemy", "Have a bad neighbor? Either win him over or escape!" -- these proverbs, like many other, expressively illustrate this thesis.

A kind, friendly neighbor was always cordially welcomed and generously received. Any brother in the nobility, if he had problems staying in an inn, (which in those times were relatively few), came to the nearest manor and was cordially welcomed. It sometimes happened that such an accidental guest attached himself to the home where he felt as if he were a member of the host’s family; he stayed then longer, and sometimes even for long. Lonely people, without their own families, willingly prolonged their stay, and sometimes even stayed for good as so called residents. They enjoyed the status of permanent guests, without definite duties, but usually served as master of ceremonies during larger celebrations. They also taught the youth riding, fencing, and foreign languages.

If the arrival of some guests had an official character, the welcome, the whole visit, and the farewells all were defined by numerous social conventions. Failing to conform to them might badly insult visitors. So guest should be awaited, watched for from afar, and welcomed on the threshold by the hosts in their Sunday best. Then, amidst compliments and fussy ceremonies, guests should be solemnly led into the living room. Often official guests were welcomed with speeches, to which they were obliged to answer in the same way; it was similar during the farewells.

Guests were bound not to abuse their hosts’ hospitality and the privileges they were guaranteed by custom, but which might be very embarrassing for housemates. The troubles and problems of very hospitable hosts are reflected in popular proverbs: "You will be quickly fed up with frequent and long-staying guests"; "Guests and fish stink on the third day"; "Guests, do not interfere with your hosts’ business, stick to yours". Yet generally these troubles and problems were patiently supported under pressure of the custom, even if sometimes it happened that "guests . . . unpunished ransacked the house".

Social life demanded observing a certain order in paying proper reverence to everybody.

Offending somebody by forgetful or deliberate failure to pay due reverence, too familiar and informal greeting, "unpolitical" or unpolite expressions, occupying at the table a more distinguished place than somebody else, inviting a woman to dance without regard to social hierarchy -- all this was an offense, sometimes a reason for a squabble or even for a challenge to a duel.

Opportunities for social meetings, addresses and speeches were plentiful. They were provided by common hunting, but also by political life (local seyms, civil gatherings), social promotion, departures, and returns from distant journeys. Many occasions for social gatherings were created also by familial solemnities, such as weddings, births of descendants, burials, various anniversaries, jubilees, and hosts’ name-days. Among annual feasts, above all Christmas and Easter brought numerous relatives together.

A special custom practiced on the occasion of social meetings was the exchange of gifts. "As a proof of sentiment, friendship, and devotion people brought gifts that were to be requited in the same way. Depending on the occasion, wealth, and generosity, gifts ranged from details received as souvenns to considerable fortunes falling by a magnates’ grace upon lucky recipients".

People presented gift to one another even without occasion, for instance as a result of a sudden burst of joy and generosity by wealthy hosts, breaching the limits of moderation. Krasicki writes in one of his satires:

Drunk mob shrieks and quarrels, and plunders the house

The house master is pleased; he lets all his guests in

One took a horse with saddle; another, for service,

takes the host’s grandfather’s sword won in glorious wars

Still other drags a golden carpet . . .

Ladies or young girls offered to their adorers minor gifts, such as handkerchiefs, self-made pillows, etc., and bachelors brought flowers to maids.

Social life imposed various duties on participants of meetings. They had to behave in accord with principles of etiquette binding in the frame of noblemen’s social culture, to render to everybody due respect, and besides to be nice, interesting, cheerful, full of initiative, and to animate others with their sense of humor. People chatted for long hours on autumn and winter evenings, diced, played cards or -- less frequently -- chess or draughts. They amused themselves with auguring, lottery, playing blindman’s buff or other such games, sometimes organizing masquerades, theaters, and ballets. In a mixed society the most favorite play was dance. "People danced a lot and in various ways, starting from slow and ending with most furious dances. In manors dignified dances were danced; in taverns, vigorous and brisk". The most beautiful and representative dance was "the Polish dance", or, as we say today, the polonaise.

