THE POLISH PEASANT IN EUROPE
AND AMERICA
VOLUME I
PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
T/'
THE POLISH PEASANT
N EUROPE and AMERICA
:ONOGRAPH OF AN IMMIGRANT GROUP
V
WILLIAM I. THOMAS
and
FLORIAN ZNANIECKI
VOLUME I
PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
1. 1 •??:'• .2.
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
COPYRIGHT 1918 BY RICHARD G. BADGER
: : . ; • • i
All Rights Reserved
T5
v. I
ORHAM PRESS. BOSTON, U. S. A
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
TO
HELEN CULVER
PREFACE
Among the questions included in the as yet relatively
unformulated field of social science (without reference to
logical order) are: immigration; racial prejudice; cultural
assimilation; the comparative mental and moral worth of
races and nationalities; crime, alcoholism, vagabondage,
and other forms of anti-social behavior; nationalism and
internationalism; democracy and class-hierarchization; effi-
ciency and happiness, particularly as functions of the rela- ;
tionjof the individual to the social framework containing Sr
bis activities; the rate of individualization possible withouM
disorganization; the difference between unreflective social
cohesion brought about by tradition, and reflective social
co-operation brought about by rational selection of common
ends and means; the introduction of new and desirable
attitudes and values without recourse to the way of revolu-
tion; and, more generally, the determination of the most
general and particular laws of social reality, preliminary
to the introduction of a social control'as satisfactory, or as
increasingly satisfactory, as is our control of the material
world, resulting from the study of the laws of physical
reality.
Now we are ourselves primarily interested in these prob-
lems, but we are convinced of the necessity of approaching
these and other social problems by isolating given societies
and studying them, first, in the totality of their objective
complexity, and then comparatively. The present study
was not, in fact, undertaken exclusively or even primarily
as an expression of interest in the Polish peasant (although
our selection of this society was influenced by the question
of immigration and by other considerations named below,
Vlll
PREFACE
pp. 74 ff.), but the Polish peasant was selected rather as a
convenient object for the exemplification of a standpoint
and method outlined in the methodological note forming
the first pages of the present volume. The scope of our
study will be best appreciated by having this fact in
mind.
The work consists of five volumes, largely documentary
in their character. Volumes I and II comprise a study of
the organization of the peasant primary groups (family
and community), and of the partial. evolution of this system
of organization under the influence of the new industrial
system and of immigration to America and Germany.
Volume III is the autobiography (with critical treatment)
nf a.n irnmigrq.nt of peasant origin but belonging by occupa-
tion to the lower city class, and illustrates the tendency to
disorganization of the individual under the conditions in-
volved in a rapidj:ransition from one type of social organiza-
tion_tp_another. Volume IV treats the dissolution of the
primary group and the social and political reorganization
and unification of peasant communities in Poland on the
new ground of rational co-operation. Volume V is based
on studies of the Polish immigrant in America and shows
the degrees and forms of disorganization associated with
a too-rapid and inadequately mediated individualization,
with a sketch of the beginnings of reorganization.
We are unable to record here in a detailed way our
recognition of the generous assistance we have received from
many sources, but wish to express a particular apprecia-
tion to the following individuals, societies, periodicals,
courts, etc.:
Professor Fr. Bujak, University of Cracow; Professor
Stefan Surzycki, University of Cracow; Dr. S. Hupka,
Cracow; Mr. Roman Dmowski, Warsaw; Mr. Wladysiaw
Grabski, Warsaw; Mr. Jerzy Goscicki, Warsaw; Priest Jan
PREFACE ix
Gralewski, Starawies; Mr. A. Kulikowski, Vilna; Mrs.
Eileen Znaniecka, Chicago.
The Emigrants' Protective Association of Warsaw
(Towarzystwo Opieki nod Wychodzcami}; the Cracow
Academy of Sciences (Akademia Umiejqtnosci w Krakowie) ;
the Society for the Knowledge of the Country (Towarzys-
two Krajoznawcze); the Society of United Women Land-
Residents (Towarzystwo ZjednoczonychZiemianek); Amerika
Institut (Berlin: Dr. R. W. Drechsler, Dr. Karl O. Bertling).
Gazeta Swiqteczna (Warsaw: Tadeusz Proszynski, Mrs.
Burtnowska); Zaranie (Mr. M. M. Malinowski, Miss
Stanislawa Malinowska, Miss Irene Kosmowska) ; Tygodnik
Polski (Warsaw: Gustaw Simon); Narod (Warsaw: Mr.
A. S. Gol^biowski) ; Zorza (Mr. Stanislaw Rutkowski,
Mr. Stanislaw Domanski); Poradnik Gospodarski (Posen:
Mr. K. Brownsford); Dziennik Poznanski (Posen); Zgoda
(Chicago); Dziennik Chicagoski (Chicago).
Chief Justice Harry Olson, the Municipal Court of
Chicago; Judge Merritt W. Pinckney, Judge Victor P.
Arnold, Judge Mary Bartelme, Chief Probation Officer
Joel D. Hunter, and the probation officers and keepers of
the probation records of the Juvenile Court of Cook County;
the officials of the United Charities of Chicago, particularly
of the Northwest District; the officials of the Legal Aid
Society of Chicago; the keepers of the records of the Cook
County Criminal Court; the keepers of the records of the
Cook County Coroner's Office.
W. I. T.
F. Z.
CONTENTS
PAGE
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE :...... i
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES I AND II 87
*The Peasant Family ........ 87 '
yMarriage 106 •
^The Class-System in Polish Society 128
^Social Environment 140
^Economic Life v 156 -
Religious and Magical Attitudes . . . . 205
Theoretic and Aesthetic Interests 288
FORM AND FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT LETTER 303
Specimen Peasant Letters 308
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MEMBERS OF FAMILY-GROUPS . . .316
Borek Series . 317
Wroblewski Series 325
Stelmach Series 379
Osinski Series 394
Gosciak Series 451
Markiewicz Series 455
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE
One of the most significant features of social evolution
is the growing importance which a conscious and rational
technique tends to assume in social life. We are less and
less ready to let any social processes go on without our
active interference and we feel more and more dissatisfied
with any active interference based upon a mere whim of an
individual or a social body, or upon preconceived philosoph-
ical, religious, or moral generalizations.
The marvelous results attained by a rational technique
in the sphere of material reality invite us to apply some
analogous procedure to social reality. Our success in
controlling nature gives us confidence that we shall eventu-
ally be able to control the social world in the same measure.
Our actual inefficiency in this line is due, not to any funda-
mental limitation of our reason, but simply to the historical
fact that the objective attitude toward social reality is a
recent acquisition.
While our realization that nature can be controlled
only by treating it as independent of any immediate act
of our will or reason is four centuries old, our confidence
in "legislation" and in "moral suasion" shows that this
idea is not yet generally realized with regard to the social
world. But the tendency to rational control is growing in
this field also and constitutes at present an insistent demand
on the social sciences.
This demand for a rational control results from the
increasing rapidity of social evolution. The old forms of
control were based upon the assumption of an essential
stability of the whole social framework and were effective
only in so far as this stability was real. In a stable social
2 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
organization there is time enough to develop in a purely
empirical way, through innumerable experiments and
failures, approximately sufficient means of control with
regard to the ordinary and frequent social phenomena,
while the errors made in treating the uncommon and rare
phenomena seldom affect social life in such a manner as to
imperil the existence of the group; if they do, then the
catastrophe is accepted as incomprehensible and inevitable.
Thus — to take an example — the Polish peasant community
has developed during many centuries complicated systems
of beliefs and rules of behavior sufficient to control social
life under ordinary circumstances, and the cohesion of
the group and the persistence of its membership are strong
enough to withstand passively the influence of eventual
extraordinary occurrences, although there is no adequate
method of meeting them. And if the crisis is too serious
and the old unity or prosperity of the group breaks down,
this is usually treated at first as a result of superior forces
against which no fight is possible.
But when, owing to the breakdown of the isolation of the
group and its contact with a more complex and fluid world,
the social evolution becomes more rapid and the crises
more frequent and varied, there is no time for the same
gradual, empirical, unmethodical elaboration of approxi-
mately adequate means of control, and no crisis can be
passively borne, but every one must be met hi a more or
less adequate way, for they are too various and frequent not
to imperil social life unless controlled in time. The substitu-
tion of a conscious technique for a half-conscious routine
has become, therefore, a social necessity, though it is evi-
dent that the development of this technique could be only
gradual, and that even now we find in it many implicit or
explicit ideas and methods corresponding to stages of human
thought passed hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 3
The oldest but most persistent form of social technique ) /
is that of " ordering-and-f orbidding " — that is, meeting a
crisis by an arbitrary act of will decreeing the disappearance
of the undesirable or the appearance of the desirable phenom-
na, and using arbitrary physical action to enforce the
decree. This method corresponds exactly to the magical
Dhase of natural technique. In both, the essential means
of bringing a determined effect is more or less consciously
thought to reside in the act of will itself by which the effect
s decreed as desirable and of which the action is merely
an indispensable vehicle or instrument; in both, the process
which the cause (act of will and physical action) is
supposed to bring its effect to realization remains out of
reach of investigation; in both, finally, if the result is not
attained, some new act of will with new material acces-
sories is introduced, instead of trying to find and remove
he perturbing causes. A good instance of this in the
social field is the typical legislative procedure of today.
It frequently happens both in magic and in the ordering-
and-forbidding technique that the means by which the act
of will is helped are really effective, and thus the result is
attained, but, as the process of causation, being unknown,
cannot be controlled, the success is always more or less
accidental and dependent upon the stability of general
enditions; when these are changed, the intended effect
ailjig^h appear, the subject is unable to account for the
reaiBlr of the failure and can only try by guesswork some
)ther means. And even more frequent tl^an this accidental
iuccess is the result that the action brings some effect, but
ot the desired one.
There is, indeed, one difference between the ordering-
md-f orbidding technique and magic. In social life an
xpressed act of will may be sometimes a real cause, when
the person or body from which it emanates has a particular
4 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZA1 ION
authority in the eyes of those to whom the order or pro-
hibition applies. But this does not change the nature of
the technique as such. The prestige of rulers, ecclesiastics,
and legislators was a condition making an act of will an
efficient cause under the old regimes, but it loses its value
in the modern partly or completely republican organizations.
A more effective technique, based upon "common sense"
and represented by "practical" sociology, has naturally
originated in those lines of social action in which there was
either no place for legislative measures or in which the hoc
volo, sic jubeo proved too evidently inefficient — in business,
in charity and philanthropy, in diplomacy, in personal
association, etc. Here, indeed, the act of will having been
recognized as inefficient in directing the causal process, real
causes are sought for every phenomenon, and an endeavor
is made to control the effects by acting upon the causes,
and, though it is often partly successful, many fallacies are
implicitly involved in this technique; it has still many
characters of a planless empiricism, trying to get at the
real cause by a rather haphazard selection of various
possibilities, directed only by a rough and popular reflection,
and its deficiencies have to be shown and removed if a new
and more efficient method of action is to be introduced.
The first of these fallacies has often been exposed. It
is the latent or manifest supposition that we know social
reality because we live in it, and that we can assume things
and relations as certain on the basis of our empirical
acquaintance with them. The attitude is here about the
same as in the ancient assumption that we know the physical
world because we live and act in it, and that therefore we
have the right of generalizing without a special and thorough
investigation, on the mere basis of "common sense." The
history of physical science gives us many good examples
of the results to which common sense can lead, such as the
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 5
geocentric system of astronomy and the mediaeval ideas
about motion. And it is easy to show that not even the
widest individual acquaintance with social reality, not even
the most evident success of individual adaptation to this
reality, can offer any serious guaranty of the validity of the
common-sense generalizations.
Indeed, the individual's sphere of practical acquaintance
with social reality, however vast it may be as compared
with that of others, is always limited and constitutes
\\
a small part of the whole complexity of social facts. It
usually extends over only one society, often over only one
class of this society; this we may call the exterior limitation.
In addition there is an interior limitation, still more impor-
*
tant, due to the fact that among all the experiences which the
individual meets within the sphere of his social life a large,
perhaps the larger, part is left unheeded, never becoming a
basis of common-sense generalizations. This selection of
experiences is the result of individual temperament on the
one hand and of individual interest on the other. In any
case, whether temperamental inclinations or practical
considerations operate, the selection is subjective — that is,
valid only for this particular individual in this particular
social position — and thereby it is quite different from, and
incommensurable with, the selection which a scientist would
make in face of the same body of data from an objective,
impersonal viewpoint.
Nor is the practical success of the individual within his
sphere of activity a guaranty of his knowledge of the rela-
tions between the social phenomena which he is able to
control. Of course there must be some objective validity
in his schemes of social facts — otherwise he could not live
in society — but the truth of these schemes is always only
a rough approximation and is mixed with an enormous
amount of error. When we assume that a successful
6 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
adaptation of the individual to his environment is a proof
that he knows this environment thoroughly, we forget that
there are degrees of success, that the standard of success
is to a large extent subjective, and that all the standards of
success applied in human society may be — and really are-
very low, because they make allowance for a very large
number of partial failures, each of which denotes one or
many errors. Two elements are found in varying pro-
portions in every adaptation; one is the actual control
exercised over the environment; the other is the claims
which this control serves to satisfy. The adaptation may be
perfect, either because of particularly successful and wide
control or because of particularly limited claims. Whenever
the control within the given range of claims proves in-
sufficient, the individual or the group can either develop a
better control or limit the claims. And, in fact, in every
activity the second method, of adaptation by failures, plays
a very important role. Thus the individual's knowledge
of his environment can be considered as real only in the
particular matters in which he does actually control it;
his schemes can be true only in so far as they are perfectly,
absolutely successful. And if we remember how much of
practical success is due to mere chance and luck, even this
limited number of truths becomes doubtful. Finally, the
truths that stand the test of individual practice are always
schemes of the concrete and singular, as are the situations
in which the individual finds himself.
In this way the acquaintance with social data and the
knowledge of social relations which we acquire in practice
are always more or less subjective, limited both in number
and in generality. Thence comes the well-known fact that
the really valuable part of practical wisdom acquired 7 by
the individual during his life is incommunicable — cannot be
stated in general terms; everyone must acquire it afresh
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 7
by a kind of apprenticeship to life — that is, by learning to
select experiences according to the demands of his own
personality and to construct for his own use particular
schemes of the concrete situations which he encounters.
Thus, all the generalizations constituting the common-
sense social theory and based on individual experience are
both insignificant and subject to innumerable exceptions.
A sociology that accepts them necessarily condemns itself
to remain in the same methodological stage, and a practice
based upon them must be as insecure and as full of failures
as is the activity of every individual.
Whenever, now, this "practical" sociology makes an
effort to get above the level of popular generalizations
by the study of social reality instead of relying upon indi-
vidual experience, it still preserves the same method as the
individual in his personal reflection; ^investigation always
g^es on with an immediate reference to practical aims, and
the standards of the desirable and undesirable are the
ground upon which theoretic problems are approached.
This is the second fallacy of the practical sociology, and
the results of work from this standpoint are quite dis-
proportionate to the enormous efforts that have recently
been put forth in the collection and elaboration of materials
preparatory to social reforms. The example of physical
science and material technique should have shown long ago
that only a scientific investigation, which is quite free from
any dependence on practice, can become practically useful
in its applications. Of course this does not mean that the *"
scientist should not select for investigation problems whose
solution has actual practical importance ; the sociologist may
study crime or war as the chemist studies dyestuffs. But *
from the method of the study itself all practical considera-
tions must be excluded if we want the results to be valid.
And this has not yet been realized by practical sociology. !
8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
The usual standpoint here is that of an explicit or
implicit norm with which reality should comply. The norm
may be intrinsic to the reality, as when it is presumed that
the actually prevailing traditional or customary state of
things is normal; or it may be extrinsic, as when moral,
religious, or aesthetic standards are applied to social reality
and the prevailing state of things is found in disaccord with
the norm, and in so far abnormal. But this difference has
no essential importance. In both cases the normal, agreeing
with the norm, is supposed to be known either by practical
acquaintance or by some particular kind of rational or
irrational evidence; the problem is supposed to lie in the
abnormal, the disharmony with the norm. In the first
case the abnormal is the exceptional, in the second case it
is the usual, while the normal constitutes an exception, but
the general method of investigation remains the same.
There is no doubt that the application of norms to
reality had a historical merit; investigation was provoked
in this way and the "abnormal" became the first object of
empirical studies. It is the morally indignant observer of
vice and crime and the political idealist-reformer who start
positive investigations. But as soon as the investigation
is started both indignation and idealism should be put aside.
For in treating a certain body of material as representing
the normal, another body of material as standing for the
abnormal, we introduce at once a division that is necessarily
artificial; for if these terms have a meaning it can be
determined only on the basis of investigation, and the
criterion of normality must be such as to allow us to include
in the normal, not only a certain determined stage of social
life and a limited class of facts, but also the whole series of
different stages through which social life passes, and the
whole variety of social phenomena. ^ The definition a priori
of a group of facts that we are going to investigate as
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 9
abnormal has two immediate consequences. First, our
attention is turned to such facts as seem the most important
practically, as being most conspicuously contrary to the
norm and calling most insistently for reform. But the
things that are practically important may be quite insig-
nificant theoretically and, on the contrary, those which
seem to have no importance from the practical point of
view may be the source of important scientific discoveries.
The scientific value of a fact depends on its connection with
other facts, and in this connection the most commonplace
facts are often precisely the most valuable ones, while
a fact that strikes the imagination or stirs the moral feeling
may be really either isolated or exceptional, or so simple as
to involve hardly any problems. Again, by separating the
abnormal from the normal we deprive ourselves of the
opportunity of studying them in their connection with each
other, while only in this connection can their study be fully
fruitful. There is no break in continuity between the
normal and the abnormal in concrete life that would permit
any exact separation of the corresponding bodies of material,
and the nature of the normal and the abnormal as deter-
mined by theoretic abstraction can be perfectly understood
only with the help of comparison.
But there are other consequences of this fallacy. When
the norm is not a result but a starting-point of the investiga-
tion, as it is in this case, every practical custom or habit,
every moral, political, religious view, claims to be the norm
and to treat as abnormal whatever does not agree with it.
The result is harmful both in practice and in theory. In
practice, as history shows and as we see at every moment,
a social technique based upon pre-existing norms tends to
suppress all the social energies which seem to act in a way
contrary to the demands of the norm, and to ignore all the
social energies not included in the sphere embraced by the
PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
norm. This limits still more the practical importance of
the technique and often makes it simply harmful instead of
i useful. In theory, a sociology using norms as its basis
deprives itself of the possibility of understanding and
. controlling any important facts of social evolution. Indeed,
every social process of real importance always includes a
change of the norms themselves, not alone of the activity
embraced by the norms. Traditions and customs, morality
and religion, undergo an evolution that is more and more
rapid, and it is evident that a sociology proceeding on the
assumption that a certain norm is valid and that whatever
does not comply with it is abnormal finds itself absolutely
helpless when it suddenly realizes that this norm has lost
all social significance and that some other norm has appeared
in its place. This helplessness is particularly striking in
moments of great social^crisis when the evolution of norms
becomes exceptionally rapid. We notice it, for example,
with particular vividness during the present war, when the
whole individualistic system of norms elaborated during the
last two centuries begins to retreat before a quite different
system, which may be a state socialism or something
quite new.
Thev third fallacy of the common-sense sociology is the
implicit assumption that any group of social facts can be
treated theoretically and practically in an arbitrary isolation
from the rest of the life of the given society. This assump-
tion is perhaps unconsciously drawn from the general form
of social organization, in which the real isolation of certain
groups of facts is a result of the demands of practical life.
In any line of organized human activity only actions of a
certain kind are used, and it is assumed that only such
individuals will take part in this particular organization
as are able and willing to perform these actions, and that
they will not bring into this sphere of activity any tendencies
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE n
that may destroy the organization. The factory and the
army corps are typical examples of such organizations. The
isolation of a group of facts from the rest of social life is here
really and practically performed. But exactly in so far
as such a system functions in a perfect manner there is no
place at all for social science or social practice; the only
thing required is a material division and organization of
these isolated human actions. The task of social theory
and social technique lies outside of these systems; it begins,
for example, whenever external tendencies not harmonizing
with the organized activities are introduced into the system,
when the workmen in the factory start a strike or the soldiers
of the army corps a mutiny. Then the isolation disappears;
the system enters, through the individuals who are its
members, into relation with the whole complexity of social
life. And this lack of real isolation, which characterizes
a system of organized activity only at moments of crisis,
is a permanent feature of all the artificial, abstractly formed
groups of facts such as "prostitution," "crime," "educa-
tion," "war," etc. Every single fact included under these
generalizations is connected by innumerable ties with an
indefinite number of other facts belonging to various groups,
and these relations give to every fact a different character.
If we start to study these facts as a whole, without heeding
their connection with the rest of the social world, we must
necessarily come to quite arbitrary generalizations. If we
start to act upon these facts in a uniform way simply because
their abstract essence seems to be the same, we must neces-
sarily produce quite different results, varying with the rela-
tions of every particular case to the rest of the social world.
This does not mean that it is not possible to isolate such
groups of facts for theoretic investigation or practical activ-
ity, but simply that the isolation must come, not a priori,
but a posteriori, in the same way as the distinction
12 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
between the normal and the abnormal. The facts must
first be taken in connection with the whole to which they
belong, and the question of a later isolation is a method-
ological problem which we shall treat in a later part of
this note.
There are two other fallacies involved to a certain extent
in social practice, although practical sociology has already
repudiated^ them. The reason for their persistence in
practice is that, even if the erroneousness of the old assump-
tions has been recognized, no new working ideas have been
put in their place. These assumptions are: (i) that men
react in the same way to the same influences regardless of
their individual or social past, and that therefore it is
possible to provoke identical behavior in various individuals
by identical means; (2) that men develop spontaneously,
without external influence, tendencies which enable them
to profit in a full and uniform way from given conditions,
and that therefore it is sufficient to create favorable or
remove unfavorable conditions in order to give birth to or
suppress given tendencies.
The assumption of identical reactions to identical
influences is found in the most various lines of traditional
social activity; the examples of legal practice and of educa-
tion are sufficient to illustrate it. In the former all the
assumptions about the "motives" of the behavior of the
parties, all the rules and forms of investigation and examina-
tion, all the decisions of the courts, are essentially based
upon this principle. Considerations of the variety of
traditions, habits, temperaments, etc., enter only inciden-
tally and secondarily, and usually in doubtful cases, by the
initiative of the lawyers; they are the result of common-
sense psychological observations, but find little if any place
in the objective system of laws and rules. And where, as
in the American juvenile courts, an attempt is made to base
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 13
legal practice upon these considerations, all legal apparatus
is properly waived, and the whole procedure rests upon the »
personal qualifications of the judge. In education the
same principle is exhibited in the identity of curricula, and
is even carried so far as to require identical work from
students in connection with the courses they follow, instead
of leaving to everyone as much field as possible for personal
initiative. Here again the fallaciousness of the principle is
corrected only by the efforts of those individual teachers
who try to adapt their methods to the personalities of the
pupils, using practical tact and individual acquaintance.
