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.
Transnationalism is a phenomenon closely related to globalization, contemporary migrations, civilization and technological progress. Grzegorz Babinski defines transmigrants and transnationals as people living temporarily in country different than the country of origin. Such persons maintain wide and intensive contacts with their home country as well as unchanged ethnic/national identity. Specific changes in the life styles, perception of others and self, approaches to the issues such as work, friendship and family life are caused by the suspension of migrants between fatherland and the place of migration. This factor leads them to the confrontation of their behavior, habits and values with new experiences. However these issues don't cause the assimilation (traditional result of migration) and changes to essential values. These problems are being discussed by the authoress, who conducted an ethnographic research among German businessmen community in Poznan.divisions.
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