For major feasts musicians were hired from villages, and sometimes from towns. At minor feasts, their musical frame ensured some manor habitant playing lute, cymbals, violin or viola d’amore, rural pipe, or piano. Sometimes to villages came wandering artists, blind lyrists, and singers.

Temperance and abstinence, these dominant apollonian features of the old Polish culture, supported by formerly commonly respected mores, keeping under restraint jolly banqueters, were threatened or ousted by elemental, dionysian dissolution of times of the Saxonic dynasty (XVIIth-XVIIIth century), not universal, however, and not greater than in many other countries of Europe at that time.

In a later period, during enslavement, in the times of uprisings and oppression the Polish way of banqueting approached again apollonian patterns. The old Polish repast depicted in Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz excellently shows this ideal pattern (model). Real behavior in various milieus followed this model to a greater or lesser extent. But even in this period happened deviations and outrages.

Mores and customs common for the Polish szlachta spread on other social layers, and the awareness of distinctness in the domain of mores became a new element -- apart from community of language and religion -- serving to define national identity. It constituted a factor of patriotic consciousness, it became an essential element shaping the modern Polish nation, a bond uniting different social strata of the ancient Poland. Old Polish mores constitute, besides, not only a heritage after the noblemen’s culture, but also stem from the ancient folk elements and are derived from various, often precious, assimilated alien patterns.

This legacy prominently appeased and humanized human relations in Poland at the time of enslavement. Thanks to this inheritance, in spite of the political catastrophe, our country was inhabited in the XIXth century by a "merry and polite people". "Poland, crossed out from the political map of Europe, could boast of progress in mores, of democratization of cultural life and customs, of its brave striving towards further achievements and transformations".

And what about today’s Poles? Are they still "humane"? Are we sociable, hospitable, kind, merry, honest, open, and benevolent? Today -- that is, in the period of previously unheard of technical achievements in the world, and at the same time, in the period of an increasing distance between technical development and development of mores and morals. Today -- that is, in the time of dehumanizing totalitarianisms and of various forms of practical materialism that destruct culture. In the Polish context, it also means: in the period of hope for a better future after the time of "mistakes and distortions". Our hope did not perish, Poland did not become a Dantean hell ("lasciate ogni speranza") to a great extent thanks to its culture, Christian par excellence, and thanks to our "humanness" transferred from one generation to another.

The degree of cohesion of intergenerational family bonds is greater today than before, even if durability of relations between generations is less. It is this cohesion that guaranteed and still guarantees continuity of intergenerational transmission of culture, including also patterns of social life, of which family was always a center.

Also today foreigners coming to our country highlight the same features as those that they noticed in the XVIIIth or in the XIXth century: our sociability, hospitability, cordiality, kindness, and honest openness. They do not speak often about merriness. And, in fact, people are today more tired, more nervous, they laugh, sing, and dance less, they happen to be depressed, sad, but yet, in general, they do not break down and do not grow grim. They are even, in spite of everything, more cheerful than elsewhere -- and this feature strikes foreigners also today. An ideal model of a "humane" person is still vivid, even if reality maybe more often and further deviates from this ideal.

We are still sociable, keen on sitting at the table together with our relatives, friends, acquaintances, we willingly discuss and pray together, and in school and at work we highly appreciate good, solid companionship. There are not many common balls and banquets today, but the pattern of common play revives quickly wherever conditions allow it. Every major feast is celebrated in our society as a social event. And, as it was before, also today elder people stand on guard of ancient mores and customs.

The traditional haste in serving meals to guests just after their arrival persists to this day, even if our whole life passes in a faster rhythm than it did before, and if haste, unfortunately often neurotic, became something normal and common.