But as yet no objective principles have been generally^"
substituted for the traditional uniformity.
The assumption of the spontaneous development of
tendencies if the material conditions are given is found in
the exaggerated importance ascribed by social reformers to
changes of material environment and in the easy conclusions
drawn from material conditions on the mentality and
character of individuals and groups. For example, it is
assumed that good housing conditions will create a good
family life, that the abolition of saloons will stop drinking,
that the organization of a well-endowed institution is all
that is necessary to make the public realize its value in
practice. To be sure, material conditions do help or hinder,
to a large extent the development of corresponding lines
of behavior, but only if the tendency Js already there, for
the way in which they will be used depends on the people
who use them. The normal way of social action would be
to develop the tendency and to create the condition simul-
taneously, and, if this is impossible, attention should be paid
rather to the development of tendencies than to the change
of the conditions, because a strong social tendency will
always find its expression by modifying the conditions,
while the contrary is not true. For example, a perfect
1 4 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
family life may exist in a Polish peasant community in
conditions which would probably be considered in America
as a necessary breeding-place of crime and pauperism, while
uncommonly favorable external conditions in the Polish
aristocratic class do not hinder a decay of family life. In
Southern France and Northern Italy there is less drunk-
enness with the saloon than in the prohibition states of
America. In Russian Poland alone, without a Polish
university and with only a private philosophical association,
more than twice as much original philosophical literature
has been published recently as in Russia with her eleven
endowed universities. And innumerable examples could
be cited from all departments of social life. But it is easy
to understand that in the absence of a science of behavior
social reformers pay more attention to the material con-
ditions of the people than to the psychology of the people
who live in these conditions; for the conditions are concrete
and tangible, and we know how to grasp them and to con-
ceive and realize almost perfect plans of material improve-
ments, while in the absence of a science the reformer has
no objective principles on which he can rely, and uncon-
sciously tends to ascribe a preponderating importance to
the material side of social life.
And these fallacies of the common-sense sociology are
not always due to a lack of theoretic ability or of a serious
scientific attitude on the part of the men who do the work.
They are the unavoidable consequence of the necessity of
meeting actual situations at once. Social life goes on
without interruption and has to be controlled at every
moment. The business man or politician, the educator or
charity-worker, finds himself continually confronted by
new social problems which he must solve, however imperfect
and provisional he knows his solutions to be, for the stream
v- of evolution does not wait for him. He must have imme-
V
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 15
diate results, and it is a merit on his part if he tries to
reconcile the claims of actuality with those of scientific
objectivity, as far as they can be reconciled, and endeavors
to understand the social reality as well as he can before
acting. Certainly social life is improved by even such a
control as common-sense sociology is able to give; certainly
no effort should be discouraged, for the ultimate balance
proves usually favorable. But in social activity, even more
than in material activity, the common-sense method is the
most wasteful method, and to replace it gradually by a
more efficient one will be a good investment.
While, then, there is no doubt that actual situations
must be handled immediately, we see that they cannot be
solved adequately as long as theoretical reflection has their
immediate solution in view. But there is evidently one
issue from this dilemma, and it is the same as in material
technique and physical science. We must be able to foresee
future situations and prepare for them, and we must have
in stock a large body of secure and objective knowledge
capable of being applied to any situation, whether foreseen
or unexpected. This means that we must have an empirical J
and exact-, social science ready for eventual application.
And such a science can be constituted only if we treat it
as an end in itself, not as a means to something else, and
if we give it time and opportunity to develop along all the
lines of investigation possible, even if we do not see what
may be the eventual applications of one or another of its
results. The example of physical science and its applica- V^
tions shew that the only practically economical way of
creating an efficient technique is to create a science inde-
pendent of any technical limitations and then to take every ^
one of its results and try where and in what way they can
be practically applied. The contrary attitude, the refusal
to recognize any science that does not work to solve practical
1 6 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
problems, in addition to leading to that inefficiency of both
science and practice which we have analyzed above, shows
a curious narrowness of mental horizon. We do not know
what the future science will be before it is constituted and
what may be the applications of its discoveries before they
are applied; we do not know what will be the future of
society and what social problems may arise demanding
solution. The only practically justifiable attitude toward
science is absolute liberty and disinterested help.^
Of course this does not mean that the actual social
technique should wait until the science is constituted ; such
as it is, it is incomparably better than none. But, just as
in material technique, as soon as a scientific discovery is
at hand an effort should be made to find for it a practical
application, and if it can be applied in some particular
field a new technique should take the place of the old in
this field.
But if no practical aims should be introduced beforehand
into scientific investigation, social practice has, nevertheless,
the right to demand from social theory that at least some
of its results shall be applicahle_a^once, and that the number
and importance of such results shalL continually increase.
As one of the pragmatists has expressed it, practical life
can and must give credit to science, but sooner or later
science must pay her debts, and the longer the delay the
greater the interest required. This demand of ultimate
practical applicability is as important for science itself as
for practice; it is a test, not only of the practical, but of the
theoretical, value of the science. A science whose results
can be applied proves thereby that it is really based upon
experience, that it is able to grasp a great variety of prob-
lems, that its method is really exact' — that it is valid. The
test of applicability is a salutary responsibility which
science must assume in her own interest.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 17
If we attempt now to determine what should be the
object-matter and the method of a social theory that would
be able to satisfy the demands of modern social practice, it
is evident that its main object should be the actual civilized
society in its full development and with all its complexity
of situations, for it is the control of the actual civilized
society that is sought in most endeavors of rational practice.
But here, as in every other science, a determined body of
material assumes its full significance only if we can use
comparison freely, in order to distinguish the essential
from the accidental, the simple from the complex, the
primary from the derived. And fortunately social life
gives us favorable conditions for comparative studies,
particularly at the present stage of evolution, in the coexist-
ence of a certain number of civilized societies sufficiently
alike in their fundamental cultural problems to make
comparison possible, and differing sufficiently in their
traditions, customs, and general national spirit to make
comparison fruitful. And from the list of these civilized
societies we should by no means exclude those non-white
societies, like the Chinese, whose organization and attitudes
differ profoundly from our own, but which interest us both
as social experiments and as situations with which we have
to reconcile our own future.
In contrast with this study of the various^ present
civilized societies, the lines along which most of the purely
scientific sociological work has been done up to the present
—that is, ethnography of primitive societies and social
history — have a sejcondary, though by no means a negligible,
importance. Their relation to social practice is only
mediate; they can help the practitioner to_soJYe actuaL j
cultural problems only to the degree that they help the
scientist to understand actual cultural life; they are aux-
iliary, and their own scientific value will increase with the
1 8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
progress of the main sphere of studies. In all the endeavors
to understand and interpret the past and the savage we
must use, consciously or not, our knowle.dge_Qf our civilized
present life, which remains always a basis of comparison,
whether the past and the primitive are conceived as anal-
ogous with, or as different from, the present and the civilized.
The less objective and critical our knowledge of the present,
the more subjective and unmethodical is our interpretation
of the past and the primitive; unable to see the relative
and limited character of the culture within which we live,
we unconsciously bend every unfamiliar phenomenon to the
limitations of our own social personality. A really objective
understanding of history and ethnography can therefore
be expected only as a result of a methodical knowledge of
present cultural societies.
Another point to be emphasized with regard to the
question of the object-matter of social theory is the necessity
of taking into account the^jvhole __life-oL_a_givfin society
(instead of arbitrarily selecting and isolating beforehand
certain particular groups of Tacts. We have ^een already
that the contrary procedure constitutes one of the fallacies
of the common-sense sociology. It is also a fallacy usually
committed by the observers of their own or of other socie-
ties— litterateurs, journalists, travelers, popular psycholo-
gists, etc. In describing a given society they pick out the
most prominent situations, the most evident problems,
thinking to characterize thereby the life of the given group.
Still more harmful for the development of science is this
fallacy when used in the comparative sociology which
studies an institution, an idea, a myth, a legal or moral
norm, a form of art, etc., by simply comparing its content
in various societies without studying it in the whole meaning
which it has in a particular society and then comparing this
with the whole meaning which it has in the various societies.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 19
We are all more or less guilty of this fault, but it pleases us
to attribute it mainly to Herbert Spencer.
** In order to avoid arbitrary limitations and subjective
interpretations there are only two possible courses open.
We can study monographically whole concrete societies
with the total complexity of problems and situations which
constitute their cultural life; or we can work on special
social problems, following the problem in a certain limited
number of concrete social groups and studying it in every
group with regard to the particular form which it assumes
under the influence of the conditions prevailing in this
society, taking into account the complex meaning which a
concrete cultural phenomenon has in a determined cultural
environment. In studying the society we go from t
whole social context to the problem, and in studying the
problem we go from the problem to the whole social context. ,
And in both types of work the only safe method is to start
with the assumption that we know absolutely nothing about
the group or the problem we are to investigate except such
purely formal criteria as enable us to distinguish materials
belonging to our sphere of interest from those which do not
belong there./ But this attitude of indiscriminate recep-
tivity toward any concrete data should mark only the first
stage of investigation — that of limiting the field. As soon
as we become acquainted with the materials we begin to
select them with the help of criteria which involve certain
methodological generalizations and scientific hypotheses.
This must be done, since the whole empirical concreteness
cannot be introduced into science, cannot be described or
explained. We have to limit ourselves to certain theoreti-
cally important data, but we must know how to distinguish
the data which are important. And every further step of
the investigation will bring with it new methodological
problems — analysis of the complete concrete data into
20 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
elements, systematization of these elements, definition of
social facts, establishing of social laws. All these stages of
scientific procedure must be exactly and carefully defined
if social theory is to become a science conscious of its own
methods and able to apply them with precision, as is the
case with the more mature and advanced physical and
biological sciences. And it is always the question of an
ultimate practical applicability which, according to our
previous discussion, will constitute the criterion — the only
secure and intrinsic criterion — of a science.
Now there are two fundamental practical problems which
have constituted the center of attention of reflective social
| practice in all times. These are Ji}^ the problem of the
dependence of the individual upon social organization and
culture, and (2^ the problem of the dependence of social
organization and culture upon the individual. Practically,
the first problem is expressed in the question, How shall we
produce with the help of the existing social organization and
culture the desirable mental and moral characteristics in the
individuals constituting the social group ? And the second
problem means in practice, How shall we produce, with the
help of the existing mental and moral characteristics of the
individual members of the group, the desirable type of
social organization and culture P1
If social theory is to become the basis of social technique
and to solve these problems really, it is evident that it must
include both kinds of data involved in them — namely, the
objective cultural elements of social life and the subjective
characteristics of the members of the social group — and
that the two kinds of data must be taken as correlated.
1 Of course a concrete practical task may include both problems, as when we
attempt, by appealing to the existing attitudes, to establish educational institu-
tions which will be so organized as to produce or generalize certain desirable
attitudes.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 21
For these data we shall use now and in the future the terms
"son's.] values!! (or simply "values") and ^attitudesZ'
By a social value we understand any datum having an
empirical content accessible to the members of some social
group and a meaning with regard to which it is or may be an
object of activity. Thus, a foodstuff, an instrument, a
coin, a piece of poetry, a university, a myth, a scientific
theory, are social values. Each of them has a content that
is sensual in the case of the foodstuff, the instrument, the
coin ; partly sensual, partly imaginary in the piece of poetry,
whose content is constituted, not only by the written or
spoken words, but also by the images which they evoke, and
in the case of "the university, whose content is the whole
complex of men, buildings, material accessories, and images
representing its activity; or, finally, only imaginary in the
case of a mythical personality or a scientific theory. The
meaning of these values becomes explicit whence take-them_
in connection with human^ctiojas. The meaning of the
foodstuff is its reference to its eventual consumption; that
of an instrument, its reference to the work for which it is
designed; that of a coin, the possibilities of buying and
selling or the pleasures of spending which it involves; that
of the piece of poetry, the sentimental and intellectual reac-
tions which it arouses; that of the university, the social
activities which it performs; that of the mythical personal-
ity, the cult of which it is the object and the actions of which
it is supposed to be the author; that of the scientific theory,
the possibilities of control of experience by idea or action
that it permits. The social value is thus opposed to the
natural thing, which has a content but, as a part of nature,
has no meaning for human activity, is treated as " valueless" ;
when the, natural thing assumes a meaning, it becomes
thereby a social value. And naturally a social value may
22 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
have many meanings, for it may refer to many differen
kinds of activity.
By attitude we understand a process of individual con
sciousness which determines real or possible activity of th •
individual in the social world. Thus, hunger that compel i
the consumption of the foodstuff; the workman's decisio:
to use the tool; the tendency of the spendthrift to spend th
coin; the poet's feelings and ideas expressed in the poer
and the reader's sympathy and admiration ; the needs whic
the institution tries to satisfy and the response it prc
vokes; the fear and devotion manifested in the cult of th
divinity; the interest in creating, understanding, or appl)
ing a scientific theory and the ways of thinking implied in ?<
— all these are attitudes. The attitude is thus the individu.
•^ i — --.--
counterpart of the social value; activity, in whatever lorn
is the bond between them. By its reference to activit
and thereby to individual consciousness the value is distil'
guished from the natural thing. By its reference to activit
and thereby to the social world the attitude is distinguishe
from the psychical state. In the examples quoted abo^
we were obliged to use with reference to ideas and volitioi
words that have become terms of individual psycholog
by being abstracted from the objective social reality i
which they apply, but originally they were designed 1
express attitudes, not psychological processes. A psych
logical process is an attitude treated , as an object in itse
isolated by a reflective act of attention, and taken first of £
in connection with other states of the same individual. /
attitude is a psychological process treated as primarily mar
fested in its reference to the social world and taken first
all in connection with some social value. Individual ps
chology may later re-establish the connection between t
psychological process and the objective reality which h
been severed by reflection; it may study psychologic.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 23
processes as conditioned by the facts going on in the objec-
tive world. In the same way social theory may later con-
nect various attitudes of an individual and determine his
social character. But it is the original (usually uncon-
sciously occupied) standpoints which determine at once the •
subsequent methods of these two sciences. The psycho
logical process remains always fundamentally a state oj
somebody; the attitude remains always fundamentally ai
attitude toward something.
Taking this fundamental distinction of standpoint into
account, we may continue to use for different classes of
attitudes the same terms which individual psychology has
used for psychological processes, since these terms constituti
the common property of all reflection about conscious life
The exact meaning of all these terms from the standpoin
of social theory must be established during the process o
investigation, so that every term shall be defined in viev
of its application and its methodological validity tested ir
actual use. It would be therefore impractical to attempt t(
establish in advance the whole terminology of attitudes.
But when we say that the data of social theory are atti-
tudes and values, this is not yet a sufficient determination of
the object of this science, for the field thus defined would
embrace the whole of human culture and include the object-
matter of philology and economics, theory of art, theory of
science, etc. A more exact definition is therefore necessary
in order to distinguish social theory from these sciences,
established long ago and having their own methods and their
own aims. */'
This limitation of the field of social theory arises quite
naturally from the necessity of choosing between attitudes
or values as fundamental data — that is, as data whose char-
acters will serve as a basis for scientific generalization:
There are numerous values corresponding to every attitude,
24 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
and numerous attitudes corresponding to every value; if,
therefore, we compare different actions with regard to
the attitudes manifested in them and form, for example, the
general concept of the attitude of solidarity, this means that
we have neglected the whole variety of values which are
produced by these actions and which may be political or
economical, religious or scientific, etc. If, on the contrary,
we compare the values produced by different actions and
form, for example, the general concepts of economic or reli-
gious values, this means that we have neglected the whole
.variety of attitudes which are manifested in these actions.
Scientific generalization must always base itself upon such
characters of its data as can be considered essential to its
• purposes, and the essential characters of human actions are
completely different when we treat them from the stand-
point of attitudes and when we are interested in them as
values. There is therefore no possibility of giving to atti-
tudes and values the same importance in a methodical scien-
tific investigation ; either attitudes must be subordinated to
values or the contrary.
Now in all the sciences which deal with separate domains
of human culture like language, art, science, economics, it
is the attitudes which are subordinated to values — a stand-
point which results necessarily from the very specialization
of these sciences in the study of certain classes of cultural
values. For a theorician of art or an economist an attitude
is important and is taken into consideration only in so far
as it manifests itself in changes introduced into the sphere
of aesthetic or economic values, and is defined exclusively
by these changes — that is, by the pre-existing complex of
objective data upon which it acted and by the objective
results of this activity. But unless there is a special class
of cultural values which are not the object-matter of any
other science, and unless there are special reasons for assign-
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 25
ing this class to social theory — a problem which we shall
discuss presently — the latter cannot take the same stand-
point and subordinate attitudes to values, for this would
mean fr useless duplication of existing sciences. There may
be, as we shall see, some doubts whether such groups of
phenomena as religion or morality should be for special
reasons included in the field of social theory or should con-
stitute the object-matter of distinct sciences; but there is
no doubt that language and literature, art and science,
economics and technique, are already more or less adequately
treated by the respective disciplines and, while needing per-
haps some internal reforms, do not call for a supplementary
treatment by sociology or "folk-psychology" (Wundt).
But there is also no doubt that a study of the social world
from the opposite standpoint — that is, taking attitudes as
special object-matter and subordinating values to them — is
necessary, and that an exact methodology of such a study is
lacking. Ethics, psychology, ethnology, sociology, have an
interest in this field and each has occupied it in a fragmentary
and unmethodical way. But in ethics the study of attitudes
has been subordinated to the problem of ideal norms of
behavior, not treated as an end in itself, and under these
conditions no adequate method of a purely theoretic investi-
gation can be worked out. Ethnology has contributed
valuable data for the study of attitudes and values as found
in the various social groups, particularly the "lower" races,
but its work is mainly descriptive. Of the sociological
method in the exact sense of the term we shall speak pres-
ently. Psychology is, however, the science which has been'
definitely identified with the study of consciousness, and the
main question at this point is how far psychology has covered
or is capable of covering the field of attitudes.
As we have indicated above, the attitude is not a psy-
chological datum in the sei.se given to this term by individual
26 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
^\ ps
psychology, and this is true regardless of the differences be-
tween psychological schools. Concretely speaking, any
method of research which takes the individual as a distinct
entity and isolates him from his social environment, whether
in order to determine by introspective analysis the content
and form of his conscious processes, or in order to investigate
the organic facts accompanying these processes, or, finally,
in order to study experimentally his behavior as reaction to
certain stimuli, finds necessarily only psychical, physical, or
biological facts essentially and indissolubly connected with
the individual as a psychical, physical, or generally biologi-
cal reality. In order to reach scientific generalizations, such
a method must work on the assumption of the universal
permanence and identity of human nature as far as expressed
in these facts; that is, its fundamental concepts must be
such as to apply to all human beings, some of them even to
- all conscious beings, and individual differences must be
reconstructed with the help of these concepts as variations
of the same fundamental background, due to varying inten-
sities, qualities, and combinations of essentially the same
universal processes. Indeed, as every psychological fact is
a state of the individual as fundamental reality, the uniform-
ity of these facts depends on the permanence and uniformity
of such individual realities. The central field of individual
psychology is therefore constituted by the most elementary
conscious phenomena, which are the only ones that can be
adequately treated as essentially identical in all conscious
beings; phenomena which are limited to a certain number of
individuals either must be treated as complex and analyzed
into elementary and universal elements, or, if this cannot be
done, then their content, varying with the variation of social
milieu, must be omitted and only the form of their occurrence
reconstructed as presumably the same wherever and when-
ever they happen.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 27
But psychology is not exclusively individual psychology.
We find numerous monographs listed as psychological, but
studying conscious phenomena which are not supposed to
have their source in "human nature" in general, but in
special social conditions, which can vary with the variation
of these conditions and still be common to all individuals
in the same conditions, and which are therefore treated, not
as mere states of individual beings, but as self-sufficient data
to be studied without any necessary assumptions about the
psychological, physiological, or biological constitution of the
individuals composing the group. To this sphere of psy-
chology belong all investigations that concern conscious
phenomena particular to races, nationalities, religious,
political, professional groups, corresponding to special occu-
pations and interests, provoked by special influences of a
social milieu, developed by educational activities and legal
measures, etc. The term "social psychology" has become
current for this type of investigations. The distinction of
social from individual psychology and the methodological
unity of social psychology as a separate science have not
been sufficiently discussed, but we shall attempt to show \
that social psychology is precisely the science of attitudes and
that, while its methods are essentially different from the
methods of individual psychology, its field is as wide as
conscious life.
Indeed, every manifestation of conscious life, however
simple or complex, general or particular, can be treated as
anattitude, because every one involves a tendency to action,
whether this action is a process of mechanical-activity pro-
ducing physical changes in the material world, or anjittempt
to influence the attitudes of others by speech and gesture, or
a mental ar.tivity which does not at the given moment find
a social expression, or even a mere process,of jsensual apper-
ception. And all the objects of these actions can be treated
28 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
as saoaZ-^alues, for they all have some content which is or
may be accessible to other individuals — even a personal
"idea" can be communicated to others — and a meaning by
which they may become the objects of the activity of others.
And thus social psychology, when it undertakes to study the
conscious phenomena found in a given social group, has no
reasons a priori which force it to limit itself to a certain class
of such phenomena to the exclusion of others; any mani-
festation of the conscious life of any member of the group is
an attitude when taken in connection with the values which
constitute the sphere of experience of this group, and this
sphere includes data of the natural environment as well as
artistic works or religious beliefs, technical products and
economic relations as well as scientific theories. If, there-
fore, monographs in social psychology limit themselves to
such special problems as, for example, the study of general
conscious phenomena produced in a social group by certain
physical, biological, economic, political influences, by com-
mon occupation, common religious beliefs, etc., the limita-
tion may be justified by the social importance of these
phenomena or even by only a particular interest of the
author, but it is not necessitated by the nature of social
psychology, which can study among the conscious phenom-
ena occurring within the given social group, not only such
as are peculiar to this group as a whole, but also, on the one
hand, such as individual psychology assumes to be common
to all conscious beings, and, on the other hand, such as may
be peculiar to only one individual member of the group.
But of course not all the attitudes found in the conscious
life of a social group have the same importance for the pur-
poses of social psychology at a given moment, or even for
its general purposes as a science of the social world. On
the one hand, the task of every science in describing and
generalizing the data is to reduce as far as possible the limit-
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 29
less complexity of experience to a limited number of con-
cepts, and therefore those elements of reality are the most
important which are most generally found in that part of
experience which constitutes the object-matter of a science.
r^And thus for social psychology the importance of an attitude
is proportionate to the number and variety of actions in
which this attitude is manifested. The more generally an
attitude is shared by the members of the given social group
and the greater the part which it plays in the life of every
member, the stronger the interest which it provokes in the
social psychologist, while attitudes which are either peculiar
to a few members of the group or which manifest themselves
only on rare occasions have as such a relatively secondary
significance, but may become significant through some con-
nection with more general and fundamental attitudes.1
On the other hand, scientific generalizations are produc-
tive and valuable only in so far as they help to discover cer-
tain relations between various classes of the generalized
data and to establish a systematic classification by a logical
subordination and co-ordination of concepts; a generaliza-
tion which bears no relation to others is useless. Now, as
the main body of the materials of social psychology is con-
stituted by cultural attitudes, corresponding to variable and
multiform cultural values, such elementary natural attitudes
as correspond to stable and uniform physical conditions —
for example, attitudes manifested in sensual perception or
in the action of eating — in spite of their generality and prac-
tical importance for the human race, can be usefully investi-
gated-within the limits of this science only if a connection
1 In connection, indeed, with the problems of both the creation and the de-
struction of social values, the most exceptional and divergent attitudes may prove
the most important ones, because they may introduce a crisis and an element of
disorder. And to the social theorist and technician the disorderly individual is
of peculiar interest as a destroyer of values, as i:i the case of the anti-social indi-
vidual, and as a creator of values, as in the case^ of the man of genius.
