EN
The image of nineteenth-century Polish folklore as documented by Oskar Kolberg emerges as multidimensional and organic. It has been the deciding factor in ensuring the continuity of traditional culture, which now, under the influence of fast-developing civilization of the modern times, seems inevitably doomed to extinction. Cut off from its religious-philosophical foundations, rituals, genres and functions, the folklore loses much of its artistic and educational value. The authoress asks several questions concerning this topic; the effects of the impoverishment of rituality, the reasons of uniqueness and value of regional traditions, the possibilities of the regeneration of folklore and its character (local, national or supranational). Three studies analyzing the repertory in relation to changing conditions in three frontier regions of North-Eastern Poland (Szczytno area in Mazuria - epresenting Polish-German, Catholic-Protestant boundary; Punski-Sejnenski region - Polish-Lithuanian boundary; Podlasie - Polish-Belarussian, Catholic-Orthodoc neighborhood) are presented, to provide a rich material for the discussion on these aspects of music traditions subjected to historical, political and sociological pressures.