'PEOPLE HAVE CHANGED...' REMARKS ON THE EXPERIENCE OF POSTSOCIALIST TRANSFORMATION ('Ludzie sie zmienili...' z badan nad doswiadczaniem postsocjalistycznej transformacji)

• Authors: Kabzinska Iwona
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

In the course of author's research on the experience of political transformation, the citizens of post-soviet Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine often underlined that: People have changed. Some of them have asked: What has happened to the people? and perceived these changes as a negative phenomenon. Contemporary changes were compared with the interwar decades (the oldest interviewees) or the soviet period. Informants usually pointed the breakup of the family bonds, the rise of the conflicts between humans, omnipresent aggression, boorishness, selfishness, brutality of life, crime and the chase for money. The phenomena such as the overwhelming rivalry, envy, social callousness, the lack of disinterestedness and justice as well as the loneliness were stigmatized by interviewees. Contemporary times were often described as bad, cold, inhuman, deprived of love and sympathy. Quite often people didn't hope for better tomorrow. These critical judgments have been related to the political transformation and capitalism - often described as the wild, rapacious or black. People blamed the mass media for popularization of negative patterns of behavior. Many interviewees explained contemporary changes in the means of secularization, the lack of moral authorities and the upbringing based on religious values. The author underlines that phenomena pointed by her informants are well known in Western Europe. She is curious whether they will increase or is there a more optimistic solution possible.

Keywords

EN

BEHAVIOR; LIFE STYLES; NOSTALGIA; POST-COMMUNISM; SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Discipline

• ANTHROPOLOGY: ANTHROPOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Etnografia Polska
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 5-22
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kabzinska Iwona

• Iwona Kabzinska, Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii PAN, al. Solidarnosci 105, 00-140 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11PLAAAA097913