30 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
can be found between them and the cultural attitudes — if,
for example, it can be shown that sensual perception or the
organic attitude of disgust varies within certain limits with
the variation of social conditions. As long as there is no
possibility of an actual subordination or co-ordination as
^between the cultural and the natural attitudes, the natural
attitudes have no immediate interest for social psychology,
and their investigation remains a task of individual psychol-
ogy. In other words, those conscious phenomena cor-
responding to the physical world can be introduced into
social psychology only if it can be shown that they are
not purely "natural" — independent of social conditions—
but also in some measure cultural — influenced by social
values.
Thus, the field of social psychology practically comprises
first of all the attitudes which are more or less generally
found among the members of a social group, have a real
importance in the life-organization of the individuals who
have developed them, and manifest themselves in social
activities of these individuals. This field can be indefinitely
enlarged in two directions if the concrete problems of social
psychology demand it. It may include attitudes which
are particular to certain members of the social group or
appear in the group only on rare occasions, as soon as they
acquire for some reason a social importance; thus, some
personal sexual idiosyncrasy will interest social psychology
only if it becomes an object of imitation or of indignation
to other members of the group or if it helps to an under-
standing of more general sexual attitudes. On the other
hand, the field of social psychology may be extended to such
attitudes as manifest themselves with regard, not to the
social, but to the physical, environment of the individual,
as soon as they show themselves affected by social culture;
for example, the perception of colors would become a socio-
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE
vy
psychological problem if it proved to have evolved during
the cultural evolution under the influence of decorative arts.
Social psychology has thus to perform the part of a
, general science of the subjective side of social culture which
we have heretofore usually ascribed to individual psychol-
J ogy or to "psychology in general." It may claim to be the —
science of consciousness as manifested in culture,, and its
i function is to render service, as a general auxiliary science,
to all the special sciences dealing with various spheres of
* social values. This does not mean that social psychology
can ever supplant individual psychology; the methods and
standpoints of these two sciences are too different to permit
either of them to fulfil the function of the other, and, if it
were not for the traditional use of the term "psychology"
for both types of research, it would be even advisable to
emphasize this difference by a distinct terminology.
But when we study the life of a concrete social group we
find a certain very important side of this life which social
psychology cannot adequately take into account, which
none of the special sciences of culture treats as its proper
object-matter, and which during the last fifty years has con-
stituted the central sphere of interest of the various re-
searches called sociology. Among the attitudes prevailing
within a group some express themselves only in individual
actions — uniform or multiform, isolated or combined — but
only in actions. But there are other attitudes — usually,
though not always, the most general ones — which, besides
expressing themselves directly, like the first, in actions, find f\
also an indirect manifestation in more or less explicit and / I
formal r.ules of behavior by which the group tends to main- / j£
tain, to regulate, and to make more general and more fre- \
quent the corresponding type of actions among its members.
These rules — customs and rituals, legal and educational
norms, obligatory beliefs and aims, etc. — arouse a twofold
32
interest. We may treat them, like actions, as manifesta-
tions of attitudes, as indices showing that, since the group
demands a certain kind of actions, the attitude which is
supposed to manifest itself in these actions is shared by all
those who uphold the rule. But, on the other hand, the very
existence of a rule shows that there are some, even if only
weak and isolated, attitudes which do not fully harmonize
with the one expressed in the rule, and that the group feels
the necessity of preventing these attitudes from passing into
'action. Precisely as far as the rule is consciously realized
as binding by individual members of the group from whom
it demands a certain adaptation, it has for every individual
a certain content^and a_certain meaning and is a value.
Furthermore, the action of an individual viewed byHieT
group, by another individual, or even by himself in reflec-
tion, with regard to this action's agreement or disagreement
with the rule, becomes also a value to which a certain atti-
tude of appreciation or depreciation is attached in various
forms. In this way rules and actions, taken, not with regard
to the attitudes expressed in them, but with regard to the
attitudes prgvokedjpy them, are quite analogous to any other
values — economic, artistic, scientific, religious, etc. There
may be many various attitudes corresponding to a rule or
action as objects of individual reflection and appreciation,
and a certain attitude — such as, for example, the desire for
personal freedom or the feeling of social righteousness — may
bear positively or negatively upon many rules and actions,
varying from group to group and from individual to indi-
vidual. These values cannot, therefore, be the object-
matter of social psychology; they constitute a special group
of objective cultural data alongside the special domains of
other cultural sciences like economics, theory of art, philol-
ogy, etc. The rules of behavior, and the actions viewed
as conforming or not conforming with these rules, constitute
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE
-ith regard to their objective significance a certain number {
f more or less connected and harmonious systems which
in be generally called social institutions, and the totality /
' institutions found in a concrete social group constitutes
ic social organization of this group. And when studying
e social organization as such we must subordinate atti-
des to values as we do in other special cultural sciences;
at is, attitudes count for us only as influencing and modi-
ing rules of behavior and social institutions.
Sociology^ as theory of social organization, is thus a
scial science of culture like economics or philology, and is
so far opposed to social psychology as the general science
the subjective side of culture. But at the same time it
5 this fin common with social psychology: that the values
ich it studies draw all their reality, alTtEeir power to
laence human life, from the social attitudes which are
)ressed or supposedly expressed in them; if the individual
his behavior is so largely determined by the rules prevail-
in his social group, it is certainly due neither to the
ionality of these rules nor to the physical consequences
ich their following or breaking may have, but to his con-
Dusness that these rules represent attitudes of his group
1 to his realization of the social consequences which will
»ue for him if he follows or breaks the rules. And there-
e both social psychology and sociology can be embraced
under the general term of social theory, as they are both
concerned with the relation between the individual and the,
concrete social group, though their standpoints on this com
mon ground are quite opposite, and though their fields ar
not equally wide, social psychology comprising the attitude
of the individual toward all cultural values of the given
social group, while sociology can study only one type of
these values — social rules — in their relation to individual
attitudes.
34 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
We have seen that social psychology has a central field
of interest including the most general and fundamental cul-
tural attitudes found within concrete societies. In the same
manner there is a certain domain which constitutes the
methodological center of sociological interest. It includes
those rules of behavior which concern more especially the
active relations between individual members of the group
and between each member and the group as a whole. It is
these rules, indeed, manifested as mores, laws, and group-
ideals and systematized in such institutions as the family,
the tribe, the community, the free association, the state, etc.,
which constitute the central part of social organization and
provide through this organization the essential conditions
of the existence of a group as a distinct cultural entity and
not a mere agglomeration of individuals; and hence all
other rules which a given group may develop and treat as
obligatory have a secondary sociological importance \ as
compared with these. But this does not mean that sociol-
ogy should not extend its field of investigation beyond this
methodological center of interest. Every social group,
particularly on lower stages of cultural evolution, is inclined
to control all individual activities, not alone those whicih
attain directly its fundamental institutions. Thus we find
social regulations of economic, religious, scientific, artistic
activities, even of technique and speech, and the break of
these regulations is often treated as affecting the very exist-
ence of the group. And we must concede that, though the
effect of these regulations on cultural productivity is often
more than doubtful, they do contribute as long as they last
to the unity of the group, while, on the other hand, the close
association which has been formed between these rules and
the fundamental social institutions without which the group
cannot exist has often the consequence that cultural evolu-
tion which destroys the influence of these secondary regula-
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 35
tions may actually disorganize the group. Precisely as far
as these social rules concerning special cultural activities
are in the above-determined way connected with the rules
which bear on social relations they acquire an interest fop
sociology. Of course it can be determined only a posteriori
how far the field of sociology sjifl^lnbe extended beyond the
investigation of fundamental social institutions, and the
situation varies from group to group and from period to
period. In all civilized societies some part of every cultural
activity — religious, economic, scientific, artistic, etc. — is
left outside of social regulation, and another, perhaps even
larger, part, though still subjected to social rules, is no
longer supposed to affect directly the existence or coherence
of society and actually does not affect it. It is^thereforeTa
rave methodological error to attempt to include generally
in the field of sociology such cultural domains as religion
or economics on the ground that in certain social groups
religious or economic norms are considered — and in some
measure even really are — a part of social organization, for
even there the respective values have a content which cannot
be completely reduced to social rules of behavior, and their
importance for social organization may be very small or
even none in other societies or at other periods of evolution.
The fundamental distinction between social psychology
and sociology appears clearly when we undertake the com-
parative study of special problems in various societies, for
these problems naturally divide themselves into two classes.
We may attempt to explain certain attitudes by tracing their
origin and trying to determine the laws of their appearance
under various social circumstances, as, for example, when
we investigate sexual love or feeling of group-solidarity,
bashfulness or showing off, the mystical emotion or the
aesthetic amateur attitude, etc. Or we may attempt to give
36 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
an explanation of social institutions and try to subject to
laws their appearance under various socio-psychological
conditions, as when our object-matter is marriage or family,
criminal legislation or censorship of scientific opinions, mili-
tarism or parliamentarism, etc. • But when we study mono-
graphically a concrete social group with all its fundamental
attitudes and values, it is difficult to make a thoroughgoing
separation of socio-psychological and sociological problems,
for any concrete body of material contains both. Con-
sequently, since the present work, and particularly its first
two volumes, is precisely a monograph of a concrete social
group, we cannot go into a detailed analysis of methodologi-
cal questions concerning exclusively the socio-psychological
or sociological investigation in particular, but must limit
ourselves to such general methodological indications as
concern both. Later, in connection with problems treated
in subsequent volumes, more special methodological dis-
cussions may be necessary and will be introduced in their
proper place.
The chief problems of modern science are problems of
causal explanation. The determination and systematiza-
tion of data is only the first step in scientific investigation.
If a science wishes to lay the foundation of a technique, it
must attempt to understand and to control the process of
becoming. Social theory cannot avoid this task, and there
is only one way of fulfilling it. Social becoming, like natural
becoming, must be analyzed into a plurality of facts, each
of which represents a succession of cause and effect. The
idea of social theory is the analysis of the totality of social
becoming into such causal processes and a systematization
permitting us to understand the connections between these
processes. No arguments a priori trying to demonstrate
the impossibility of application of the principle of causality
to conscious human life in general can or should halt social
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 37
'theory in tending to this idea, whatever difficulties there
may be in the way, because as a matter of fact we continually
do apply the principle of causality to the social world in our
activity and in our thought, and we shall always do this as
long as we try to control social becoming in any form. So,
instead of fruitlessly discussing the justification of this appli-
cation in the abstract, social theory must simply strive to
make it more methodical and perfect in the concrete — by
the actual process of investigation.
But if the general philosophical problem of free will and
determinism is negligible, the particular problem of the best I
possible method of causal explanation is very real. Indeed, \
its solution is the fundamental and inevitable introductory
task of a science which, like social theory, is still in the period
of formation. The great and most usual illusion of the
scientist is that he simply takes the facts as they are, without
any methodological prepossessions, and gets his explanation
entirely a posteriori from pure experience. A fact by itself ^
is already an abstraction; we isolate a certain limited aspect
of the concrete process of becoming, rejecting, at least
provisionally, all its indefinite complexity. The question
is only whether we perform this abstraction methodically
or not, whether we know what and why we accept and reject,
or simply take uncritically the old abstractions of "common
sense." If we want to reach scientific explanations, we must
keep in mind that our facts must be determined in such a *
way as to permit of their subordination to general laws. A
fact which cannot be treated as a manifestation of one or .
several laws is inexplicable causally. When, for example,
the historian speaks of the causes of the present war, he must
assume that the war is a combination of the effects of many
causes, each of which may repeat itself many times in history
and must have always the same effect, although such a com-
bination of these causes as has produced the present war
38 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
may never happen again. And only if social theory suc-
ceeds in determining causal laws can it become a basis of
social technique, for technique demands the possibility of
foreseeing and calculating the effects of given causes, and
this demand is realizable only if we know that certain causes
will always and everywhere produce certain effects.
Now, the chief error of both social practice and social
theory has been that they determined, consciously or uncon-
sciously, social facts in a way which excluded in advance the
possibility of their subordination to any laws. The implicit
or explicit assumption was that a sociaj. fact is composed of
two elements, a cause which is either a social phenomenon
or an individual act, and an effect which is either an indi-
vidual act or a social phenomenon. Following uncritically
the example of the physical sciences, which always tend to
find the one determined phenomenon which is the necessarv
and sufficient condition of another phenomenon, soci
theory and social practice have forgotten to take in
account one essential difference between physical and soci
reality, which is that, while the effect of a physical phenor
enon depends exclusively on the objective nature of th
phenomenon and can be calculated on the ground of tl
latter's empirical content, the effect of a social phenomenc
depends in addition on the subjective standpoint taken b
the individual or the group toward this phenomenon an
can be calculated only if we know, not only the objectrv
*^S content of the assumed cause, but also the meaning which i
has at the given moment for the given conscious beingi
This simple consideration should have shown to the socis
theorist or technician that a social cause cannot be simple
like a physical cause, but is compound, and must includ*
both an objective and a subjective element, a value and ai
attitude. Otherwise the effect will appear accidental am
incalculable, because we shall have to search in every par
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 39
ticular case for the reasons why this particular individual
or this particular society reacted to the given phenomenon
in this way and not in any other way.
In fact, a social value, acting upon individual members
of the group, produces a more or less different effect on every
one of them; even when acting upon the same individual at
various moments it does not influence him uniformly. The
influence of a work of art is a typical example. And such
uniformities as exist here are quite irrelevant, for they are
not absolute. If we once suppose that a social phenomenon
is the cause — which means a necessary and sufficient cause,
for there are no "insufficient" causes — of an individual re-
action, then our statement of this causal dependence has
the logical claim of being a scientific law from which there
can be no exceptions; that is, every seeming exception must
be explained by the action of some other cause, an action
whose formulation becomes another scientific law. But to
explain why in a concrete case a work of art or a legal pre-
scription which, according to our supposed law, should pro-
voke in the individual a certain reaction A provokes instead
a reaction B, we should have to investigate the whole past
of this individual and repeat this investigation in every case,
with regard to every individual whose reaction is not A,
without hoping ever to subordinate those exceptions to a new
law, for the life-history of every individual is different. Con-
sequently social theory tries to avoid this methodological
absurdity by closing its eyes to the problem itself. It is
either satisfied with statements of causal influences which
hold true "on the average," "in the majority of cases" — a
flat self-contradiction, for, if something is a cause, it must
have by its very definition, always and necessarily the same
effect, otherwise it is not a cause at all. Or it tries to analyze
phenomena acting upon individuals and individual reactions
to them into simpler elements, hoping thus to find simple
40 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
facts, while the trouble is not with the complexity of data,
but with the complexity of the context on which these data
act or in which they are embodied — that is, of the human
personality. Thus, as far as the complexity of social data
is concerned, the principle of gravitation and the smile of
Mona Lisa are simple in their objective content, while their
influence on human attitudes has been indefinitely varied;
the complex system of a graphomaniac or the elaborate
picture of a talentless and skilless man provokes much more
uniform reactions. And, on the individual side, the simple
attitude of anger can be provoked by an indefinite variety
of social phenomena, while the very complicated attitude
of militant patriotism appears usually only in very definite
social conditions.
But more than this. Far from obviating the problem of
individual variations, such uniformities of reaction to social
influences as can be found constitute a problem in them-
selves. For with the exception of the elementary reactions
to purely physical stimuli, which may be treated as identical
because of the identity of "human nature" and as such
belong to individual psychology, all uniformities with which
social psychology has to deal are the product of social con-
ditions. If the members of a certain group react in an
identical way to certain values, it is because they have been
socially trained to react thus, because the traditional rules
of behavior predominant in the given group impose upon
every member certain ways of defining and solving the
practical situations which he meets in his life. But the very
success of this social training, the very fact that individual
members do accept such definitions and act in accordance
with them, is no less a problem than the opposite fact — the
frequent insuccess of the training, the growing assertion of
the personality, the growing variation of reaction to social
rules, the search for personal definitions — which character-
v
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 41
izes civilized societies. And thus, even if we find that all
, the members of a social group react in the same way to a
] certain value, still we cannot assume that this value alone
{ is the cause of this reaction, for the latter is also conditioned
1 by the uniformity of attitudes prevailing in the group ; and
this uniformity itself cannot be taken as granted and
omitted — as we omit the uniformity of environing conditions
in a physical fact — because it is the particular effect of cer-
tain social rules acting upon the members of the group who,
because of certain predispositions, have accepted these rules,
.and this effect may be at any moment counterbalanced
by the action of different causes, and is in fact counter-
balanced more and more frequently with the progress of
civilization.
In short, when spcjaj_theory assumes that a certain social
value is of itself the cause of. a certain individual reaction,
it is then forced to ask: "But why did this value produce
this particular effect when acting on this particular indi-
vidual or group at this particular moment ? " Certainly no
scientific answer to such a question is possible, since in order
to explain this "why" we should have to know the whole
past of the individual, of the society, and of the universe.
Analogous methodological difficulties arise when social
theory attempts to explain a change in social organization as
a result of the activity of the members of the group. If we
\ treat individual activity as a cause of social changes, every
change appears as inexplicable,/! particularly when it is
I "original," presents many new features. Necessarily this
point is one of degree, for every product of individual activ-
ity is in a sense a new value and in so far original as it has not
existed before this activity, but in certain cases the impor-
tance of the change brought by the individual makes its incal-
culable and inexplicable character particularly striking. We
have therefore almost despaired of extending consistently
42 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
the principle of causality to the activities of "great men,"
while it still seems to us that we do understand the everyday
productive activity of the average human individual or of
the "masses." From the methodological standpoint, how-
ever, it is neither more nor less difficult to explain the greatest
changes brought into the social world by a Charles the Great,
a Napoleon, a Marx, or a Bismarck than to explain a small
change brought by a peasant who starts a lawsuit against
his relatives or buys a piece of land to increase his farm.
The work of the great man, like that of the ordinary man,
s the result of his tendency to modify the existing conditions,
of his attitude toward his social environment which makes
him reject certain existing values and produce certain new
values. The difference is in the values which are the object
of the activity, in the nature, importance, complexity, of the
social problems put and solved. The change in social or-
ganization produced by a great man may be thus equivalent
to an accumulation of small changes brought by millions of
ordinary men, but the idea that a creative process is more
explicable when it lasts for several generations than when
it is performed in a few months or days, or that by dividing
a creative process into a million small parts we destroy its
irrationality, is equivalent to the conception that by a proper
combination of mechanical elements in a machine we can
produce a perpetuum mobile.
The simple and well-known fact is that the social results
of individual activity depend, not only on the action itself,
but also on the social conditions in which it is performed;
and therefore the cause of a social change must include both
individual and social elements. By ignoring this, social
theory faces an infinite task whenever it wants to explain the
simplest social change. For the same action in different
social conditions produces quite different results. It is true
that if social conditions are sufficiently stable the results of
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE
43
certain individual actions are more or less determinable, at
least in a sufficient majority of cases to permit an approxi-
mate practical calculation. We know that the result of the
activity of a factory-workman will be a certain technical
product, that the result of the peasant's starting a lawsuit
against a member of his family will be a dissolution of family
bonds between him and this member, that the result of a
judge's activity in a criminal case will be the condemnation
and incarceration of the offender if he is convicted. But all
this holds true only if social conditions remain stable. In
case of a strike in the factory, the workman will not be
allowed to finish his product ; assuming that the idea of family
solidarity has ceased to prevail in a peasant group, the law-
suit will not provoke moral indignation ; if the action upon
which the judge has to pronounce this verdict ceases to be
treated as a crime because of a change of political conditions
or of public opinion, the offender, even if convicted, will be
set free. A method which permits us to determine only
cases of stereotyped activity and leaves us helpless in face
of changed conditions is not a scientific method at all, and
becomes even less and less practically useful with the con-
tinual increase of fluidity in modern social life.
Moreover, social theory forgets aiso that the uniformity
of results of certain actions is itself a problem and demands
explanation exactly as much as do the variations. For the
stability of social conditions upon which the uniformity of
results of individual activity depends is itself a product of
former activities, not an original natural status which might
be assumed as granted. Both its character and its degree
vary from group to group and from epoch to epoch. A cer-
tain action may have indeed determined and calculable
effects in a certain society and at a certain period, but will
have completely -^different effects in other societies and at
other periods.
44 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
And thus social theory is again confronted by a scien-
tifically absurd question. Assuming that individual activ-
ity in itself is the cause of social effects, it must then ask:
"Why does a certain action produce this particular effect
at this particular moment in this particular society ? " The
answer to this question would demand a complete explana-
tion of the whole status of the given society at the given
moment, and thus force us to investigate the entire past of
the universe. &wv\,V> t^^>W»^ Qu^CCo f
The fundamental methodological principle of both social
psychology and sociology — the principle without which they
^an never reach scientific explanation — is therefore the fol-
lowing one:
The cause of a social or individual phenomenon is never
another social or individual phenomenon alone, but always a
combination of a social and an individual phenomenon.
Or, in more exact terms:
The cause of a value or of an attitude is never an attitude
or a value alone, but always a combination of an attitude and a
value.1
It is only by the application of this principle that we can
remove the difficulties with which social theory and social
practice have struggled. If we wish to explain the appear-
ance of a new attitude^— whether in one individual or in a
whole group — we know that this attitude appeared as a con-
sequence of the influence of a social value upon the individual
or the group, but we know also that this influence itself
1 It may be objected that we have neglected to criticize the conception accord-
ing to which the cause of a social phenomenon is to be sought, not in an individual,
but exclusively in another social phenomenon (Durkheim). But a criticism of
this conception is implie^Si the previous discussion of the data of social theory.
As these data are boER^alues and attitudes, a fact must include both, and a suc-
cession of values alone cannot constitute a fact. Of course much depends also on
what we call a "social" phenomenon. An attitude may be treated a. a social
phenomenon as opposed to the "state of consciousness" of individual psychology;
but it is individual, even if common to all members of a group, when we oppose
it to a value.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 45
would have been impossible unless there had been some pre-
existing attitude, some wish, emotional habit, or intellec-
tual tendency, to which this value has in some way appealed,
favoring it, contradicting it, giving it a new direction, or
stabilizing its hesitating expressions. Our problem is there-^)
fore to find both the value and the pre-existing attitude upon
which it has acted and get in their combination the necesj
sary and sufficient cause of the new attitude. We shall not
be forced then to ask: "Why did this value provoke in this
case such a reaction ?" because the answer will be included
in the fact — in the pre-existing attitude to which this value
appealed. ' Our fact will bear its explanation in itself, just
as the physical fact of the movement of an elastic body B
when struck by another elastic moving body A bears its
explanation in itself. We may, if we wish, ask for a more
detailed explanation, not only of the appearance of the new
attitude, but also for certain specific characters of this atti-
tude, in the same way as we may ask for an explanation, not
only of the movement of the body B in general, but also of
the rapidity and direction of this movement ; but the prob-
lem always remains limited, and the explanation is within
the fact, in the character of the pre-existing attitude and of
the influencing value, or in the masses of the bodies A and B
and the rapidity and direction of their movements previous
to their meeting. We can indeed pass from the given fact
to the new one — ask, for example, "How did it happen that
this attitude to which the value appealed was there ? " or,
"How did it happen that the body A moved toward B until
they met ? " But this question again will find its limited and
definite answer if we search in the same way for the cause
of the pre-existing attitude in some other attitude and value,
or of the movement in some other movement.
