Dreams Beyond the Cow Pasture

This is how the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, writing in 1964, reflected on his early youth.  In ‘The Words’, the famous French thinker describes how he spent his childhood browsing through books while other children from his village learned about nature. 

In the same year that Sartre's autobiographical reflections appear, the volume “Awans Pokolenia” (“Advancement of a Generation”) is published in Poland. The editor of this volume is the Polish sociologist Józef Chałasiński. He is only one year older than the French philosopher, but he remembers his own childhood in the countryside very differently. In the introduction to “Awans Pokolenia”, Chałasiński takes up Sartre’s idea of a village upbringing and talks about his own early years in the countryside. He writes: “In my autobiography, not only are the cow and history linked, but the cow and philosophy are too”2 and recalls how he had to tend the cows as a young boy.

Cows and books are also linked in many of the 26 contributions collected in the volume “Awans Pokolenia”. They are texts in the style of diary entries or memoirs, written by young adults who had spent their childhoods and adolescence in rural villages in the period shortly before, during and after the Second World War. Many of them had had to work on their parents' farms from a very young age. Already at the age of three or four, they were given the chore of driving the poultry out to pasture and, by the time they were at primary school age, were promoted to cowherds. Before and after the war, it was often one of the tasks of the youngest members of peasant families to keep an eye on the pasture and to make sure the animals didn't run away or eat poisonous plants. For many of the authors, the memory of herding cows is a bitter one: it not only prevented them from being able to play and spend their free time as they chose, but also from learning. Some of them had to leave school after only a few years in order to help their parents on the farm.

Not all of the authors describe their work quite as tragically as this young agronomist. Some even described it as the most pleasant of all the jobs on their parents' farm – after all, you could read while you worked. However, getting too engrossed in a book would get you in trouble. One author describes how a particularly clever cow by the name of Czarna (“Blacky”) regularly took advantage of its keeper's inattention by gorging itself on clover – and it was always the son, not the animal, who received the thrashing from the father for this misdeed.

Experiences such as those described by the authors in “Awans Pokolenia” were not unusual in Poland in the middle of the 20th century. In 1921, around three quarters of the population lived in the countryside. By 1964, when the volume was published, still around 50 percent lived rurally, but village life had changed radically. The articles in “Awans Pokolenia” refer to this period of change. Some experiences, such as herding cows, may have survived the Second World War, but the authors also highlight many things that were different now for young people in the countryside. After all, within their short lifetimes, there had already been a world war and several changes of political system.

The ,4 founded in 1944, and its political ideas had a major influence on the lives of children and young people in the countryside. The land reform (1944) and the collectivization of agriculture (from 1948) were intended to reform land ownership. While the redistribution of land was generally well received by the peasant population, the formation of agricultural production cooperatives met with fierce opposition. 

On the other hand, part of the socialist promise was to make education accessible to all. To this end, a major literacy campaign was carried out in 1949, as a result of which almost one million adults learned to read and write. Through courses and supplementary training programs, young people who had to drop out of school to work in agriculture were given the opportunity to acquire new knowledge. Scholarships, preparatory courses and the introduction of distance learning also to ensured that increasing numbers of children from working-class and peasant families could gain an education.

Many of the authors in “Awans Pokolenia” recount the difficulties they had to overcome in getting an education. The journey to school was often arduous and conditions at home were not conducive to doing homework. It was not only herding cows that kept the children from their books, but often also their own parents. “Continuing at school was simply out of the question,”5 writes one young peasant who had stayed on at the farm after finishing elementary school. Many of the authors had had to give up their dreams of further education out of financial necessity. However, this did not mean that their education was over: “[...] if you’re already a peasant, then you have to get to know your profession really well,”6 emphasizes one young man, who was trying to acquire new skills by reading trade journals.

Many of the authors who were able to continue at school demonstrate a similar desire for independent further education. The path was often not straightforward, but they took advantage of opportunities such as evening classes, courses for adults, or distance learning to complete their education. “I arrived home in the evening feeling so satisfied because I’d gained an intermediate agricultural education through my own hard work and perseverance,”7 writes one proud author who had successfully completed a correspondence course at an agricultural lyceum.

As different as the fates of the various contributors to “Awans Pokolenia” may have been, they do have a few things in common: all the authors value their own education and training highly. They believe that, as children from peasant families, they too have a right to these opportunities. This becomes clear in the descriptions of a young female feldsher8 who writes about her dream to become a doctor. As a schoolgirl, she had no doubt that she could successfully pursue this educational path – after all, the authorities constantly emphasized that all opportunities were now open to the children of workers and peasants. However, her career aspirations did not come true for political reasons – a brother living abroad turned out to be her undoing. Some of the other authors had to give up their dreams for material reasons.

But even in these unsuccessful education stories, we see that the teenagers and young adults in the countryside do not simply resign themselves to their fate. They have internalized the idea that, as rural youth, they too should be entitled to the same rights as their peers from the city. Even if the socialist promise of equality is not fulfilled for all of the authors of “Awans pokolenia”, it has clearly changed something in their expectations. On the one hand, they are aware of their new opportunities and seize educational opportunities outside of traditional schooling. On the other hand, they also measure the reality of their lives against their newly raised expectations and express disappointment when the promised educational opportunities do not materialize.

The texts in the volume “Awans Pokolenia” were written as entries to a so-called “memoir competition”, which was co-organized and published by state authorities. In a political system in which all publications were subject to censorship, to what extent are such texts actually suitable as historical sources? Is it not possible that only desirable narratives were printed in “Awans Pokolenia”, perspectives that shed a positive light on the changes in village life in socialist Poland?

Such an interjection is not entirely unjustified – we should not simply and uncritically transfer the experiences of these authors to the entire generation of young people living in post-war rural Poland, nor should we underestimate the influence of censorship and state-produced narratives on their texts. Nevertheless, the memoir competitions are certainly an invaluable source for learning more about the everyday lives and expectations of the inhabitants of the People's Republic of Poland. In total, around 1,600 competitions of this kind were held between 1944 and 1989. They were often organized by “front organizations” of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and run under the guidance of sociologists. Radio appeals, advertisements in newspapers and advertising in the local groups of various organizations were used to call for entries, often with great success: over a hundred thousand texts were collected during the time of the People's Republic. Almost 5,500 young people sent in their autobiographical texts for the “Awans Pokolenia” competition alone.

Until then, only a small section of society had been able to publish or even just write down their memories in this way. Memoir competitions gave a new, large group of people an incentive and a platform to share their view of the world and talk about their lives. For this reason alone, they opened up completely new perspectives. In addition, the aim in analyzing these competitions is not to create a precise retelling of historical events, but to create a picture of the everyday life, expectations and dreams of the authors. It does not matter so much whether individual depictions were influenced by self-censorship or the censorship of others. In considering the change in consciousness of the young generation living in rural Poland in the post-war period, it is more important to consider how the authors describe their social environment and what ideas about their lives they express in their texts. The memoir competitions provide important insights, especially for a new historical perspective on the People's Republic of Poland from a “grassroots” level. 

English translation: William Connor