Yet we can observe certain changes and reductions: we leave only one place at the table for strangers, and only once a year -- on the Christmas Eve. Guests in cities announce their arrival by phone or in other way, and they are received modestly, only with cakes or even only with tea, but always they are served something. It is different, however, when hosts organize some special reception on the occasion of a name-day, a birthday, or other family celebrations. Then, in spite of the dangerous and long lasting economical crisis, very often our old tendency towards showiness comes to the fore. Especially guests from abroad are received abundantly and pompously in our country, often at the cost of debts, negligence of everyday duties, and of an enormous burden put on the shoulders of the mistress of the house, usually deprived of sufficient household aid.

If we are invited as guests today, it does not become us to bring others with us, especially if we do not make our hosts agree. Yet there happen to be open houses, in which old rules of hospitality are valid in this regard.

The worst trouble is with staying overnight: guests’ needs increased here, while possibilities of keeping them overnight decreased largely. Habitation crisis in our country is responsible for this state of affairs.

Our gates and doors are no longer widely open, especially in cities, and they invite only those whom we have chosen. Today’s neighborhoods are different from ancient "quiet villages", where thefts and robberies were a great rarity.

We do not hear also today about cases of intemperate hospitality that happened sometimes in the past -- nobody compels his neighbors to stay in his hospitable house against his will. Mainly television provides entertainment and news about the world, and thanks to telephonic communication and modern means of transport we can more often contact and see family and friends than previous generations were able to do it.

Close neighbors are rather not most frequent guests in towns. It is different in the country, where spatial proximity plays a much larger role in social relations. The town gives a chance of choice of friends and acquaintances and town habitants gladly profit from this opportunity. And yet also today a good neighbor, that is, a neighbor who is congenial and ready to provide mutual service, is a precious value and raises the rank of a place of habitation, also in big cities.

Ceremonialism of hospitality is considerably reduced; people do not stick to many rules observed before. Yet at very solemn banquets, for instance at weddings, the proper order of honoring guests according to their social rank is still binding. About guests’ dignity decides rather their being part of the older generation than their higher social position or legal status. Weddings at home or in a restaurant (organized, besides, most frequently at home) face their organizers with the problem of seating guests at the table in its whole sharpness. The problem is confirmed among others by letters directed by readers (mostly young, who arrived to the city from the country) to editors of various magazines with social life sections. Similar question and interests concern not only customs and wedding ceremonies, but rules of savoir-vivre in general, that is, rules bringing in the so called elegant society.

Proverbs quoted above, concerning excessively prolonged stays of guests in houses of hospitable hosts, are still in use. On the one hand, they prove pains taken by gentle host (and at the same time the overwhelming force of eternal customs), and on the other they constitute a warning and a lesson for guests who tend to stay too long with their hosts.

As it was before, so today Poles do not lack occasions for social meetings and greetings, and among these occasions an important place have familial celebrations and annual feasts. The circle of participants changes: sometimes it is wider, sometimes narrower, depending on the rank of feast or solemnity and on current possibilities of the house. Yet this circle includes both closer and further relatives and friends and acquaintances of the host.

As formerly in wealthier circles of the society, so today it is an almost universally accepted custom to present participants of social meetings with some various souvenirs. Especially in the city, where access to objects produced by souvenir industry is easy, this custom spread in all milieus and all categories of age. Expression of love, friendship, respect, gratitude, attachment are the most frequent contents of this symbolic behavior. Today the increasingly utilitarian character of presents happens to be, however, completed with poetical symbolism of a bunch of flowers or even of a single flower.

Garlands of flowers were once offered only to women, and their "speech" was one of essential elements of courtship. Today we give flowers also to men, and they are handed irrespective of sex and age of the presented person, on most various occasions. Flowers made besides an incredible career as indispensable, universal used requisites handed from one hand to another in the form of a bunch. Yet the process of uniformization, going on in various areas of contemporary culture, inflicted also the "language of flowers" in that both color and kind of flowers played formerly an important role in various milieus. Now it is not any more sophisticated, socially determined code of meanings, but fashion and rhythm of market deliveries that decide about people’s concrete choices in this domain.