Let us take some examples from the following volumes.
Two individuals, under the influence of a tyrannical behavior
46 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
in their fathers, develop completely different attitudes.
One shows submission, the other secret revolt and resent-
ment. If the father's tyranny is supposed to be the cause
of these opposite attitudes, we must know the whole char-
acter of these individuals and their whole past in order to
explain the difference of effect. But if we realize that the
tyranny is not the sole cause of both facts, but only a com-
| mon, element which enters into the composition of two differ-
( ent causes, our simple task will be to find the other elements
of these causes. We can find them, if our materials are
sufficient, in certain persisting attitudes of these individuals
as expressed in words or actions. We form hypotheses
which acquire more and more certainty as we compare many
similar cases. We thus reach the conclusion that the other
element of the cause is, in the first case, the attitude of
familial solidarity, in the second case, the individualistic
tendency to assert one's own personal desires. We have
thus two completely different facts, and we do not need to
search farther. The difference of effects is obviously ex-
plained by the difference of causes and is necessarily what
it is. The cause of the attitude of submission is the attitude
of familial solidarity plus the tyranny of the father; the cause
of the attitude of revolt is the tendency to self-assertion
plus the tyranny of the father.
As another example — this time a mass-phenomenon — we
take the case of the Polish peasants from certain western
communities who go to Germany for season-work and show
there uniformly a desire to do as much piece-work as pos-
sible and work as hard as they can in order to increase their
earnings, while peasants of these same communities and even
the same individual peasants when they stay at home and
work during the season on the Polish estates accept only
day-work and refuse piece-work under the most ridiculous
pretexts. We should be inclined to ascribe this difference
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 47
of attitudes to the difference of conditions, and in fact both
the peasants and the Polish estate-owners give this explana-
tion, though they differ as to the nature of causes. The
peasants say that the conditions of piece-work are less
favorable in Poland than in Germany; the estate-owners
claim that the peasants in Germany are more laborious
because intimidated by the despotism of German estate-
owners and farm-managers. Both contentions are wrong.
The conditions of piece-work as compared with day-work
are certainly not less favorable in Poland than in Germany,
and the peasants are more laborious in Germany on their
own account, regardless of the very real despotism which
they find there. To be sure, the conditions are different ; the
whole social environment differs. The environment, how-
ever, is not the sufficient cause of the attitudes. The point is
that the peasant who goes to Germany is led there by the
desire of economic advance, and this attitude predominates
during the whole period of season- work, not on account of the
conditions themselves, but through the feeling of being in
definite new conditions, and produces the desire to earn more
by piece-work. On the contrary, the peasant who stays at
home preserves for the time being his old attitude toward
work as a "necessary evil," and this attitude, under the
influence of traditional ideas about the conditions of work
on an estate, produces the unwillingness to accept piece-
work. Here both components of the cause — pre-existing
attitude and value-idea — differ, and evidently the effects
must be different.
If now we have to explain the appearance of a social
value, we know that this value is a product of the activity
of an individual or a number of individuals, and in so far
dependent on the attitude of which this activity is the expres-
sion. But we know also that this result is inexplicable
unless we take into consideration the value (or complex of
48 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
values) which was the starting-point and the social material
of activity and which has conditioned the result as much as
did the attitude itself. (The new value is the result of the
solution of a problem set by the pre-existing value and the
active attitude together; it is the common effect of both of
them.' The product of an activity — even of a mechanical
activity, such as a manufactured thing — acquires its full
social reality only when it enters into social life, becomes the
object of the attitudes of the group, is socially valued. And/
we can understand this meaning, which is an essential part
of the effect, only if we know what was the social situa-
tion when the activity started, what was the social value
upon which the individual (or individuals) specially acted
and which might have been quite different from the one upon
which he intended to act and imagined that he acted. If
we once introduce this pre-existing value into the fact as the
necessary component of the cause, the effect — the new
value — will be completely explicable and we shall not be
forced to ask: "Why is it that this activity has brought in
these conditions this particular effect instead of the effect
it was intended to bring ?" any more than physics is forced
to ask: "Why is it that an elastic body struck by another
elastic body changes the direction and rapidity of its move-
ment instead of changing merely its rapidity or merely its
direction?"
To take some further examples, the American social insti-
tutions try, by a continuous supervision and interference, to
develop a strong marriage-group organization among the
Polish immigrants who begin to show certain signs of decay
of family life or among whom the relation between husband
and wife and children does not come up to the American
standards in certain respects. The results of this activity
are quite baffling. Far from being constructive of new
values, the interference proves rather destructive in a great
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 49
majority of cases, in spite of the best efforts of the most
intelligent social workers. In a few cases it does not seem
to affect much the existing state of things; sometimes, in-
deed, though very seldom, it does bring good results. This
very variation makes the problem still more complicated and
difficult. To explain the effects, the social workers try to
take into consideration the whole life-history and char-
acter of the individuals with whom they deal, but without
progressing much in their efforts. The whole misunder-
standing comes from the lack of realization that the Polish
immigrants here, though scattered and losing most of their
social coherence, are still not entirely devoid of this coherence
and constitute vague and changing but as yet, in some
measure, real communities, and that these communities
have brought from the old country several social institutions,
among which the most important is the family institution.
In new conditions these institutions gradually dissolve, and
we shall study this process in later volumes. But the disso-
lution is not sudden or universal, and thus the American
social worker in his activity meets, without realizing it, a
set of social values which are completely strange to him,
and which his activity directly affects without his knowing
it. As far as the family organization is concerned, any inter-
ference of external powers — political or social authorities —
must act dissolvingly upon it, because it affects the funda-
mental principle of the family as a social institution — the
principle of solidarity. An individual who accepts external
interference in his favor against a family member sins against
this principle, and a break of family relations must be
thus the natural consequence of the well-intentioned but
insufficiently enlightened external activities. The effect is
brought, not by these activities alone, but by the combina-
tion of these activities and the pre-existing peasant family
organization. Of course, if the family organization is
50 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
different — if, for example, in a given case the marriage-group
has already taken the place of the large family — the effect
will be different because the total cause is different. Or, if
instead of trie protective and for the peasant incompre-
hensible attitude of the social worker or court officer a
different attitude is brought into action — if, ^for example,
the family is surrounded by a strong and solidary community
of equals who, from the standpoint of communal solidarity,
interfere with family relations, just as they do hi the old
country — again the effect will be different because the other
component of the cause — the attitude as expressed in action
— is no longer the same.
Another interesting example is the result of the national
persecution of the Poles in Prussia, the aim of which was to
destroy Polish national cohesion. Folio whig all the efforts
which the powerful Prussian state could bring against the
Poles, national cohesion has in a very large measure in-
creased, and the national organization has included such
elements as were before the persecution quite indifferent to
national problems — the majority of the peasants and of the
lower city classes. The Prussian government had not real-
ized the existence and strength of the communal solidarity
principle in the lower classes of Polish society, and by attack-
ing certain vital interests of these classes, religious and
economic, it contributed more than the positive efforts of
the intelligent Polish class could have done to the develop-
ment of this principle and to its extension over the whole
Polish society in Posen, Silesia, and West Prussia.
These examples of the result of the violation of our
methodological rule could be multiplied indefinitely from the
field of social reform. The common tendency of reformers /
is to construct a rational scheme of the social institution
they wish to see produced or abolished, and then to formu-
late an ideal plan of social activities which would perhaps
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 51
lead to a realization of their scheme if social life were merely
a sum of individual actions, every one of them starting
afresh without any regard for tradition, every one having its
source exclusively in the psychological nature of the indi-
vidual and capable of being completely directed, by well-
selected motives, toward definite social aims. IJut as social
reality contains, not only individual acts, but also social
institutions, not only attitudes, but also values fixed by
tradition and conditioning the attitudes, these values co-
operate in the production of the final effect quite independ-
ently, and often in spite of the intentions of the social
reformer. Thus the socialist, if he presupposes that a soli-
dary and well-directed action of the masses will realize the
scheme of a perfect socialistic organization, ignores com-
pletely the influence of the whole existing social organization
which will co-operate with the revolutionary attitudes of
the masses in producing the new organization, and this, not
only because of the opposition of those who will hold to the
traditional values, but also because many of those values, as
socially sanctioned rules for defining situations, will continue
to condition many attitudes of the masses themselves and
will thus be an integral part of the causes of the final effect.
Of course we do not assert that the proper way of formu-
lating social facts is never used by social theory or reflective
social practice. On the contrary, we very frequently find
it applied in the study of particular cases, and it is naively
used in everyday business and personal relations. We use
it in all cases involving argument and persuasion. The busi-
ness man, the shopkeeper, and the politician use it very
subtly. We have been compelled in the case of our juvenile
delinquents to allow the judges to waive^the formal and
incorrect conception of social facts and to substitute in the
case of the child the proper formula. But the point is that
this formula has never been applied with any consistency
52 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
and systematic development, while the wrong formula has
been used very thoroughly and has led to such imposing
systems as, in reflective practice, the whole enormous and
continually growing complexity of positive law, and in
social theory to the more recent and limited, but rapidly
growing, accumulation of works on political science, philos-
ophy of law, ethics, and sociology. {At every step we try
to enforce certain attitudes upon other individuals without
stopping to consider what are their dominant attitudes in
general or their prevailing attitudes at the given moment;
at every step we try to produce certain social values without
taking into account the values which are already there and
upon which the result of our efforts will depend as much as
upon our intention and persistence^
The chief source of this great methodological mistake,
whose various consequences we have shown in the first part
of this note, lay probably in the fact that social theory and
reflective practice started with problems of political and
legal organization. Having thus to deal with the relatively
uniform attitudes and relatively permanent conditions which
characterized civilized societies several thousand years ago,
and relying besides upon physical force as a supposedly infal-
lible instrument for the production of social uniformity and
stability whenever the desirable attitudes were absent,
social theory and reflective practice have been capable of
holding and of developing, without remarking its absurdity,
a standpoint which would be scientifically and technically
justifiable only if human attitudes were absolutely and
universally uniform and social conditions absolutely and
universally stable.
A systematic application and development of the
methodological rules stated above would necessarily lead
in a completely different direction. Its final result would
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 53,
not be a system of definitions, like law and special parts of
political science, nor a system of the philosophical deter-
mination of the essence of certain data, like philosophy of
law, the general part of political science, ethics, and many
sociological works, nor a general outline of social evolution,
like the sociology of the Spencerian school or the philosophies
of history, but a system of laws of social becoming, in which
definitions, philosophical determinations of essence, and
outlines of evolution would play the same part as they do in
physical science — that is, would constitute either instru-
ments helping to analyze reality and to find laws, or conclu-
sions helping to understand the general scientific meaning
and the connection of laws.
It is evident that such a result can be attained only by
a long and persistent co-operation of social theoricians. It
took almost four centuries to constitute physical science in
its present form, and, though the work of the social scientist
is incalculably facilitated by the long training in scientific
thinking in general which has been acquired by mankind
since the period of the renaissance, it is on the other hand
made more difficult by certain characters of the social world
as compared with the natural world. We do not include
among these difficulties the complexity of the social world
which has been so often and unreflectively emphasized.
Complexity is a relative characteristic; it depends on the
method and the purpose of analysis. Neither the social
nor the natural world presents any ready and absolutely
simple elements, and in this sense they are both equally
complex, because they are both infinitely complex. But
this complexity is a metaphysical, not a scientific, problem.
In science we treat any datum as a simple element if it be-
haves as such in all the combinations in which we find it, and
any fact is a simple fact which can indefinitely repeat itself —
that is, in which the relation between cause and effect can
54 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
be assumed to be permanent and necessary. And in this
respect it is still a problem whether the social world will not
prove much less complex than the natural world if only we
analyze its data and determine its facts by proper methods.
The prepossession of complexity is due to the naturalistic way
of treating the social reality. If it is maintained that the
social world has to be treated as an expression or a product
of the psychological, physiological, or biological nature of
human beings, then, of course, it appears as incomparably
more complex than the natural world, because to the already
inexhaustibly complex conscious human organism as a part
of nature is added the fact that in a social group there are
numerous and various human beings interacting in the most
various ways. But if we study the social world, without
any naturalistic prepossessions, simply as a plurality of
specific data, causally interconnected in a process of becom-
ing, the question of complexity is no more baffling for social
theory, and may even prove less so, than it is for physical
science. """1
The search for laws does not actually present any special
difficulties if our facts have been acjequajrely determin^.
When we have found that a certain effecTis produced by a
certain cause, the formulation of this causal dependence has
in itself the character of a law; that is, we assume that
whenever this cause repeats itself the effect will necessarily
follow. The further need is to explain apparent exceptions.
But this need of explanation, which is the stumbling-block
of a theory that has defined its facts inadequately, becomes,
on the contrary, a factor of progress when the proper method
is employed. For when we know that a certain cause can
have only one determined effect, when we have assumed, for
example, that the attitude A plus the value B is the cause of
the attitude C, then if the presumed cause A -\-B is there and
the expected effect C does not appear, this means either that
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 55
we have been mistaken in assuming that A +B was the cause
of C, or that the action of A -\-B was interfered with by the
action of some other cause A -f- Y or X-\-B or X-\- Y. In the
first case the exception gives us the possibility of correcting
our error; in the second case it permits us to extend our
knowledge by finding a new causal connection, by determin-
ing the partly or totally unknown cause A-\-Y or X-\-B or
X-\-Y which has interfered with the action of our known
case A -\-B and brought a complex effect D = C-\-Z, instead
of the expected C. And thus the exception from a law
becomes the starting-point for the discovery of a new law.
This explanation of apparent exceptions being the only
logical demand that can be put upon a law, it is evident that
the difference between particular and general laws is only a
difference of the field of application, not one of logical validity.
Suppose we find in the present work some laws concerning
the social life of Polish peasants showing that whenever
there is a pre-existing attitude A and the influence of a
value B, another attitude C appears, or whenever there is
a value D and an activity directed by an attitude E, a
ne^v value F is the effect. If the causes A+B and D-\-E
are found only in the social life of the Polish peasants and
nowhere else, because some of their components — the atti-
tudes or values involved — are peculiar to the Polish peasants,
then, of course, the laws A-\-B = C and D-\-E=F will be
particular laws applicable only to the Polish peasant society,
but within these limits as objectively valid as others which
social theory may eventually find of applicability to human-
ity in general. We cannot extend them beyond these
limits and do not need to extend them. But the situation
will be different if the attitudes A and E and the values B
and D are not peculiar to the Polish peasant society, and
thus the causes A-\-B and D+E can be found also in other
societies. Then the laws A +B = C and D-\-E = F, based on
56 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
facts discovered among Polish peasants, will have quite a
different meaning. But we cannot be sure whether they are
valid for other societies until we have found that in other
societies the causes A-\-B and D-\-E produce the same
respective effects C and F. And since we cannot know
whether these values and attitudes will be found or not hi
other societies until we have investigated these societies,
the character of our laws must remain until then unde-
termined; we cannot say definitely whether they are abso-
lutely valid though applicable only to the Polish peasants
or only hypothetically valid although applicable to all
societies.
The problem of laws being the most important one of
methodology, we shall illustrate it in detail from two con-
crete examples. Of course we do not really assert that the
supposed laws which we use in these illustrations are already
established ; some of them are still hypotheses, others even
mere fictions. The purpose is to give an insight into the
mechanism of the research.
Let us take as the first example the evolution of the eco-
nomic life of the Polish peasant as described hi the intro-
duction to the first and second volumes of this work. We
find there, first, a system of familial economic organization
with a thoroughly social and qualitative character of eco-
nomic social values, succeeded by an individualistic system
with a quantification of the values. This succession as such
does not determine any social fact; we obtain the formula
of facts only if we find the attitude that constructs the
second system out of the first. Now, this attitude is the
tendency to economic advance, and thus our empirical facts
are subsumed to the formula : familial system — tendency to
advance — individualistic system. The same facts being
found generally among Polish peasants of various localities,
we can assume that this formula expresses a law, but whether
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 57
it is a law applicable only to the Polish peasants or to all
societies depends on whether such a familial economic
organization associated with a tendency to advance results
always and everywhere in an individualistic system. We
may further determine that if we find the familial system,
but instead of the tendency to economic advance another
attitude — for example, the desire to concentrate political
power in the family — the result will be different — for
example, the feudal system of hereditary estate. Or we
may find that if the tendency to economic advance acts
upon a different system — for example, a fully developed
economic individualism — it will also lead to a different social
formation — for example, to the constitution of trusts.
These other classes of facts may become in turn the bases
of social hypotheses if they prove sufficiently general and
uniform. But certainly, whether the law is particular or
general, we must always be able to explain every seeming
exception. For example, we find the familial system and
the tendency to advance in a Polish peasant family group,
but no formation of the individualistic system — the family
tends to advance as a' whole. In this case we must suppose
that the evolution has been hindered by some factors which
change the expected results. There may be, for example,
a very strong attitude of family pride developed traditionally
in all the members, as in families of peasant nobility who
had particular privileges during the period of Poland's
independence. In this case familial pride co-operating with
the tendency to advance will produce a mixed system of
economic organization, with quantification of values but
without individualism. And if our law does not stand all
these tests we have to drop it. But even then we may still
suppose that its formulation was too general, that within the
range of facts covered by these concepts a more limited and
particular law could be discovered — for example, that the
58 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
system of "work for living," under the influence of the
tendency to advance, becomes a system of "work for
wages."
As another type of example we select a particular case
of legal practice and attempt to show what assumptions are
implicitly involved in it, what social laws are uncritically
assumed, and try to indicate in what way the assumptions
of common sense could be verified, modified, complemented,
or rejected, so as to make them objectively valid. For,
if science is only developed, systematized, and perfected
common sense, the work required to rectify common sense
before it becomes science is incomparably greater than is
usually supposed.
The case is simple. A Polish woman (K) has loaned to
another (T) $300 at various times. After some years she
claims her money back; the other refuses to pay. K goes
to court. Both bring witnesses. The witnesses are exam-
ined. First assumption of legal practice, which we may put
into the form of a social law, is: "A witness who has sworn
to tell the truth will tell the truth, unless there are reasons
for exception."1 But according to our definition there can
be no such law where only two elements are given. There
might be a law if we had (i) the oath (a social value);
(2) an individual attitude $, still to be determined; (3) a
true testimony. But here the second element is lacking;
nobody lias determined the attitude which, in connection
with the oath, results in a true testimony, and therefore, of
course, nobody knows how to produce such an attitude.
It is supposed that the necessary attitude — whatever it is—
1 It is the formal side of this assumption, not the sphere of its application,
that is important. Whether we admit few or many exceptions, whether we
say, "The witness often [or sometimes] tells the truth," has not the slightest
bearing on the problem of method. There is a general statement and a limitation
of this statement, and both statement and limitation are groundless — cannot be
explained causally.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 59
appears automatically when the oath is taken. Naturally
in many, if not in the majority of cases, the supposition
proves false, and if it proves true, nobody knows why. In
our case it proved mainly false. Not only the witnesses of
the defense, but some of the witnesses of the plaintiff, were
lying. What explanation is possible? We could, of
course, if we knew what attitude is necessary for true
testimony, determine why it was not there or what were the
influences that hindered its action. But, not knowing it,
we have simply to use some other common-sense generaliza-
tion, such as: "If the witnesses are lying in spite of the
oath, there is some interest involved — personal, familial,
friendly." And this was the generalization admitted in
this case, and it has no validity whatever because it cannot
be converted into a law; we cannot say that interest is the
cause making people lie, but we must have again the
tertium quid — the attitude upon which the interest must act
in order to produce a lie. And, on the other hand, a lie
can be the result of other factors acting upon certain pre-
existing attitudes, and this was precisely the case in the
example we are discussing. The Polish peasants lie in court
because they bring into court a fighting attitude. Once
the suit is started, it becomes a fight where considerations
of honesty or altruism are no longer of any weight, and the
only problem is — not to be beaten. Here we have, indeed,
a formula that may become, if sufficiently verified, a socio-
logical law — the lawsuit and a radical fighting attitude result
in false testimonies. Apparent exceptions will then be
explained by influences changing either the situation of the
lawsuit or the attitude. Thus, in the actual case, the
essence of most testimonies for the plaintiff was true,
namely, the claim was real. But the ctaim preceded the
lawsuit; the peasant woman would probably not have
started the lawsuit without a just claim, for as long as the
60 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
suit was not started considerations of communal solidarity
were accepted as binding, and a false claim would have
been considered the worst possible offense. The situation
preceding the suit was, in short : law permitting the recovery
of money that the debtor refused to pay — creditor's feeling
of being wronged and desire of redress — legal complaint.
There was no cause making a false claim possible, for the
law, subjectively for the peasant, can be here only a means
of redress, not a means of illicit wrong, since he does not
master it sufficiently to use it in a wrong way, and the desire
of redress is the only attitude not offset by the feeling of
communal solidarity.
It would lead us too far if we analyzed all the assumptions
made by legal practice in this particular case, but we
mention one other. The attorney for the defense treated
as absurd the claim of the plaintiff that she had loaned
money without any determined interest, while she could
have invested it at good interest and in a more secure way.
The assumption was that, being given various possibilities
of investing money, the subject will always select the one
that is most economically profitable. We see here again
the formal error of stating a law of two terms. The law
can be binding only if the third missing term is inserted,
namely, an attitude of the subject which we can express
approximately: desire to increase fortune or income. Now,
in the actual case, this attitude, if existing at all, was offset
by the attitude of communal solidarity, and among the
various possibilities of investing money, not the one that
was economically profitable, but the one that gave satis-
faction to the attitude of solidarity was selected?. *
The form of legal generalization is typical for all general-
izations which assume only one datum instead of two as
sufficient to determine the effect. It then becomes neces-
sary to add as many new generalizations of the same type
6i
as the current practice requires in order to explain the
exceptions. These new generalizations limit the funda-
mental one without increasing positively the store of our
knowledge, and the task is inexhaustible. Thus, we may
enumerate indefinitely the possible reasons for a witness
not telling the truth in spite of the oath, and still this will
not help us to understand why he tells the truth when he
tells it. And with any one of these reasons of exception
the case is the same. If we say that the witness does not
tell the truth when it is contrary to his interest, we must
again add indefinitely reasons of exception from this rule
without learning why the witness lies when the truth is not
contrary to his interest if he does. And so on. If in
practice this process of accounting for exceptions, then for
exceptions from these exceptions, etc., does not go on
indefinitely, it is simply because, in a given situation, we
can stop at a certain point with sufficient approximation to
make our error not too harmful practically. .
It is evident that the only way of verifying, correcting,
and complementing the generalizations of common sense
is to add in every case the missing third element. We
cannot, of course, say in advance how much will remain of
these generalizations after such a conversion into exact
sociological laws; probably, as far as social theory is con-
cerned, it will be more economical to disregard almost
completely the results of common sense and to investigate
along quite new and independent lines. But for the sake
of an immediate improvement of social practice it may
sometimes prove useful to take different domains of practi-
cal activity and subject them to criticism.
In view of the prevalent tendency of common-sense
generalizations to neglect the differences of values and
attitudes prevailing in various social groups — a tendency
well manifested in the foregoing example — the chief danger
62 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of sociology in searching for laws is rather to overestimate
than to underestimate the generality of the laws which it
may discover. We must therefore remember that there is
less risk in assuming that a certain law applies exclusively
in the given social conditions than in supposing that it may
be extended over all societies.
The ideal of social theory, as of every other nomo-
/\thetic science, is to interpret as many facts as possible by
as few laws as possible, that is, not only to explain causally
the life of particular societies at particular periods, but to
subordinate these particular laws to general laws applicable
to all societies at all times — taking into account the historical
evolution of mankind which continually brings new data
and new facts and thus forces us to search for new laws in
addition to those already discovered. But the fact that
social theory as such cannot test its results by the laboratory
method, but must rely entirely on the logical perfection of
its abstract analysis and synthesis, makes the problem of
control of the validity of its generalizations particularly
important. The insufficient realization of the character
of this control has been the chief reason why so many
sociological works bear a character of compositions, inter-
mediary between philosophy and science and fulfilling the
demands of neither.
We have mentioned above the fact that social theory as
nomothetic science must be clearly distinguished from any
philosophy of social life which attempts to determine the
essence of social reality or to outline the unique process of
social evolution. This distinction becomes particularly
' marked when we reach the problem of testing the generaliza-
1 tions. Every scientific law bears upon the empirical facts
themselves in their whole variety, not upon their under-
lying common essence, and hence every new discovery
in the domain which it embraces affects it directlv and
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 63
immediately, either by corroborating it or by invalidating
it. And, as scientific laws concern facts which repeat
themselves, they automatically apply to the future as well
as to the past, and new happenings in the domain embraced
by the law must be taken into consideration as either
justifying or contradicting the generalization based upon
past happenings, or demanding that this generalization be
supplemented by a new one.
And thus the essential criterion of social science as
against social philosophy is the direct dependence of its!
generalizations on new discoveries and new happenings. |
If a social generalization is not permanently qualified by
the assumption that at any moment a single new experience
may contradict it, forcing us either to reject it or to supple-
ment it by other generalizations, it is not scientific and has
no place in social theory, unless as a general principle helping
to systematize the properly scientific generalizations. The
physicist, the chemist, and the biologist have learned by the
use of experiment that their generalizations are scientifically
fruitful only if they are subject to the check of a possible
experimental failure, and thus the use of experiment has
helped them to pass from the mediaeval philosophic, naturalis
to the modern natural science. The social theorician must
follow their example an4 methodically search only for such
generalizations as are subject to the check of a possible
contradiction by new facts and should leave the empirically
unapproachable essences and meanings where they properly
belong, and where they have a real though different impor-
tance and validity — in philosophy.
The ultimate test of social theory, as we have emphasized
throughout the present note, will be ;cs application in
practice, and thus its generalizations will be also subject in
the last resort to the check of a possible failure. However,
practical application is not experimentation. The results
64 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of the physical sciences are also ultimately tested by their
application in industry, but this does not alter the fact that
the test is made on the basis of laboratory experiments.
The difference between experiment and application is
twofold: (i)yfhe problems themselves usually differ in
complexity./ The experiment by which we test a scientific
law is artificially simplified in view of the special theoretic
problem, whereas in applying scientific results to attain a
practical purpose we have a much more complex situation
to deal with, necessitating the use of several scientific laws
and the calculation of their interference. This is a question
with which we shall deal presently. (2)^0. laboratory
experiments the question of the immediate'practical value
of success or failure is essentially excluded for the sake of
their theoretical value. Whether the chemist in trying a
new combination will spoil his materials and have to buy
a new supply, whether the new combination will be worth
more or less money than the elements used, are from the
standpoint of science completely irrelevant questions; and
even a failure if it puts the scientist on the trail of a new law
will be more valuable than a success if it merely corroborates
once more an old and well-established law. But in applying
scientific results in practice we have essentially the practical
value of success or failure in view* It is unthinkable that
a chemist asked to direct the production of a new kind of
soap in a factory should test his theory by direct application
and risk the destruction of a hundred thousand dollars
worth of material, instead of testing it previously on a small
scale by laboratory experiments. Now in all so-called
social experiments, on however small a scale, the question
of practical value is involved, because the objects of these
experiments are men; the social scientist cannot exclude
the question of the bearing of his "experiments" on the
future of those who are affected by them. He is therefore
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 65
seldom or never justified in risking a failure for the sake of
testing his theory. Of course he does and can take risks,
not as a scientist, but as a practical man; that is, he is
justified in taking the risk of bringing some harm if there
are rriore chances of benefit than of harm to those on whom
he operates. His risk is then the practical risk involved in
every application of an idea, not the special theoretic risk
involved in the mere testing of the idea. And, in order to
diminish this practical risk, he must try to make his theory
as certain and applicable as possible before trying to apply
it in fact, and he can secure this result and hand over to
the social practitioner generalizations at least approximately
as applicable as those of physical science, only if he uses the
check of contradiction by new experience. This means
that besides using only such generalizations as can be
contradicted by new experiences he must not wait till new
experiences impose themselves on him by accident, but
must search for them, must institute a systematic method
of observation. And, while it is only natural that a scientist
in order to form a hypothesis and to give it some amount of
probability has to search first of all for such experiences -as
may corroborate it, his hypothesis cannot be considered
fully tested until he has made subsequently a systematic
search for such experiences as may contradict it, and proved
those contradictions to be only seeming, explicable by the
interference of definite factors.
Assuming now that social theory fulfils its task satis-
factorily and goes on discovering new laws which can be
applied to regulate social becoming, what will be the effect
of this on social practice ? First of all, tlie limitations with
which social practice has struggled up to the present will
be gradually removed. Since it is theoretically possible to
find what social influences should be applied to certain
66 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
already existing attitudes in order to produce certain new
attitudes, and what attitudes should be developed with
regard to certain already existing social values in order to
make the individual or the group produce certain new social
values, there is not a single phenomenon within the whole
sphere of human life that conscious control cannot reach
sooner or later. There are no objective obstacles in the
nature of the social world or in the nature of the human mind
which would essentially prevent social practice from attain-
ing gradually the same degree of efficiency as that of indus-
trial practice. The only obstacles are of a subjective kind.
There is, first, the traditional appreciation of social
activity as meritorious in itself, for the sake of its intentions
alone. There must, indeed, be some results in order to
make the good intentions count, but, since anything done is
regarded as meritorious, the standards by which the results
are appreciated are astonishingly low. Social practice
must cease to be a matter of merit and be treated as a
necessity. If the theorician is asked to be sure of his
generalizations before trying to apply them hi practice, it
is at least strange that persons of merely good will are
permitted to try out on society indefinitely and irresponsibly
their vague and perhaps sentimental ideas.
The second obstacle to the development of a perfect
social practice is the well-known unwillingness of the
common-sense man to accept the control of scientific
technique. Against this unwillingness there is only one
weapon — success. This is what the history of industrial
technique shows. There is perhaps not a single case where
the first application of science to any field of practice held
by common sense and tradition did not provoke the opposi-
tion of the practitioner. It is still within the memory of
man that the old farmer with his common-sense methods
laughed at the idea that the city chap could teach him any-
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE $7
thing about farming, and was more than skeptical about the
application of the results of soil-analysis to the growing of
crops. The fear of new things is still strong even among
cultivated persons, and the social technician has to expect
that he will meet at almost every step this old typical
hostility of common sense to science. He can only accept
it and interpret it as a demand to show the superiority of his
methods by their results.
But the most important difficulty which social practice
has to overcome before reaching a level of efficiency com-
parable to that of industrial practice lies in the difficulty of
applying scientific generalizations. The laws of science are
abstract, while the practical situations are concrete, and
it requires a special intellectual activity to find what are
the practical questions which a given law may help to solve,
or what are the scientific laws which may be used to solve
a given practical question. In the physical sphere this
intellectual activity has been embodied in technology, and
it is only since the technologist has intervened between the
scientist and the practitioner that material practice has
acquired definitely the character of a self-conscious and
planfully developing technique and ceased to be dependent
on irrational and often unreasonable traditional rules.
And if material practice needs»a technology in spite of the
fact that the generalizations which physical science hands
over to it have been already experimentally tested, this need
is much more urgent in social practice where the application
of scientific generalizations is their first and only experi-
mental test.
We cannot enter here into detailed indications of what
social technology should be, but we must take into account
the chief point of its method — the general form which every
concrete problem of social technique assumes. Whatever
may be the aim of social practice — modification of individual
68 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
attitudes or of social institutions — in trying to attain this
aim we never find the elements which we want to use or to
modify isolated and passively waiting for our activity, but
always embodied in active practical situations, which have
been formed independently of us and with which our
activity has to comply.
The situation is the set of values and attitudes with which
the individual or the group has to deal in a process of
activity and with regard to which this activity is planned and
its results appreciated. Every concrete activity is the
solution of a situation. The situation involves three kinds
of data: (i) The objective conditions under which the
individual or society has to act, that is, the totality of
values — economic, social, religious, intellectual, etc. —
which at the given moment affect directly or indirectly the
conscious status of the individual or the group. (2) The
pre-existing attitudes of the individual or the group which
at the given moment have an actual influence upon his
behavior. (3) The definition of the situation, that is, the
more or less clear conception of the conditions and conscious-
ness of the attitudes. /And the definition of the situation
is a necessary preliminary to any act of the will, for in given
conditions and with a given set of attitudes an indefinite
plurality of actions is possible, and one definite action can
appear only if these conditions are selected, interpreted, and
combined hi a determined way and if a certain systematiza-
tion of these attitudes is reached, so that one of them
becomes predominant and subordinates the others. It
happens, indeed, that a certain value imposes itself imme-
diately and unreflectively and leads at once to action, or
that an attitude as soon as it appears excludes the others
and expresses itself unhesitatingly in an active process.
In these cases, whose most radical examples are found in
reflex and instinctive actions, the definition is already given
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 69
to the individual by external conditions or by his own
tendencies. But usually there is a process of reflection,
after which either a ready social definition is applied or a
new personal definition worked out.
Let us take a typical example out of the fifth volume of the
present work, concerning the family life of the immigrants
in America. A husband, learning of his wife's infidelity,
deserts her. The objective conditions were: (i) the social
institution of marriage with all the rules involved; (2)
the wife, the other man, the children, the neighbors, and in
general all the individuals constituting the habitual environ-
ment of the husband and, in a sense, given to him as values;
(3) certain economic conditions; (4) the fact of the wife's
infidelity. Toward all these values the husband had certain
attitudes, some of them traditional, others recently devel-
oped. Now, perhaps under the influence of the discovery
of his wife's infidelity, perhaps after having developed some
new attitude toward the sexual or economic side of marriage,
perhaps simply influenced by the advice of a friend in the
form of a rudimentary scheme of the situation helping him
to "see the point," he defines the situation for himself. He
takes certain conditions into account, ignores or neglects
others, or gives them a certain interpretation in view of some
chief value, which may be his wife's infidelity, or the eco-
nomic burdens of family life of which this infidelity gives him
the pretext to rid himself, or perhaps some other woman, or
the half-ironical pity of his neighbors, etc. And in this
definition some one attitude — sexual jealousy, or desire for
economic freedom, or love for the other woman, or offended
desire for recognition — or a complex of these attitudes, or a
new attitude (hate, disgust) subordinates to itself the
others and manifests itself chiefly in the subsequent
action, which is evidently a solution of the situation, and
fully determined both in its social and in its individual
70 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
components by the whole set of values, attitudes, and
reflective schemes which the situation included. When a
situation is solved, the result of the activity becomes an
element of a new situation, and this is most clearly evi-
denced in cases where the activity brings a change of a
social institution whose unsatisfactory functioning was the
chief element of the first situation.
Now, while the task of science is to analyze by a com-
parative study the whole process of activity into elementary
facts, and it must therefore ignore the variety of concrete
situations in order to be able to find laws of causal depend-
ence of abstractly isolated attitudes or values on other
attitudes and values, the task of technique is tf^proyide £hj^
means of a rational control of concrete situations. The
situation can evidently be controlled either by a change of
conditions or by a change of attitudes^ or by both, and in
this respect the role of technique as application of science
is easily characterized. By comparing situations of a
certain type, the social technician must find what are the
predominant values or the predominant attitudes which
determine the situation more than others, and then the
question is to modify these values or these attitudes in the
desired way by using the knowledge of social causation
given by social theory. Thus, we may find that some of the
situations among the Polish immigrants in America result-
ing in the husband's desertion are chiefly determined by the
wife's infidelity, others by her quarrelsomeness, others by
bad economic conditions, still others by the husband's
desire for freedom, etc. And, if in a given case we know
what influences to apply in order to modify these dominating
factors, we can modify the situation accordingly, and ideally
we can provoke in the individual a behavior in conformity
with any given scheme of attitudes and values.
To be sure, it may happen that, in spite of an adequate
scientific knowledge of the social laws permitting the
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 71
modification of those factors which we want to change, our
efforts will fail to influence the situation or will produce a
situation more undesirable than the one we wished to
avoid. The fault is then with our technical knowledge.
That is, either we have failed in determining the relative
• , kffl^tance of the various factors, or we have failed to
* foresee the influence of other causes which, interfering with
our activity, produce a quite unexpected and undesired
effect. And since it is impossible to expect from every
practitioner a complete scientific training and still more
impossible to have him work out a scientifically justified and
detailed plan of action for every concrete case in particular,
the special task of the social technician is to prepare, with
the help of both science and practical observation, thorough
schemes and plans of action for all the various types of
situations which may be found in a given line of social
activity, and leave to the practitioner the subordination
of the given concrete situation to its proper type. This is
actually the role which all the organizers of social institu-
tions have played, but the technique itself must become
more conscious and methodically perfect, and every field of
social activity should have its professional technicians.
The evolution of social life makes necessary continual
modifications and developments of social technique, and
we can hope that the evolution of social theory will con-
tinually put new and useful scientific generalizations within
the reach of the social technician; the latter must therefore
remain in permanent touch with both social life and social
theory, and this requires a more far-going specialization
than we actually find.
But, however efficient thft type of social technique may
become, its application will always have certain limits
beyond which a different type of technique will be more
useful. Indeed, the form of social control outlined above
presupposes that the individual — or the group — is treated
72 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
as a passive object of our activity and that we change the
situations for him, from case to case, in accordance with our
plans and intentions. But the application of this method
becomes more and more difficult as the situations grow
more complex, more new and unexpected from case to case,
and more influenced by the individual's own reflection.
And, indeed, from both the moral and the hedonistic
standpoints and also from the standpoint of the level of
efficiency of the individual and of the group, it is desirable
to develop in the individuals the ability to control spontane-
ously their own activities by conscious reflection. To use
a biological comparison, the type of control where the
practitioner prescribes for the individual a scheme of
activity appropriate to every crisis as it arises corresponds
to the tropic or reflex type of control in animal life, where
the activity of the individual is controlled mechanically by
stimulations from without, while the reflective and individ-
ualistic control corresponds to the type of activity character-
istic of the higher conscious organism, where the control is
exercised from within by the selective mechanism of the
nervous system. While, in the early tribal, communal,
kinship, and religious groups, and to a large extent in the
historic state, the society itse\f provided a rigoristic and
particularistic set of definitions in the form of "customs" or
"mores," the tendency to advance is associated with the
liberty of the individual to make his own definitions.
We have assumed throughout this argument that if
an adequate technique is developed it is possible to produce
any desirable attitudes and values, but this assumption is
practically justified only if we find in the individual attitudes
which cannot avoid response to the class of stimulations
which society is able to apply to him. And apparently we
do find this disposition. Every individual has a vast
variety of wishes which can be satisfied only by his incorpora-
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE
73
I.
tion in a society. Among his general patterns of wishes
we may enumerate: (i) the desire for new experience, for
fresh stimulations; (2) the desire for recognition, including,
for example, sexual response and general social appreciation,
and secured by devices ranging from the display of orna-
ment to the demonstration of worth through scientific
attainment; (3) the desire for mastery, or the "will to
power," exemplified by ownership, domestic tyrai
political despotism, based on the^ instinct of hjite/but
capable of being sublimated to laudable ambition;^) the
desire for security, based on the instinct of fear and exem-
plified negatively by the wretchedness of the individual in
perpetual solitude or under social taboo. Society is,
indeed, an agent for the repression of many of the wishes
in the individual; it demands that he shall be moral by
repressing at least the wishes which are irreconcilable with
the welfare of the group, but nevertheless it provides the
only medium within which any of his schemes or wishes can
be gratified. And it would be superfluous to point out by
examples the degree to which society has in the past been
able to impose its schemes of attitudes and values on the
individual. Professor Sumner's volume, Folkways, is prac-
tically a collection of such examples, and, far from dis-
couraging us as they discourage Professor Su
should be regarded as proofs of^ the ability of ti iyidual
to conform to any definition, to accept anyM &Pro~
vided it is an expression of the public will o^jJH Bne
appreciation of even a limited group. To^feke a Jmgle
example from the present, to be a bastai^Mfrthe mother
of a bastard has been regarded heretof ojfl^ anything but
desirable, but we have at this momenj^fcrts that one of
the warring European nations is offiJ[Hp impregnating its
un'rnj™ l^omen and girls and evd^frried women whose
hu&ands ft at the front. VwiflP true (which we do
74 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
not assume) we have a new definition and a new evaluation
of motherhood arising from the struggle of this society
against death, and we may anticipate a new attitude — that
the resulting children and their mothers will be the objects
of extraordinary social appreciation. And even if we find
that the attitudes are not so tractable as we have assumed,
that it is not possible to provoke all the desirable ones, we
shall still be in the same situation as, let us say, physics and
mechanics: we shall have the problem of securing the
highest degree of control possible in view of the nature of
our materials.
As to the present work, it evidently cannot in any sense
pretend to establish social theory on a definitely scientific
basis. It is clear from the preceding discussion that many
workers and much time will be needed before we free our-
selves from the traditional ways of thinking, develop a
completely efficient and exact working method, and reach
a system of scientifically correct generalizations. Our
present very limited task is the preparation of a certain
body of materials, even if we occasionally go beyond it and
attempt to reach some generalizations.
Our object-matter is one class of a modern society in the
whole concrete complexity of its life. The selection of the
Polish peasant society, motivated at first by somewhat
incidoptaUUlteons, such as the intensity of the Polish
immigration and the facility of getting materials concerning
the PoMs^MB^sant, has proved during the investigation
to be a fortun3Mk>ne. The Polish peasant finds himself now
in a period of flMfcition from the old forms of social organ-
ization that halBteen in force, with only insignificant
changes, for man^lBkuries, to a modern form oflife. He
has preserved enouJHfc the old attitudes to ^H •|heir
sociological reconstruBB| possible, and he ifB BK^V
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 75
advanced upon the new way to make a study of the develop-
ment of modern attitudes particularly fruitful. He has
been invited by the upper classes to collaborate in the
construction of Polish national life, and hi certain lines!
his development is due to the conscious educational efforts •'
of his leaders — the nobility, the clergy, the middle class. \
In this respect he has the value of an experiment in social
technique; the successes, as well as the failures, of this
educational activity of the upper classes are very significant
for social work. These efforts of the upper classes them-
selves have a particular sociological importance in view of
the conditions in which Polish society has lived during the
last century. As a society without a state, divided among
three states and constantly hampered in all its efforts to
preserve and develop a distinct and unique cultural life,
it faced a dilemma — either to disappear or to create such
substitutes for a state organization as would enable it to
resist the destructive action of the oppressing states; or,
more generally, to exist without the framework of a state.
These substitutes were created, and they are interesting in
two respects. Fiist, they show, in an exceptionally inten-
sified and to a large extent isolated form, the action of
certain factors of social unity which exist in every society
but in normal conditions are subordinated to the state
organization and seldom sufficiently accounted for in
sociological reflection. Secondly, the lack of permanence
of every social institution and the insecurity of every social
value in general, resulting from the destructive tendencies
of the dominating foreign states, bring with them a necessity
of developing and keeping constantly alive*all the activities
needed to reconstruct again and again every value that had
been destroyed. The whole mechanism of social creation is
theref<j»|here particularly transparent and easy to under-
in general the role of fruman attitudes in social
76 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
life becomes much more evident than in a society not living
under the same strain, but able to rely to a large extent upon
the inherited formal organization for the preservation of its
culture and unity.
We use in this work the inductive method in a form
which gives the least possible place for any arbitrary state-
ments. The basis of the work is concrete materials, and
only in the selection of these materials some necessary
discrimination has been used. But even here we have tried
to proceed in the most cautious way possible. The private
letters constituting the first two volumes have needed
relatively little selection, particularly as they are arranged
in family series. Our task has been limited to the exclusion
of such letters from among the whole collection as contained
nothing but a repetition of situations and attitudes more
completely represented in the materials which we publish
here. In later volumes the selection can be more severe, as
far as the conclusions of the preceding volumes can be used
for guidance.
The analysis of the attitudes and characters given in
notes to particular letters and in introductions to particular
series contains nothing not essentially contained in the
materials themselves; its task is only to isolate single
attitudes, to show their analogies and dependences, and to
interpret them in relation to the social background upon
which they appear. Our acquaintance with the Polish
society simply helps us in noting data and relations which
would perhaps not be noticed so easily by one not imme-
diately acquainted with the life of the group.
Finally, the synthesis constituting the introductions to
particular volumes is also based upon the materials, with
a few exceptions where it was thought necessary to draw
some data from Polish ethnological publications or, |^stem-
atic studies. The sourc* are always quoted. •*
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 77
The general character of the work is mainly that of a
systematization and classification of attitudes and values S\
prevailing in a concrete group. Every attitude and every
value, as we have said above, can be really understood only
in connection with the whole social life of which it is an
element, and therefore this method is the only one that
gives us a full and systematic acquaintance with all the
complexity of social life. But it is evident that this mono-
graph must be followed by many others if we want our
acquaintance with social reality to be complete. Other
Slavic groups, particularly the Russians; the French and
the Germans, as representing different types of more
efficient societies; the Americans, as the most conspicuous
fy
experiment in individualism; the Jews, as representing
particular social adaptations under peculiar social pressures;
the Oriental, with his widely divergent attitudes and values;
the Negro, with his lower cultural level and unique social
position — these and other social groups should be included
in a series of monographs, which in its totality will give for
the first time a wide and secure basis for any sociological
generalizations whatever. Naturally the value of every
monograph will increase with the development of the work,
for not only will the method continually improve, but every
social group will help to understand every other.