As it was before, so and today the most desired guests are persons who are nice, interesting, cheerful, full of initiative, animating the society with their good humor. Yet the art of narration, highly appreciated before, today, in the time of television, is not so much cherished as it was before. The culture of active play is generally in regress. People dance little, and common singing, so common still in the former generation, today very rarely unites participants of social meetings and solemnities. Already only in some houses people sing together Christmas carols for Christmas, even if they commonly listen to them played from some electronic device. There is very little left from ancient numerous banquet songs, carillons, and couplets, most frequently only our standard name-day song "Long life" (Sto lat). The music background of solemnities constitutes usually music played from electronic devices. Only on suburb and country weddings people sometimes still sing old and new songs, accompanied by a "live" band composed of amateur musicians.

In consequence, temperance and abstinence began anew to be in fashion. Unfortunately, today, in our industrialized and urbanized country overwhelmed by deep crisis, alcohol abuse can be met in all social strata, also among women and adolescents. So maintaining the pattern of "humanness", preserved throughout ages, and including also the culture of banqueting, constitutes a great problem also in our country.

Also today -- just as centuries ago -- Poles sit at the table in large groups. As a matter of fact, this happens only on the occasion of weddings, and in the country also of baptisms. Usual banquets are held in relatively small groups. Already in all social layers hosts care a lot about esthetics of the table. So absolutely it must be laid with a table-cloth, decorated with nicely looking table requisites, often with a vase full of flowers, and on the occasion of great solemnities with flowers standing by every cover.

The custom of prynuka -- importunate invitations to excessive consumption -- are already out of fashion. Also the custom of festive overeating disappeared. Among others, popularity of knowledge about hygiene of nutrition and fashion of slim silhouette prompt -- especially younger generations -- to some sort of moderation in eating. Importunate urging to drink alcohol happens more often, but generally taken only among people who abuse alcohol. Also driving shields many guests against forced treating to alcoholic beverages. Unfortunately not all people are responsible -- hence cases of alcohol detected in drivers’ blood, causing car accidents, are not rare.

Social life -- in comparison to ancient times, but also to the recent past of the twenty years of independent Poland between the wars -- underwent a considerable domestication. At home people celebrate all feasts, familial solemnities; we also invite there our friends and acquaintances. There is much less cafes and restaurants than before the second World War, and prices of plates are too high for average citizens. Balls and plays, once numerous, boisterous, and merry, now belong to quite exceptional events, and high ticket prices make it impossible for common people to participate in such enterprises. So the majority organizes parties in their friends’ homes.

Play -- as wrote a Dutch culture researcher Johan Huizinga -- is not just a "usual" or a "proper" life. It is rather transgressing the circle of utilities towards the world of disinterested occupations, making possible artistic expression and at the same time societal and social life. "It is only atrophy of humor that kills us" -- wrote the above mentioned author in his famous book Homo ludens. Domesticated sociability of Poles is also today not without cheerfulness, or even humor, even if it is "black humor" (our passion of telling and listening to jokes is commonly known). Foreigners visiting our country are sometimes astonished when amidst everyday greyness, neglect, and fatigue they perceive our relatively often serenity and social refinement, even if the social margin of people who violate good mores, unfortunate degenerates and deviants, unfortunately considerably widened.

Domesticated "humanness" of Poles -- entailing hospitability, kindness, cheerfulness, benevolence, honesty, and openness -- in favorable circumstances easily goes beyond the threshold of privateness and vivifies our social world. There is no doubt that its great vitality is founded on the social need of continuity, as well as on the striving towards maintaining unity of our national community. The apollonian character of our culture, always dominating over dionysian excesses, hence, temperance and abstinence, is deeply rooted in Christianity.