In selecting the monographic method for the present
work and in urging the desirability of the further preparation
of large bodies of materials representing the total life of
different social groups, we do not ignore the other method of
approaching a scientific social theory and practice — the
study of special problems, of isolated aspects of social life.
And we are not obliged even to wait until all the societies
have been studied monographically, in their whole concrete
reality, before beginning the comparative study of particular
problems. Indeed, the study of a single society, as we have
78 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
undertaken it here, is often enough to show what role is
played by a particular class of phenomena in the total life
of a group and to give us in this way sufficient indications
for the isolation of this class from its social context without
omitting any important interaction that may exist between
phenomena of this class and others, and we can then use
these indications in taking the corresponding kinds of
phenomena in other societies as objects of comparative
research.
By way of examples, we point out here certain problems
suggested to us by the study of the Polish peasants for
which this study affords a good starting-point i1
1. The problem of individualization. — How far is individ-
ualization compatible with social cohesion ? What are the
forms of individualization that can be considered socially
useful or socially harmful? What are the forms of social
organization that allow for the greatest amount of
individualism ?
We have been led to the suppositions that, generally
speaking, individualization is the intermediary stage between
one form of social organization and another; that its social
usefulness depends on its more or less constructive character
— that is, upon the question whether it does really lead to a
new organization and whether the latter makes the social
group more capable of resisting disintegrating influences;
and that, finally, an organization based upon a conscious
co-operation in view of a common ami is the most compatible
with individualism. The verification of these suppositions
and their application to concrete problems of such a society
as the American would constitute a grateful work.
2 . The problem of efficiency. — Relation between individual
and social efficiency. Dependence of efficiency upon various
1 Points 2 and 8 following are more directly connected with materials on the
middle and upper classes of Polish society which do not appear in the present work.
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 79
individual attitudes and upon various forms of social
organization.
The Polish society shows in most lines of activity a
particularly large range of variation of individual efficiency
with a relatively low scale of social efficiency. We have
come to the conclusion that both phenomena are due to the
lack of a sufficiently persistent and detailed frame of social
organization, resulting from the loss of state-independence.
Under these conditions individual efficiency depends upon
individual attitudes much more than upon social conditions.
An individual may be very efficient because there is little
to hinder his activity in any line he selects, but he may also
be very inefficient because there is little to push him or to
help him. The total social result of individual activities
under these conditions is relatively small, because social
efficiency depends, not only on the average efficiency of the
individuals that constitute the group, but also on the more
or less perfect organization of individual efforts. Here,
again, the application of these conclusions to other societies
can open the way to important discoveries in this particular
sphere by showing what is the way of conciliating the
highest individual with the highest social efficiency.
3. The problem of abnormality — crime, vagabondage, pros-
titution, alcoholism, etc. — How far is abnormality the
unavoidable manifestation of inborn tendencies of the
individual, and how far is it due to social conditions ?
The priests in Poland have a theory with regard to
their peasant parishioners that there are no incorrigible
individuals, provided that the influence exercised upon
them is skilful and steady and draws into play all of the
social factors — familial solidarity, social opinion of the
community, religion and magic, economic and intellectual
motives, etc. And in his recent book on The Individual
Delinquent, Dr. William Healy touches the problem on the
8o PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
same side in the following remark: "Frequently one
wonders what might have been accomplished with this or
that individual if he had received a more adequate discipline
during his childhood." By our investigation of abnormal
attitudes in connection with normal attitudes instead of
treating them isolately, and by the recognition that the
individual can be fully understood and controlled only if
all the influences of his environment are properly taken into
account, we could hardly avoid the suggestion that abnor-
mality is mainly, if not exclusively, a matter of deficient
social organization. There is hardly any human attitude
which, if properly controlled and directed, could not be
used in a socially productive way. Of course there must
always remain a quantitative difference of efficiency between
individuals, often a very far-going one, but we can see no
reason for a permanent qualitative difference between
socially normal and antisocial actions. And from this
standpoint the question of the antisocial individual assumes
no longer the form of the right of society to protection, but
that of the right of the antisocial individual to be made
useful.
4. The occupational problem. — The modern division and
organization of labor brings an enormous and continually
growing quantitative prevalence of occupations which are
almost completely devoid of stimulation and therefore
present little interest for the workman. This fact neces-
sarily affects human happiness profoundly, and, if only for
this reason, the restoration of stimulation to labor is among \
the most important problems confronting society. The j
present industrial organization tends also to develop a type
of human being as abnormal in its way as the opposite type
of individual who gets the full amount of occupational
stimulation by taking a line of interest destructive of social
order — the criminal or vagabond. If the latter type of
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 81
abnormality is immediately dangerous for the present state
of society, the former is more menacing for the future, as
leading to a gradual but certain degeneration of the human
type — whether we regard this degeneration as congenital
or acquired.
The analysis of this problem discloses very profound and
general causes of the evil, but also the way of an eventual
remedy. It is a fact too well known to be emphasized that
modern organization of labor is based on an almost absolute
prevalence of economic interests — more exactly, on the
tendency to produce or acquire the highest possible amount
of economic values — either because these interests are
actually so universal and predominant or because they
express themselves in social organization more easily than
others — a point to be investigated. The moralist complains
of the materialization of men and expects a change of the
social organization to be brought about by moral or religious
preaching; the economic determinist considers the whole
social organization as conditioned fundamentally and
necessarily by economic factors and expects an improve-
ment exclusively from a possible historically necessary
modification of the economic organization itself. From the
sociological viewpoint the problem looks much more serious
and objective than the moralist conceives it, but much less
limited and determined than it appears to the economic
determinist. The economic interests are only one class of
human attitudes among others, and every attitude can be
modified by an adequate social technique. The interest
in the nature of work is frequently as strong as, or stronger
than, the interest in the economic results of the work, and
often finds an objective expression in spite of the fact that
actual social organization has little place for it. The
protests, in fact, represented by William Morris mean that
a certain class of work has visibly passed from the stage
82 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
where it was stimulating to a stage where it is not — that
the handicrafts formerly expressed an interest in the work
itself rather than in the economic returns from the work.
Since every attitude tends to influence social institutions,
we may expect that, with the help of social technique, an
organization and a division of labor based on occupational
interests may gradually replace the present organization
based on demands of economic productivity. In other
words, with the appropriate change of attitudes and values
all work may become artistic work.
5. The relation of the sexes. — Among the many problems
falling under this head two seem to us of fundamental
importance, the first mainly socio-psychological, the second
mainly sociological: (i) In the relation between the sexes
how can a maximum of reciprocal response be obtained
with the minimum of interference with personal interests ?
(2) How is the general social efficiency of a group affected by
the various systems of relations between man and woman ?
We do not advance at this point any definite theories.
A number of interesting concrete points will appear in the
later volumes of our materials. But a few suggestions of a
general character arise in connection with the study of a
concrete society. In matters of reciprocal response we find
among the Polish peasants the sexes equally dependent on
each other, though their demands are of a rather limited and
unromantic character, while at the same tune this response
is secured at the cost of a complete subordination of their
personalities to a common sphere of group-interests. When
the development of personal interests begins, this original
harmony is disturbed, and the disharmony is particularly
marked among the immigrants hi America, where it often
leads to a complete and radical disorganization of family life.
There does not seem to be as yet any real solution in view.
In this respect the situation of the Polish peasants may throw
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 83
an interesting light upon the general situation of the culti-
vated classes of modern society. The difference between
these two situations lies in the fact that among the peasants
both man and woman begin almost simultaneously to
develop personal claims, whereas in the cultivated classes
the personal claims of the man have been developed and in a
large measure satisfied long ago, and the present problem
is almost exclusively limited to the woman. The situations
are analogous, however, in so far as the difficulty of solu-
tion is concerned.
With regard to social efficiency, our Polish materials
tend to show that, under conditions in which the activities
of the woman can attain an objective importance more or
less equal to those of the man, the greatest social efficiency
is attained by a systematic collaboration of man and woman
in external fields rather than by a division of tasks which
limits the woman to "home and children." The line along
which the peasant class of Polish society is particularly
efficient is economic development and co-operation; and
precisely in this line the collaboration of women has been
particularly wide and successful. As far as a division of
labor based upon differences of the sexes is concerned, there
seems to be at least one point at which a certain differentia-
tion of tasks would be at present in accordance with the
demands of social efficiency. The woman shows a particular
aptitude of mediation between the formalism, uniformity,
and permanence of social organization and the concrete,
various, and changing individualities. And, whether this
ability of the woman is congenital or produced by cultural
conditions, it could certainly be made socially very useful,
for it is precisely the ability required to diminish the
innumerable and continually growing frictions resulting
from the misadaptations of individual attitudes to social
organization, and to avoid the incalculable waste of human
84 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
energy which contrasts so deplorably in our modern society
with our increasingly efficient use of natural energies.
6. The problem of social happiness. — With regard to this
problem we can hardly make any positive suggestions. It
is certain that both the relation of the sexes and the economic
situation are among the fundamental conditions of human
happiness, in the sense of making it and of spoiling it.
But the striking point is that, aside from abstract philo-
sophical discussion and some popular psychological analysis,
the problem of happiness has never been seriously studied
since the epoch of Greek hedonism, and of course the con-
clusions reached by the Greeks, even if they were more
scientific than they really are, could hardly.be applied to
the present tune, with its completely changed social con-
ditions. Has this problem been so much neglected because
of its difficulty or because, under the influence of certain i
tendencies immanent in Christianity, happiness is still *^«
half -instinctively regarded as more or less sinful, and pain
as meritorious ? However that may be, the fact is that no
things of real significance have been said up to the present
about happiness, particularly if we compare them with the
enormous material that has been collected and the innu-
merable important ideas that have been expressed con-
cerning unhappiness. Moreover, we believe that the prob-
lem merits a very particular consideration, both from the
theoretical and from the practical point of view, and that
the sociological method outlined above gives the most
reliable way of studying it.
7. The problem of the fight of races (nationalities) and
cultures. — Probably in this respect no study of any other
society can give so interesting sociological indications as the
study of the Poles. Surrounded by peoples of various
degrees of cultural development — Germans, Austrians,
Bohemians, Ruthenians, Russians, Lithuanians — having
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 85
on her own territory the highest percentage of the most
unassimilable of races, the Jews, Poland is fighting at every
moment for the preservation of her racial and cultural
status. Moreover, the fight assumes the most various
forms : self-defense against oppressive measures promulgated
by Russia and Germany in the interest of their respective
races and cultures; self-defense against the peaceful intru-
sion of the Austrian culture in Galicia; the problem of the
assimilation of foreign colonists — German or Russian; the
political fight against the Ruthenians in Eastern Galicia;
peaceful propaganda and efforts to maintain the supremacy
of Polish culture on the vast territory between the Baltic
and the Black seas (populated mainly by Lithuanians,
White Ruthenians, and Ukrainians), where the Poles
constitute the cultivated minority of estate-owners and
intellectual bourgeoisie; various methods of dealing with
the Jews — passive toleration, efforts to assimilate them
nationally (not religiously), social and economic boycott.
All these ways of fighting develop the greatest possible
variety of attitudes.
And the problem itself assumes a particular actual
importance if we remember that the present war is a fight
of races and cultures, which has assumed the form of war
because races and cultures have expressed themselves in the
modern state-organization. The fight of races and cultures
is the predominant fact of modern historical life, and it
must assume the form of war when it uses the present form
of state-organization as its means. To stop wars one must
either stop the fight of races and cultures by the introduction
of new schemes of attitudes and values or substitute for the
isolated national state as instrument of cultural expansion
some other type of organization.
8. Closely connected with the foregoing is the problem
of an ideal organization of culture. This is the widest and
86 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
oldest sociological problem, lying on the border between
theory and practice. Is there one perfect form of organiza-
tion that would unify the widest individualism and the
strongest social cohesion, that would exclude any abnormal-
ity by making use of all human tendencies, that would
harmonize the highest efficiency with the greatest happiness ?
And, if one and only one such organization is possible, will
it come automatically, as a result of the fight between
cultures and as an expression of the law of the survival -of
the fittest, so that finally "the world's history will prove the
world's tribunal"? Or must such an organization be
brought about by a conscious and rational social technique
modifying the historical conditions and subordinating all
the cultural differences' to one perfect system? Or is
there, on the contrary, no such unique ideal possible?
Perhaps there are many forms of a perfect organization of
society, and, the differentiation of national cultures being
impossible to overcome, every nation should simply try to
bring its own system to the greatest possible perfection,
profiting by the experiences of others, but not imitating
them. In this case the fight of races and cultures could be
stopped, not by the destruction of historical differences, but
by the recognition of their value for the world and by a
growing reciprocal acquaintance and estimation. What-
ever may be the ultimate solution of this problem, it is
evident that the systematic sociological study of various
cultures, as outlined in this note and exemplified in its
beginnings in the main body of the work, is .the-eniy way
to solve it. *~ <MU~V^ k
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES I AND II
THE PEASANT FAMILY
The Polish peasant family, in the primary and larger
sense of the word, is a social group including all the blood-
and law-relatives up to a certain variable limit — usually
the fourth degree. The family in the narrower sense,
including only the married pair with their children, may be
termed the "marriage-group." These two conceptions,
family-group and marriage-group, are indispensable to an
understanding of the familial life.
The family cannot be represented by a genealogical tree
because it includes law-relationship and because it is a
strictly social, concrete, living group — not a religious,
mythical, heraldic, or economic formation. The cult of
ancestors is completely lacking; the religious attention to
the dead is practically the same whoever the dead family
member — whether father, brother, husband, or son. We
find, indeed, certain legends connected with family names,
especially if many persons of the same name live in one
locality, but these have little influence on the family life.
Heraldic considerations have some place among the peasant
nobility and in certain villages where the peasants were
granted various privileges in earlier times, but the social
connection based upon these considerations is not only
looser than the real familial connection, but of a different
type. We shall speak again of this type of organization in
connection with class-distinctions and the class-problem.
Finally, there seems to be a certain economic basis of familial «-•'
continuity in the idea of ancestral land; but we shall see
that the importance of this idea is derived partly from the
familial organization itself, partly from communal life.
87
88 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
In short, the idea of common origin does not determine
the unity of the familial group, but the concrete unity of
the group does determine how far the common origin will be
traced. Common descent determines, indeed, the unity of
the group, but only by virtue of associational ties established
within each new generation. And if we find examples in
which common origin is invoked as a reason for keeping or
establishing a connection, it is a sign that the primitive unity
is in decay, while the sentiments corresponding with this
unity still persist in certain individuals who attempt to
reconstruct consciously the former state of things and use
the idea of community of origin as an argument, just as it
has been used as an explanation in the theories of family and
for the same reason — because it is the simplest rational
scheme of the familial relation. But, as we shall see, it is too
simple an explanation.
The adequate scheme would represent the family as a
plurality of nuclei, each of them constituted by a marriage-
group and relations radiating from each of them toward other
marriage-groups and single members, up, down, and on both
sides, and toward older, younger, and collateral generations
of both husband and wife. But it must be kept in mind that
these nuclei are neither equally consistent within them-
selves nor equally important with regard to their connection
with others at any given moment, and that they are not
static, but evolving (in a normal family) toward greater
consistency and greater importance. The nucleus only
begins to constitute itself at the moment of marriage, for
then the relations between husband and wife are less close
than those uniting each of them to the corresponding nuclei
of which they were members; the nucleus has the greatest
relative consistency and importance when it is the oldest
living married couple with the greatest number of children
and grandchildren. Each nucleus is a center around which
INTRODUCTION 89
a circle may be drawn including all the relatives on both
sides up to, let us say, the fourth degree. Abstractly speak-
ing, any marriage-group may be thus selected as center of
the family, and the composition of the latter will of course
vary accordingly; we shall have as many partly interfering,
partly different families as there are marriage-groups. But
actually among all these family-groups some are socially
more real than others, as is shown by the fact that they
behave more consistently as units with regard to the rest
of the community. For example, from the standpoint of
a newly married couple the relatives of the wife in the fourth
degree may belong to the family, but they do not belong to it
from the standpoint of the husband's parents, and it is
the latter standpoint which is socially more important and
the one assumed by the community, so long at least as the
parents are alive. After their death, and when the married
couple grows old, its standpoint becomes dominant and is
adopted by the community. But at the same time the
husband usually has brothers and sisters who, when married,
constitute also secondary centers, and these centers become
also primary in the course of time, and thus the family
slowly divides and re-forms itself.
The family is thus a very complex group, with limits
only approximately determined and with very various kinds
and degrees of relationship between its members. But
the fundamental familial connection is one and irredu-
cible; it cannot be converted into any other type of group-
relationship nor reduced to a personal relation between
otherwise isolated individuals. It may be termed familial
solidarity, and it manifests itself both in assistance rendered
to, and in control exerted over, any member of the group
by any other member representing the group as a whole.
It is totally different from territorial, religious, economic,
or national solidarity, though evidently these are additional
go PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
bonds promoting familial solidarity, and we shall see
presently that any dissolution of them certainly exerts a
dissolving influence upon the family. And again, the
familial solidarity and the degree of assistance and of
control involved should not depend upon the personal
character of the members, but only upon the kind
and degree of their relationship; the familial relation
between two members admits no gradation, as does love
or friendship.
In this light all the familial relations in their ideal form,
that is, as they would be if there were no progressive dis-
integration of the family, become perfectly plain.
The relation of husband and wife is controlled by both
the united families, and husband and wife are not individuals
more or less closely connected according to tljeir personal
sentiments, but group-members connected absolutely in a
single way. Therefore the marriage norm is not love, but
"respect," as the relation which can be controlled and
reinforced by the family, and which corresponds also
exactly to the situation of the other party as member of a
group and representing the dignity of that group. The
norm of respect from wife to husband includes obedience,
fidelity, care for the husband's comfort and health; from
husband to wife, good treatment, fidelity, not letting the
wife do hired work if it is not indispensable. In general,
neither husband nor wife ought to do anything which could
- lower the social standing of the other, since this would lead
to a lowering of the social standing of the other's family.
Affection is not explicitly included in the norm of respect,
but is desirable. As to sexual love, it is a purely personal
matter, is not and ought not to be socialized in any form;
the family purposely ignores it, and the slightest indecency
or indiscreetness with regard to sexual relations in marriage
is viewed with disgust and is morally condemned.
INTRODUCTION 91
The familial assistance to the young married people is -
given in the form of the dowry, which they both receive.
Though the parents usually give the dowry, a grandfather
or grandmother, brother, or uncle may just as well endow
the boy or the girl or help to do so. This shows the familial
character of the institution, and this character is still more
manifest if we recognize that the dowry is not in the full
sense the property of the married couple. It remains a part
of the general familial property to the extent that the
married couple remains a part of the family. The fact that,
not the future husband and wife, but their families, repre-
sented by their parents and by the matchmakers, come to
an understanding on this point is another proof of this
relative community of property. The assistance must
assume the form of dowry simply because the married
couple, composed of members of two different families,
must to some extent isolate itself from one or the other of
these families; but the isolation is not an individualization,
it is only an addition of some new familial ties to the old
ones, a beginning of a new nucleus.
The relation of parents to children is also determined
by the familial organization. The parental authority is
complex. It is, first, the right of control which they exercise
as members of the group over other members, but naturally
the control is unusually strong in this case because of the
particularly intimate relationship. But it is more than this.
The parents are privileged representatives of the group as a
whole, backed by every other member in the exertion of their
authority, but also responsible before the group for their
actions. The power of this authorityvis really great; a
rebellious child finds nowhere any help, not even in the
younger generation, for every member of the family will
side with the child's parents if he considers them right, and
everyone will feel the familial will behind him and will play
92 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
the part of a representative of the group. On the other
hand, the responsibility of the parents to the familial group
is very clear in every case of undue severity or of too great
leniency on their part. And in two cases the family always
assumes active control — when a stepchild is mistreated or
when a mother is left alone with boys, whom she is assumed
to be unable to educate suitably. When the children
grow up the family controls the attitude of the parents in
economic matters and in the problem of marriage. The
parents are morally obliged to endow their children as well
as they can, simply because they are not full and exclusive
proprietors but rather managers of their inherited property.
This property has been constituted mainly by the father's
and mother's dowries, which are still parts of the respective
familial properties, and the rest of the family retains a right
of control. Even if the fortune has been earned individually
by the father, the traditional familial form applies to it more
or less. Finally, being a manager rather than a proprietor,
the father naturally has to retire when his son (usually the
oldest) becomes more able than he to manage the main bulk
of the property — the farm. The custom of retiring is
therefore rooted in the familial organization, and the
opinion of the familial group obliges the old people to retire
even if they hesitate. In the matter of marriage the
parents, while usually selecting their child's partner, must
take into consideration, not only the child's will, but also
the opinion of other members of the family. The con-
sideration of the child's will results, not from a respect for
the individual, but from the fact that the child is a member
whose importance in the family will continually grow after
his marriage. Regard for the opinion of other members of
the family is clearly indispensable, since through marriage a
new member will be brought into the family and through his
agency a connection will be established with another family.
INTRODUCTION
93
On the other hand, the attitude of the children toward
the parents is also to be explained only on the ground of a
larger familial group of which they are all members. The
child comes to exercise a control over the parents, not con-
ditioned by any individual achievements on his part, but
merely by the growth of his importance within the family-
group. In this respect the boy's position is always more
important than the girl's, because the boy will be the head
of a future marriage-group and because he is the presumptive
manager of a part of the familial fortune. Thence his
greater independence, or rather his greater right to control
his parents. In a boy's life there are four (in the girl's life
usually only three) periods of gradually increasing familial
importance: early childhood, before the beginning of man's
work; after the beginning of man's work until marriage;
after marriage until the parents' retirement; after the
parents' retirement. In the first period the boy has no
right of control at all; the control is exerted on his behalf by
the family. In the second period he cannot dispose of the
money which he earns (it is not a matter of property, but
of management) and is obliged to give it to his father to
manage, but he has the right to control his father in this
management and to appeal, if necessary, to the rest of the
family. In the third period he manages his part of the
fortune under the familial control and has the right to
control his father's management of the remainder; he is
almost equal to his father. In the last period (which the
woman does not attain) he takes the father's place as head
manager. And the management of property is only the
clearest manifestation of a general independence. Thus,
in questions of marriage the choice is free at a later age, and
becomes almost completely free in the second marriage.
But evidently by freedom we mean only independence of the
special control of the parents as representatives of the
94 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
group, not freedom from a general control of the group or of
any of its members.
As the parents are obliged to assist the children in
proportion to their right to exert authority, so the children's
duty of assistance is proportional to their right of control.
Helping in housework and turning over to the family money
earned is not assistance, but the duty of keeping and increas-
ing the familial fortune. Assistance may begin indeed at
the second stage (the boy doing man's work), but then it is
expressly stated that a given sum of money, for example,
is destined to cover personal expenses of the parents, and
in this case it is difficult to determine whether we have still
the primitive familial organization or a certain individualiza-
tion of relations. In short, at this stage simple familial
communism in economic matters and familial assistance are
not sufficiently differentiated. But the differentiation is
complete in the third stage, after marriage. If the married
son or daughter is in a better position than the parents, help
is perfectly natural, and it is plainly help, not communism, to
the degree that the division of property is real. In the last
stage, when the parents have retired, assistance becomes the
fundamental attitude; and it is now a consciously moral
duty powerfully reinforced by the opinion of the familial
group.
In all the relations between parents and children the
familial organization leaves no place for merely personal
affection. Certainly this affection exists, but it cannot
express itself in socially sanctioned acts. The behavior of
the parents toward the children and the contrary must be
determined exclusively by their situations as family mem-
bers, not by individual merits or preferences. The only
justification at least, on either side, of any behavior not de-
termined by the familial situation is a preceding break of
the familial principle by one of the members in question.
INTRODUCTION
95
Thus, the parents usually prefer one child to the others, but
this preference should be based upon a familial superiority.
The preferred child is usually the one who for some reason
is to take the parental farm (the oldest son in Central
Poland; the youngest son in the mountainous districts of
the south; any son who stays at home while others
emigrate), or it is the child who is most likely to raise by his
personal qualities the social standing of the family. And,
on the contrary, a voluntary isolation from the family life,
any harm brought to the family-group, a break of familial
solidarity, are sufficient reasons, and the only sufficient ones,
for treating a child worse than others and even, in extreme
cases, for disowning it. In the same way the children are .
justified in neglecting the bonds of solidarity which unite
them with their parents only if the latter sin against the
familial spirit, for example, if a widower (or widow) con-
tracts a new marriage in old age and in such a way that,
instead of assimilating his wife to his own family, he becomes
assimilated to hers.
The relation between brothers and sisters assumes a
different form after the death of the parents. As long as the
parents are alive the solidarity between children is rather
mediate; the connection between parents and children is
much closer than the connection between brothers and
sisters, because neither relation is merely personal, and the
parents represent the familial idea. In a normal familial
organization, therefore, in any struggle between parents and
child other children side with the parents, particularly older
children, who understand fully the familial solidarity, unless,
of course, the parents have broken this solidarity first.
But if the parents are dead, the relation between brothers v
and sisters becomes much closer; indeed, it is the closest
familial relation which then remains. Thus the nucleus,
constituted by the marriage-group, does not dissolve after
96 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
the death of the married couple; the group remains, and as a
group it resists as far as possible any dissolving influences.
It is true that the guardians take the place of the parents
as representatives of the familial authority, but they remain
outside the nucleus, while the parents were within it. This
is one more proof that the familial organization is not
patriarchal, or else the patriarchal organization would
dissolve and assimilate this parentless group. And this
phenomenon cannot be interpreted as a sign of solidarity of
the young against the old, for among the brothers and sisters
the older assume an attitude of authority, and in this case,
as well as during the life of the parents, any member of the
older generation has a right of control over all the members
of the younger generation.
These general principles of control and of assistance
within the narrower marriage-group and within the larger
family, and from any member to any member, are reinforced,
not only by the opinion of the family itself, but also by the
opinion of the community (village, commune, parish, and
loose-acquaintance milieu) within which the family lives.
The reality of the familial ties once admitted, every member
of the family evidently feels responsible for, and is held
responsible for, the behavior and welfare of every other
member, because, in peasant thinking, judgments upon the
group as a whole are constantly made on the basis of the
behavior of members of the family, and vice versa. On this
account also between any two relatives, wherever found, an
immediate nearness is assumed which normally leads to
friendship.
In this connection it is noticeable that hi primitive
peasant life all the attitudes of social pride are primarily
familial and only secondarily individual. When a family
has lived from time immemorial in the same locality, when
all its members for three or four generations are known or
INTRODUCTION 97
remembered, every individual is classified first of all as
belonging to the family, and appreciated according to the
appreciation which the family enjoys, while on the other
hand the social standing of the family is influenced by the
social standing of its members, and no individual can rise
or fall without drawing to some extent the group with him.
And at the same time no individual can so rise or fall as to
remove himself from the familial background upon which
social opinion always puts him. In doing this social opinion
presupposes the familial solidarity, but at the same time it
helps to preserve and develop it.
As to the personal relations based upon familial connec-
tion, it can be said that the ideal of the familial organiza-
tion would be a state of things in which all the members of
the family were personal friends and had no friends outside
of the family. This ideal is expressed even in the terminol-
ogy of some localities, where the term "friend" is reserved
for relatives. This does not mean that personal friendship
or even acquaintance is necessary to the reality of the
familial connection. On the contrary, when a personal
relation is thought to be the condition of active solidarity,
we have a sign of the disintegration of familial life.
An interesting point in the familial organization is the
attitude of the woman. Generally speaking, the woman •/
has the familial group-feelings much less developed than
the man and tends unconsciously to substitute for them,
wherever possible, personal feelings, adapted to the individ-
uality of the family members. She wants her husband
more exclusively for herself and is often jealous of his family;
she has less consideration for the importance of the familial
group as a whole and more sympathy with individual needs
of its members; she often divides her love among her
children without regard for their value to the family; she
chooses her friends more under the influence of personal
98 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
factors. But this is only a matter of degree; the familial
ideal is nowhere perfectly realized, and on the other hand
no woman is devoid of familial group-feelings. Neverthe-
less, in the evolution of the family these traits of the woman
certainly exert a disintegrating influence, both by helping
to isolate smaller groups and by assisting family members
in the process of individualization.
The organization here sketched is the general traditional
basis of familial life, but actually we find it hardly anywhere
in its full force. The familial life as given in the present
materials is undergoing a profound disintegration along
certain lines and under the influence of various factors. The
main tendencies of this disintegration are: isolation of the
marriage-group, and personal individualization. Although
these processes sometimes follow each other and sometimes
interact, they may also go on independently, and it is
therefore better to consider them separately. There are,
however, some common factors which, by leading simply to a
disintegration of the traditional organization, leave the new
form of familial life undetermined, and these may be treated
first of all.
The traditional form of the Polish peasant family can
evidently subsist only in an agricultural community, settled
at least for four or five generations in the same locality and
admitting no important changes of class, religion, nation-
ality, or profession. As soon as these changes appear, a
disintegration is imminent. The marriage-group or the
individual enters into a community different from that in
which the rest of the family lives, and sooner or later the
old bonds must be weakened or broken. The last fifty years
have brought many such social changes into the peasant
life. Emigration into Polish cities, to America, and to
Germany scatters the family. The same thing results from
INTRODUCTION
99
the progressive proletairization of the inhabitants of the
country, which obliges many farmers' sons and daughters
to go to service or to buy "colonies" outside of their own
district. The industrial development of the country leads
to changes of profession. And, finally, there is a very rapid
evolution of the Polish class-organization, and, thanks to
this, peasants may pass into the new middle or at least lower
middle class within one generation, thus effecting an almost
complete break with the rest of the family. Changes of
religion or nationality are indeed very rare, but, whenever
they appear, their result is most radical and immediate.
In analyzing the effect of these changes we must take
into consideration the problem of adaptation to the new
conditions. Two points are here important : the facility of
adaptation and the scale of adaptation. For example, the
adaptation of a peasant moving to a Polish city as a work-
man is relatively easy, but its scale is small, while by
emigrating to America or by rising in the social hierarchy
he confronts a more difficult problem of adaptation, but
the possible scale is incomparably wider.
The effect of these differences on family life is felt
independently of the nature of the new forms of familial
organization which the individual (or the marriage-group)
may find in his new environment. Indeed, the adaptation
seldom goes so far as to imitate the familial life of the new
milieu, unless the individual marries within this milieu and
is thus completely assimilated. The only familial organiza-
tion imitated by the peasant who rises above his class is the
agnatic organization of the Polish nobility. Except for
these rare cases, the evolution of the family is due, not to
the positive influence of any other forms of familial life, but
merely to the isolation of marriage-groups and individuals
and to the accompanying changes of attitude and personality
in the presence of a new external world.
ioo PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
If this process is difficult or unsuccessful, the isolated
individual or marriage-group will have a strong tendency to
return to the old milieu and will particularly appreciate the
familial solidarity through which, in spite of its imperfec-
tions, the struggle for existence is facilitated, though in a
limited way. We say in a limited way, because familial
solidarity is a help mainly for the weak, whom the family
does not allow to fall below a certain minimal standard of
life, while it becomes rather a burden for the strong. The
result of an unsuccessful or difficult adaptation will therefore
tend to be a conscious revival of familial feelings and even
a certain idealization of familial relations. We find this
attitude in many marriage-groups in South America and
Siberia, among soldiers serving in the Russian army, and
among a few unsuccessful workmen in America, in Western
Europe, and even in Polish industrial centers.
If the process of adaptation is easy but limited — that
is, if the scale of control which the individual can attain
is narrow but easily attained (as is usually the case with
workmen hi Polish cities) — the result is more complicated.
There is still the longing for the old conditions of life, but
not so strong as to make the organization of life in the new
conditions unbearable. The familial feelings still exist in
their old strength, fqr the extra-familial social life does not
give full satisfaction to the sociable tendencies of the indi-
vidual, but the object of these familial feelings is reduced
to the single marriage-group. When territorially isolated
the marriage-group is also isolated from the traditional set
of rules, valuations, and sentiments of the old community
and family, and with the disappearance of these traditions
the family becomes merely a natural organization based on
personal connections between its members, and these con-
nections are sufficient only to keep together a marriage-
group, including perhaps occasionally a few near relatives—
INTRODUCTION 101
the parents, brothers, or sisters of husband or wife. Under
these circumstances, and with economic conditions sufficient
to live but hardly to progress, we meet in towns and cities
an exclusiveness and egotism hi the marriage-group never
found in the country. In the Polish towns the bourgeois
type of familial organization tends to prevail among the
lower classes — single, closed marriage-groups behaving
toward the rest of society as indissoluble units, egotistic,
often even mutually hostile. And, as we see from our
materials, the constitution of such groups is favored and,
helped by the women. The woman appears as clearly'
hostile to any social relations of her husband in the new
milieu, and thus tends to isolate the marriage-group from
it; of the old familial relations she keeps only those based
upon personal affection, and thus helps to eliminate the
traditional element. Through her typical feeling of eco-
nomic insecurity, resulting from her insufficient adaptation
to the modern conditions of industrial life, she develops
more than her husband the egotism of the marriage-group.
The third form of adaptation — an adaptation relatively
easy and successful — :gives birth to a particular kind of
individualization, found among the bulk of young immi-
grants of both sexes in America and among many season-
immigrants in Germany. The success of this adaptation —
which should of course be measured by the standard of the
immigrant, not of the country to which he comes — consists
mainly in economic development and the growth of social
influence. In both America and Germany this is due, in
the first place, to the higher wages, but in democratic
America the Polish social life gives the immigrant also a
feeling of importance which in Polish communal life is the
privilege of a few influential farmers. There is indeed no
such field for the development of self-consciousness hi
Germany, but the emigrant returns every year with new
t
9
102 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
experience and new money to his native village, and thereby
his social role is naturally enlarged. Formerly the individual
counted mainly as member of a family; now he counts by
himself, and still more than formerly. The family ceases
to be necessary at all. It is not needed for assistance,
because the individual gets on alone. It is not needed for
the satisfaction of sociable tendencies, because these tend-
encies can be satisfied among friends and companions.
A community of experience and a similarity of attitudes
create a feeling of solidarity among the young generation
as against the old generation, without regard to family
connections. The social interests and the familial interests
no longer coincide, but cross each other. Externally this
stage is easily observable in Polish colonies in America and
in Polish districts which have an old emigration. Young
people keep constantly together, apart from the old, and
"good company" becomes the mam attraction, inducing
the isolated emigrant to join his group hi America or return
to it at home, but at the same time drawing the boy or the
girl from the home to the street.
The familial feelings do not indeed disappear entirely;
the change which the individual undergoes is not profound
enough for this. But the character of their manifestation
changes. There is no longer an attitude of dependence
on the family-group, and with the disappearance of this
attitude the obligatory character of familial solidarity
disappears also ; but at the same time a new feeling of self-
importance tends to manifest itself in an attitude of superior-
ity with regard to other members of the group, and this
superiority demands an active expression. The result is a
curious, sometimes very far-going, sometimes whimsical,
generosity which the individual shows toward single family
members regardless of the validity of the claim which this
member could put forward under the traditional familial
INTRODUCTION
103
organization. This generosity is usually completely dis-
interested from the economic point of view; no return is
expected. It is essentially an expression of personality, a
satisfaction at once of personal affection and personal
vanity. It is shown only toward persons whom ties of
affection unite with the giver, sometimes toward friends who
do not even belong to the family. Pity is a motive which
strengthens it and sometimes is even sufficient in itself.
Any allusion to obligation offends it. Often it is displayed
in an unexpected way or at an unexpected moment, with the
evident desire to provoke astonishment. It is the symptom
of an expanding personality.
On the other hand, the unequal rate at which the process
of individualization and the modification of traditional
attitudes takes place in different family members leads often
to disintegration of both the familial and the personal life.
This is seen particularly in the relations of parents and
children as it appears in emigration. When the boy leaves
his family in Poland and comes to America, he at first raises
no questions about the nature of his duties to his parents
and family at home. He plans to send home all the money
possible; he lives in the cheapest way and works the longest
hours. He writes: "Dear Parents: I send you 300 roubles,
and I will always send you as much as I can earn." He does
not even feel this behavior as moral; and it is not moral, hi
the sense that it involves no reflection and no inhibition.
It is unreflective social behavior. But if in the course of
time he has established new and individualistic attitudes
and desires, he writes: "Dear Parents: I will send money;
only you ask too much." (See in this connection But-
kowski series.)
But the most complete break between parents and
children — one presenting itself every day hi our juvenile
courts — comes with the emigration of the family as a whole
104 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
to America. The children brought with the family or
added to it in America do not acquire the traditional attitude
of familial solidarity, but rather the American individualis-
tic ideals, while the parents remain unchanged, and there
frequently results a complete and painful antagonism be-
tween children and parents. This has various expressions,
but perhaps the most definite one is economic — the demand
of the parents for all the earnings of the child, and eventually
as complete an avoidance as possible of the parents by the
child. The mutual hate, the hardness, unreasonableness,
and brutality of the parents, the contempt and ridicule of
the child — ridicule of the speech and old-country habits
and views of the parents — become almost incredible. The
parents, for example, resort to the juvenile court, not as a
means of reform, but as an instrument of vengeance; they
will swear away the character of their girl, call her a "whore "
and a "thief," when there is not the slightest ground for it.
It is the same situation we shall note elsewhere when the
peasant is unable to adjust his difficulties with his neighbors
by social means and resorts to the courts as a pure expression
of enmity, and with a total disregard of right or wrong. A
case was recently brought before the juvenile court in
Chicago which illustrates typically how completely the
father may be unable to occupy any other standpoint than
that of familial solidarity. The girl had left home and was
on the streets. When appealed to by the court for sugges-
tions and co-operation, the father always replied in terms
of the wages of the girl — she had not been bringing her
earnings home. And when it appeared that he could not
completely control her in this respect, he said: "Do what
you please with her. She ain't no use to me."
The last type of adaptation — one requiring much change,
but giving also much control — is typically represented by
the climbing tendency of the peasant and is always con-
INTRODUCTION
105
nected with an intellectual development. This ' adaptation
brings also the greatest changes in the familial sentiments.
Individualization is the natural result of rising above the
primitive group and becoming practically independent of
it. But at the same time, unlike the preceding type, this
form of adaptation leads to qualitative changes in the
concept of the family. -Indeed, the individual rises, not
only above the family, but also above the community, and
drops most of the traditional elements, and in this respect
the result is analogous to that of the second type of adapta-
tion.^ On the other hand he meets on this higher cultural
level those more universal and conscious traditions which
constitute the common content of Christian morality. The
Christian elements were embodied in the system of peasant
traditions, but they constituted only a part of the rich
traditional stock, and their influence in peasant life was
essentially different from that which the church as well as
the popular Christian reflection wished it to be. Their
power in peasant life was a power of social custom, while on
a higher level of intellectual development and individualiza-
tion they claim to be rational norms, directing the conscious
individual morality. Thus, the familial attitudes of a
peasant rising above his class undergo a double evolution:
they are simplified, and they pass from the sphere of custom
to that of conscious, reflective morality. Only a few funda-
mental obligations are acknowledged, and in the sphere of
these obligations the "moral" family coincides neither with
the " traditional" family nor with the " natural " family — the
marriage-group. In its typical form it includes husband or
wife, parents, children, brothers, and sisttrs. Its nucleus i
no longer a group, but an individual. The husband has, for
example, particular moral obligations toward his own parents,
sisters, and brothers, but not toward the family of his wife.
The moral obligations toward the members of the latter
io6 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
do not differ from those toward any friends or acquaint-
ances, are not particularly familial obligations. And the
consistency of this moral family does not depend any longer
upon social factors, but merely upon the moral development
of the individual — assuming, of course, that the element of
custom has been completely eliminated, which is seldom the
case. We find aividuals who feel the obligation as a heavy
burden and try to drop it as soon as possible; we find others
who accept it readily and treat the family as an object of
moral obligation even after it has lost its social reality.
In distinguishing these four formal types of evolution
of familial life we have of course abstractly isolated each
of them and studied it in its fullest and most radical expres-
sion. In reality, however, we find innumerable interme-
diary and incomplete forms, and ,we must take this fact into
consideration when examining k „ concrete materials.1
MARRIAGE
The Polish peasant family, as we have seen, is organized
as a plurality of interrelated marriage-groups which are so
many nuclei of familial life and whose importance is various
1 The Polish terminology for familial relationship corroborates our definition
of the family. We must distinguish, first of all, the use of familial names when
speaking to a relative and about a relative to strangers. In the latter case the
proper term is used, while in the first there is a tendency to substitute for it another
term, indicating a much closer degree of relationship. When one is speaking about
a relative within the family, both usages are possible.
The proper terms, i.e., those used when one is speaking about a relative to
strangers, are of three kinds:
a) Terms which define a unique relation, such as mqz ("husband"), and zona
("wife"), test ( 'father-in-law"), ojciec ("father"). Only the terms "husband"
and "wife" remain unique when one is addressing a member of the family, while
terms for blood-parents and blood-children are usually substituted for those which
indicate a step- or law-relation of descent.
b) Terms which essentially define a unique relation, but can be extended to
any relation of a certain degree. Such are, for example, brat ("brother"), szwagier
("brother-in-law"), dziadek ("grandfather"), wuj ("maternal uncle"), stryj
("paternal uncle"). Their original meaning is the same as that of the correspond-
ing English terms, but they are applied also to remoter degrees of relationship.
If exactness is required, they are defined by special adjectives, but habitually, up
INTRODUCTION 107
and changing. The process of constitution and evolution
of these nuclei is therefore the essential phenomenon of
familial life. But at the same time there culminate in
marriage many other interests of the peasant life, and we
must take the role of these into consideration.
i. Marriage from the familial standpoint. — The whole
familial system of attitudes involves absolutory the postulate
of marriage for every member of the young generation. The
family is a dynamic organization, and changes brought by
birth, growth, marriage, and death have nothing of the
incidental or unexpected, but are included as normal in the
organization itself, continually accounted for and foreseen,
and the whole practical life of the family is adapted to
them. A person who does not marry within a certain time,
as well as an old man v ^ does not die at a certain age,
provokes in the family-group an attitude of unfavorable
astonishment; they seem to have stopped in the midst of a
continuous movement, and they are passed by and left
alone. There are, indeed, exceptions. A boy (or girl) with
some physical or intellectual defect is not supposed to marry,
to the third and sometimes the fourth degree, no adjectives are required. Thus, a
cousin of second degree is stryjeczny, wujeczny, or cioteczny brat ("brother through
the paternal uncle, maternal uncle, or aunt"), or simply brctt; a father's paternal
uncle is stryjeczny dziadek ("grandfather through the paternal uncle"), or simply
dziadek, and so on. A wife's or husband's relative may be determined in the same
way, with the addition "of my wife" or "of my husband." But if no particular
exactness is necessary, this qualification is also omitted, except for collateral
members (of the same generation), where law-relationship is indicated by particular
terms (szwagier instead of brat). In addressing a member, not only all the qualifi-
cations are omitted, but even for collateral members the terms "brother" and
"sister" are often substituted for the special terms indicating law-relationship of
any degree.
c) Terms which are merely class-names. Of these there are only two: krewny
and powinowaty, "blood-" and "law-relative." They are never used in addressing
a person, and in general their usage is limited to cases where the degree and kind of
relationship is forgotten or when the speaker does not desire to initiate the stranger
more exactly. The intelligent classes sometimes use the French word cousin
(Polonized, kuzyn), bjjf this custom has reached as yet only the lower middle class,
not the peasant.
io8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
and in his early childhood a corresponding attitude is
adopted by the family and a place for him is provided
beforehand. His eventual marriage will then provoke the
same unfavorable astonishment as the bachelorship of
others.
The condemnation attached to not marrying is not so
strong as that incurred by the omission of some elementary
moral or religious duty, and with the growing complexity
of social conditions cases are more and more frequent where
a person remains unmarried through no fault of his own, and
so the condemnation is becoming less and less. But the
standard binds the parents of the marriageable person even
more than the latter, and we see in many letters that the
parents do not dare to put any obstacles in the way of the
marriage of their child even if they foresee bad results for
themselves from this marriage (estrangement of the child, or
economic losses), and they persuade the child to marry even
against their own interest. The contrary behavior (see
Sekowski series) incurs immediate and strong social con-
demnation. The only limitation of this principle is the
question of the choice of the partner. But even this
limitation disappears when the parents have no certainty
that a better match than the one proposed will be arranged.
It is better to make a bad marriage than not to marry at all.
The traditional familial factor ceases to exert any
influence upon the second marriage; no determined line of
conduct is prescribed in this case by the familial organiza-
tion except that marriage is viewed unfavorably after a
certain age.
The family not only requires its members to be married,
but directs their choice. This is neither tyranny nor self-
interest on the part of the parents nor solicitude for the
future of the child, but a logical consequence of the individ-
ual's situation in the familial group. The individual is a
INTRODUCTION 109
match only as member of the group and owing to the social
standing of the family within the community and to the
protection and help in social and economic matters given by
the family. He has therefore corresponding responsibilities ;
in marrying he must take, not only his own, but also the
family's interests into consideration. These latter interests
condition the choice of the partner in three respects:
a) The partner in marriage is an outsider who through
marriage becomes a member of the family. The family
therefore requires in this individual a personality which will
fit easily into the group and be assimilated to the group with
as little effort as possible. Not only a good character, but
a set of habits similar to those prevailing in the family to
be entered, is important. Sometimes the prospective
partner is unknown to the family, sometimes even unknown
to the marrying member of the family, and in this case
social guaranties are demanded. The boy or girl ought to
come at least from a good family, belonging to the same
class as the family to be entered, and settled if possible in
the same district, since customs and habits differ from
locality to locality. The occupation of a boy ought to be
of such a kind as not to develop any undesirable, that is,
unassimilable, traits. A girl should have lived at home and
should not have done hired work habitually. A man should
never have an occupation against which a prejudice exists
in the community. In this matter there is still another
motive of selection, that is, vanity. Finally, a widow or a
widower is an undesirable partner, because more difficult to
assimilate than a young girl or boy. If not only the future
partner, but even his family, is unknown, the parents, or
someone in their place, will try to get acquainted personally
with some of his relatives, in order to inspect the general
type of their character and behavior. Thence comes the
frequent custom of arranging marriages through friends and
no PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
relatives. This form of matchmaking is intermediary
between the one in which the starting-point is personal
acquaintance and the other in which the connection with
a certain family is sought first through the sivaty (pro-
fessional matchmaker) and personal acquaintance comes
later. In this intermediary form the starting-point is the
friendship with relatives of the boy or the girl. It is sup-
posed that the future partner resembles his relatives in
character, and at the same time that the family to which
those relatives belong is worth being connected with. But
this leads us to the second aspect of the familial control of
marriage.
b) The candidate for marriage belongs himself to a
family, which through marriage will become connected with
that of his wife. The familial group therefore assumes the
right to control the choice of its member, not only with
regard to the personal qualities of the future partner, but
also with regard to the nature of the group with which it
will be allied. The standing of the group within the com-
munity is here the basis of selection. This standing itself
is conditioned by various factors — wealth, morality, intelli-
gence, instruction, religiousness, political and social in-
fluence, connection with higher classes, solidarity between
the family members, kind of occupation, numerousness of
the family, its more or less ancient residence in the locality,
etc. Every family naturally tries to make the best possible
alliance; at the same time it tries not to lower its own dignity
by risking a refusal or by accepting at once even the best
match and thereby showing too great eagerness. Thence
the long selection and hesitation, real or pretended, on both
sides, while the problem is not to discourage any possible
match, for the range of possibilities open to an individual
is a proof of the high standing of the family. Thence also
such institutions as that of the matchmaker, whose task is
INTRODUCTION in
to shorten the ceremonial of choosing without apparently
lowering the dignity of the families involved. The relative
freedom given to the individuals themselves, the apparent
yielding to individual love, has in many cases its source in
the desire to shorten the process of selection by shifting the
responsibility from the group to the individual. In the
traditional formal swaty is embodied this familial control
of marriage. The young man, accompanied by the match-
maker, visits the families with which his family has judged
it desirable to be allied, and only among these can he select
a girl. He is received by the parents of the girl, who first
learn everything about him and his family and then encour-
age him to call further or reject him at once. And the girl can
select a suitor only among those encouraged by her family.
c) A particular situation is created when widow or
widower with children from the first marriage is involved.
Here assimilation is very difficult, because no longer an
individual, but a part of a strange marriage-group, has to be
assimilated. At the same time the connection with the
widow's or widower's family will be incomplete, because the
family of the first husband or wife also has some claims.
Therefore such a marriage is not viewed favorably, and there
must be some real social superiority of the future partner
and his or her family in order to counterbalance the inferior-
ity caused by the peculiar familial situation. A second
marriage is thus usually one which, if it were the first, would
be a mesalliance.
With the disintegration of the famlHal life there must
come, of course, a certain liberation from the familial claims
in matters of marriage. But this liberation itself may
assume various forms. With regard to the personal qualities
of his future wife, the man may neglect to consult his family
and still apply the same principles of appreciation which his
H2 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
family would apply — select a person whose character and
habits resemble the type prevailing in his own family, a
person whose relatives he knows, who comes perhaps from
the same locality, etc. Therefore, for example, immigrants
in America whose individualization has only begun always
try to marry boys or girls fresh from the old country, if
possible from their own native village.
A second degree of individualization manifests itself in
a more reasoned selection of such qualities as the individual
wishes his future mate to possess in view of his own personal
happiness and regardless of the family's desire. This type
of selection prevails, for example, in most of the second
marriages, when the individual has become fully conscious
of what he desires from his eventual partner and when the
feeling of his own importance, increasing with age, teaches
him to neglect the possible protests of his family. It is
also a frequent type in towns, where the individual associates
with persons of various origins and habits. The typical and
universal argument opposed here against any familial
protests has the content: "I shall live with this person, not
you, so it is none of your business."
Finally, the highest form of individualization is found
in the real love-marriage. While a reasoned determination
of the qualities which the individual wishes to find in his
future mate permits of some discussion, some familial
control, and some influence of tradition, in the love-marriage
every possibility of control is rejected a priori. Here, under
the influence of the moment, the largest opportunity is given
for matches between individuals whose social determinism
differs most widely, though this difference is after all usually
not very great, since the feeling of love requires a certain
•
community of social traditions.
2. Marriage from the standpoint of other social groups:
territorial (community), national, religious, professional. —
INTRODUCTION 113
The claims which the community has upon the individual
in matters of marriage corroborate those of the family-group
to the extent that every individual (except a future priest)
is required to marry, if he is not hindered by a physical or
an intellectual defect. The community demands from its
members a steadiness of life which is necessary for its
interior harmony; but a peasant individual can acquire
this steadiness only after his marriage. The life of an
unmarried man or woman bears essentially an unfixed
character. A single person, as we know, cannot remain
indefinitely with his family, for the latter is organized in
view of the marriage of all of its members. He cannot
carry on normal occupational activity alone — cannot farm
or keep a small shop — he can be either only a hired laborer,
living with strangers, or a servant. In both cases the
sphere of his interests is much narrower than that of a
married couple and his life has less fixity. A single person
does not take an equal share with married couples in the life
of the community; there is little opportunity for a reci-
procity of services, still less for co-operation. He cannot
even keep a house, receive, give entertainments, etc. He
has nobody to provide for, no reason to economize. All
these features of single life tend to develop either a spirit
of revelry, vagabondage, and pauperism, or an egotistic
isolation within a circle of personal interests — both opposed
to the fundamental set of peasant attitudes and undesirable
for the group.
Accordingly, the community gives a positive sanction to
the marriage of its members. This is done in three ways:
(i) Each wedding is a social event in itself, not limited
to the families who intermarry, but participated in by
the community, and the pleasure of being for some
days the center of interest of the community is a strong
motive in favor of marriage. (2) The community gives a
H4 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
higher social standing to its married members: after
marriage they are addressed as "you" instead of "thou,"
they begin to play an active part in the commune, in the
parish, in associations, etc. Unmarried individuals have
a certain kind of social standing as members of families
and prospective matches, but this kind of a standing
decreases with age. (3) The private life of married couples
is much less controlled by the community than that of
unmarried persons. The control of the family hi normal
conditions is thought perfectly sufficient for the first; the
community interferes only in extraordinary cases of impor-
tant familial misunderstandings. But an individual who
does not marry in due time is supposed not to be sufficiently
controlled by the family, and the community allows him no
privacy.
But the community, as a territorial group, assumes also
a right to control the choice of its members whenever the
question is raised of taking a partner from a different
territorial group. The same right is claimed by the pro-
fessional, the national, the religious groups, which usually
do not interfere with the celibacy of their members nor
with their marriage so long as this remains endogamous.
In this respect the claims of these groups are different
from the claims of the family, and may even be contra-
dictory.
First of all, an individual can belong at once to two
families, but not normally to two territorial, professional,
national, or religious groups. This leads to important
differences of standpoint.
Let us take first the case of a member of a social group
who, by marriage, passes into a different group — moves to
another locality, takes a new profession, changes his national-
ity or his religion. For the family such a fact may be more
or less unpleasant, but only on account of the divergence of
INTRODUCTION 115
attitudes which thus arises between its members; but the
individual who has passed into another social group is not
necessarily lost; he may remain (if there are no other factors
of disintegration) a real, solidary member of the family.
On the contrary, for a territorial, professional, national, or
religious group such an individual is lost, and, since no
group likes to lose its members, every kind of exogamy
which involves a passage into another group incurs a social
condemnation. This condemnation is particularly strong
if the individual, by passing into another group, renounces
the essential values of his first group — customs, traditions,
ideals. Formerly, when the differences of custom and
tradition between communities and professions were much
greater than now, the marriage outside of a community or
professional group was condemned very strongly; we find
many traces of this stage in folklore. At present a change
of locality incurs a relatively slight condemnation; a change
of group professionally (as, for example, when a peasant
girl marries a handworker) is only ridiculed; but a change
of nationality or religion is still an almost unpardonable
offense, the latter even a crime. And, of course, the family
is influenced by the larger social group to which it belongs;
the national and religious groups usually require that the
family shall disown a renegade member, and the family in
general complies with this demand and rejects such an
individual, even if he wishes to keep the familial solidarity.
The other side of the case is presented when a new
member is brought through marriage into a social group.
For the family, as we know, two questions are here involved :
what is the social standing of the new member's family
within the larger group to which it belongs, and what is the
character of the new member. But for the social group the
first question does not exist. The family indeed becomes
connected through marriage with the new partner's family;
n6 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
and to it the social standing of the latter is important. But
the community at large does not enter into any particular
relation with another group by the mere fact of receiving
a member from it, and it cares little for the other group's
standing. Therefore the family may occasionally acquiesce
in the fact that its member marries a girl who will be
assimilated with difficulty, if the family of this girl has a
particularly high social standing — is very rich, instructed, of
good origin, or influential. The benefit of being connected
with such a family may be greater than the displeasure of
having an unadaptable new member. But for the com-
munity those reasons cannot overshadow the only point
which counts for it, namely, how will the new member be
assimilated ? This depends, of course, upon the nature of
social customs and traditions which he brought with him,
and the more they differ from those which prevail in the
given group the greater is the social condemnation of
exogamy. This condemnation is usually strengthened by
the jealousy of the marriageable members of the group, their
parents and relatives. The exogamous member is judged
to lack the feeling of solidarity and to inflict a humiliation
upon the group by selecting a stranger. Sometimes the
attitude of the group is rather mixed, as when a person of a
different nationality or religion, in marrying into the group,
accepts its national or religious ideals; there usually remains
enough difference of traditions and habits to provoke a
certain unreceptivity in the group, but the spirit of prosely-
tism is flattered. And so it happens, for example, that a
converted Jew is laughed at within the Christian community,
but defended against his former co-religionists.
As the new member is not backed by his old group, his
position is usually rather helpless. No particular social
norm arises from this intermarriage analogous to the norm
of respect between husband and wife, which has its source in
INTRODUCTION 117
the fact that both belong still to their respective family-
groups. Only a complete assimilation neutralizes the lack
of cordiality of the social group toward the new member.
3. Marriage from the economic point of view. — In order
to understand the economic side of marriage we must
remember (i) that marriage is not a mere relation of individ-
uals but the constitution of a new social unit, the marriage-
group, in which two familial groups intersect, while each
of these preserves to a degree its own integrity, and (2)
that the question of property, particularly of property in
land, is not in peasant life a merely economic, but a social,
question; the meaning of property is determined by social
traditions.
From these points results the general principle that both
families are obliged to contribute to the economic existence
of the newly married couple by giving dowries corresponding
to their own situation. A family which does not give a
sufficient dowry to a boy or girl proves either that it is poor
or that it lacks solidarity, and in general lowers its own
social standing.
Fundamentally the aim of the dowry is not merely to
help the married couple to get a living, but to enable them
to keep on the same social level as that of their families —
to avoid being outclassed. As long as the boy and girl live
with their parents they belong to the latter's class, even if
they have then nothing of their own; but if they had no
property to manage when starting their own household,
they would pass into the class of hired laborers. The
economic form in which this tendency to avoid being out-
classed expresses itself is always the establishing for or by
the newly married couple of a business of their own; and
this principle applies indeed to all the old social classes —
handworkers, bourgeoisie, nobility — for up to fifty years
ago the difference between hired work and independent work
n8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
constituted a social as well as an economic difference; and
to a certain extent this remains true today. Among the
peasants property in land is evidently the basis of this
difference, and therefore the practice of dowry is adapted
to the solution of the problem of making every young
married couple own a farm. It is clear also that in most
cases this problem can be solved only by a contribution
from both families. Usually these contributions are so
arranged that the family of the boy gives land, the family ,
of the girl money, because land means more than money
and a husband settling on his wife's land loses some of his
dignity as head of the marriage-group, and is usually looked
down upon by other farmers.
The peasant practice of inheritance is to leave the
undivided farm to one son, who has then the obligation of
paying off his brothers and sisters, and for this purpose he
must have a large dowry in cash from his wife. The father
is seldom able to put aside money enough to give the other
children their parts, and mortgaging the farm, in view of
the half-sacred character of land property, is hated by the
peasant, aside from the fact that it often means ruin. The
division of the farm is, as far as possible, limited by tradi-
tion; below a certain size even by law. The sale of the
farm is avoided even after the death of the parents, and is
never possible during their life. Sale, division, or mort-
gaging of the farm means a lowering of the social standing
of the family. The head of the family, who has worked
during his whole life upon the farm, wants his work to be
continued by his son on the same scale. In short, it is a (
familial duty of one son at least to marry rich.
But even if the farm were divided or sold, each son
would hardly be able to farm without getting some dowry,
and the family of the wife would never allow her to live in
very poor conditions if it could prevent it. The same is true
INTRODUCTION 119
of the sons who are paid off by their brother; they seldom
get money enough to buy a farm sufficient for living, espe-
cially since the son who takes the farm is usually favored
in the settlement.
There are of course cases when there is no necessity of
taking a dowry. For example, the only son of a sufficiently
rich farmer is free to marry without money. But as the
dowry has not only a practical value, but is also an expres-
sion of the family's importance and solidarity, the custom is
usually kept up unless the family of the poor girl has for
some reason a relatively high social standing in spite of
poverty.
Exactly the same social and economic reasons oblige a
girl who has some dowry to marry a boy with property.
The dowry is seldom sufficient to buy a farm and thus to
keep the social level which the girl had in her family; and
even if it should be large enough, the girl's family will
seldom allow her to marry a poor boy, because it would be
considered a proof that the girl had no suitors of a higher
social standing, and therefore that she had some personal
defect.
There are many exceptions to this general rule, but they
admit of special explanations. , A boy or girl who is already
declassed or whose family did not belong originally to the
class of farmers (or masters of handicraft) is not socially
obliged to marry with dowry. It is customary for the young
couple to have money or goods enough to furnish the house,
and both families are obliged to help them as far as possible.
The familial solidarity is still strong; but since property
which has not the form of an independent business does not
determine the social standing of the family as does land or
a master-workman's position, the consideration of dowry
plays a quite subordinate role in the selection of a mate.
A boy who has money enough to furnish the house may
120 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
marry freely a girl who has nothing except her personal
clothing and household linen, and a girl with some money
may marry a completely poor boy ; there is no real inequality
in either case. If the question of dowry is often raised, it is
rather a remnant of the traditional attitude, or an imitation
of the owning classes, not an actual social or economic
problem.
A real marriage for money, that is, one in which a poor
boy or girl selects intentionally a partner with some fortune, '
always incurs a social condemnation or at least ridicule.
In the case of a craftsman who needs a dowry in order to
establish his own shop the condemnation is very slight. He
ought not, indeed, to count exclusively upon the dowry, but
since acquired handicraft was equivalent to capital in the
old guild tradition, and a journeyman was often pushed into
the master-class by his wife's family, dowry under these
circumstances has lost its social disapproval. But social
opinion knows no justification for a poor country boy or girl
who by making a rich match passes into the farmer-class;
the members of the latter consider it the worst kind of
climbing. And it is still worse if the unskilled city workman
marries a rich girl. He cannot use the dowry productively
in any line of handicraft, and so is supposed to make the
rich marriage only for the sake of being lazy and enjoying
pleasure at his wife's expense. In the two latter cases the
condemnation is perhaps strengthened by the fact that in
such matches the richer party is usually either much older,
or personally unattractive, or with some moral stain, etc.,
since otherwise he or she could have made a better choice.
Thus a marriage which is most evidently made for the sake
of money is most clearly considered abnormal. Even if
there are no personal disadvantages on the side of the richer
party, the match is almost certainly concluded against the
will of his or her family and incurs condemnation from this
INTRODUCTION 121
reason also. And, generally speaking, the economic relation
of the parties in marriage is subjected to a moral apprecia-
tion, only if it appears as a personal, not a familial, arrange-
ment, on one side or on both.
From the economic point of view a second marriage
presents a particular problem. In the case of a widow or
widower the normal control of the family is greatly dimin-
ished, since these have more importance within the family-
group than the bachelor or girl, and their private life has
acquired through marriage more independence. The prob-
lem of keeping the same social standing is also involved, but
usually there is less danger of losing it, for the widow or
widower already has property. In this case the personal
help of the second husband or wife in keeping the farm and
household going is normally a sufficient economic contribu-
tion, and no capital is needed. If there are children from the
first marriage, the situation is more complicated, for the
family of their parent has an interest in them and in the
maintenance of their social position, especially in view of
the eventual children from the second marriage. The lot
of these children must also be considered, and a dowry is
therefore sometimes required even in a second marriage.
But it is much more difficult to get. Indeed, since the
widow's or widower's marriage-value is much lower than
that of a maid or a bachelor, a claim of this kind on the
basis of social, and therefore also of economic, equality
would be unjustified.
There is a double evolution of the economic side of mar-
riage, influenced on the one hand by the dissolution of the old
class-hierarchy and substitution of a new class-organization,
and on the other by the process of economic individualization.
The old social classes are becoming mingled and
intermarriage is more and more frequent. At the same
122 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
time new criteria of social superiority appear in place of
the old ones, or along with them, and an equilibration of
different advantages becomes possible. The old advantages
of fortune or good birth may be offset by instruction or off-
set each other. Within the economic sphere itself the stand-
point of income begins to compete with that of property;
hired work loses its socially depreciative character, etc.
Thus marriages are more and more frequent in which some
other social superiority is put forward by one side as against
the property brought by the other party, and such mating
becomes more and more normal hi social opinion and more
and more easily acknowledged by families on either side.
At the same time economically unequilibrated matches
become gradually more possible because of the liberation of
the individual from the pressure of the family and com-
munity. Still it is clear that the possibility of showing a real
disinterestedness depends upon the economic conditions set
by the environment. We must remember that hi the
Polish country life of the lower classes the possibility of
economic advance is very small, as compared even with that
of the Polish city life, and quite insignificant in comparison
with that of American life. On the contrary, there are
numerous possibilities of retrogression as the population
increases. . Thus a married couple does well if it succeeds
in keeping to the end the economic standard of life with
which it started, and it is natural for them to try to start
with as high a standard as possible. Disinterestedness
would be a luxury for which the children as well as the
parents would pay. Marriages quite free from economic
considerations become, therefore, practically possible only
in some parts of the country where season-emigration is
practiced, to some extent in Polish industrial cities, and
particularly in America, where they are, indeed, almost the
rule.
INTRODUCTION
123
4. Marriage from the sexual point of mew. — The sexual
factor, as a mere necessity of sexual satisfaction, aside from
the question of individualized love, must play of course an
important role as a motive of marriage in general, although
it is somewhat difficult to determine to what extent the
want of sexual satisfaction is consciously conceived as a
reason for marriage. Certainly the popular songs and
jokes of young people show that sexuai tendencies are
developed before any actual sexual intercourse. Both sexes
mix frequently together in work and play, and sexual
desires must arise. But, on the other hand, their develop-
ment depends upon marriage as a social institution. Indeed,
the social activities which are most favorable to their
development have all, mediately or immediately, marriage
hi view. There is a stock of sexual information and atti-
tudes acquired before puberty, and this is not conditioned
by the idea of marriage. But after puberty the boy and the
girl always look upon each other as possible matches, and
social intercourse between the sexes is always arranged with
marriage in view. All the entertainments which are not
merely ceremonial have this aim. An interesting fact
shows how the sexual side of this preliminary intercourse
is institutional and socially controlled. No indecent allu-
sions are ever allowed in a private conversation between
boy and girl, but any indecent allusion can be made publicly,
in the form of a song or joke, at a gathering where young
people of both sexes are present.
And marriage is the only form in which sexual satis-
faction can be obtained. Illegal relations before marriage
are relatively rare, not so much because of any particular
moral self-restraint as, once more, because of the familial
control, reinforced by the control of social opinion and
exerted in view of the future marriage. Sexual intercourse
before marriage is normally and immediately treated by the
124 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
boy, the girl, the family, and the community as an illicit
extension of the sexual preliminaries of marriage, but
anticipatory of marriage, and it leads almost universally to
marriage, even when, under the influence of disintegrating'
factors, it becomes frequent. The idea of sexual inter-
course per se, without relation to marriage, plays hardly
any part in the primitive peasant organization of life.
Therefore the main reason for the prohibition of sexual
intercourse before marriage is to be sought in the familial
form of marriage itself. The boy and girl who begin sexual
relations before marriage begin also in fact the marriage-
relation, thus avoiding the familial control and trifling with
the social sanction expressed in the whole series of marriage-
ceremonies. This must evidently lead to a disorganization
of the whole marriage system. Even if a match arranged
in this way is one agreeable to the respective families, still
in form it is a rebellion against the familial authority and a
neglect of the community.
After marriage sexual intercourse ceases almost com-
pletely to be a social problem; it is intentionally ignored by
society. Conjugal infidelity in normal conditions is not
assumed to exist; it is very seldom even spoken of, and, if
it occurs, is unconditionally condemned, equally in man
and woman. But even the legal sexual relation between
man and wife is the object of a very far-going discretion.
It is never mentioned when one is talking about marriage;
even by the married couple itself, in private conversation
or letters, sexual allusions are scrupulously avoided. In a
few cases where we find them they are accompanied by
apologies. It seems as if the whole sexual question were
felt, not so much as impure, as incongruous with the normal
and socially sanctioned conjugal relation, which, for the
social consciousness, is fundamentally a familial relation,
belonging to the same type as other relations between
INTRODUCTION 125
members of a family. Conjugal sexual life is not institu-
tionalized, as is courtship, nor morally regulated, as is family
life, but is reduced to a minimum and left out of considera-
tion. It is a curious fact that in spite of ten centuries of
Christian influence there is a disharmony between the
peasant attitude and the standpoint of the church. The
latter conceives marriage as precisely a regulation and
institutionalization of sexual intercourse and, far from
avoiding allusions to sexual matters, subjects them to an
analysis and valuation which, though mainly negative, is
very detailed. Frequent misunderstandings therefore arise
between the priest and his parishioners, particularly if the
former is not of peasant origin.
Sexual life in general is thus completely subordinated to
marriage, is regulated in view of marriage before the
ceremony and denied any independent value after the
ceremony. In a later volume we shall treat the process
which leads to a development of sexual life outside and
independent of marriage. Here we can only indicate that
the sexual factor is beginning to play a more important
role in marriage by determining more and more its selection.
In a perfect familial and social organization the individual
can choose his partner within the limits indicated above,
but this free choice is itself not exclusively determined by
sexual love, because the development of sexual love is
dependent upon the whole system of courtship. Not only
is the individual prohibited from selecting outside of the
relatively narrow circle of socially possible matches, but
even within this circle his possibilities of choice are further
restrained by all the formalities which make the exclusive-
ness of sexual love a matter of the gradual elimination of all
matches but one. An immediate falling in love, leading
directly to engagement, is psychologically impossible. In
most cases it is not only true that all the possible partners
126 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
are known from childhood — which is evidently an important
obstacle to a rapid infatuation — but indecision, careful
selecting, taking of all possibilities into account, are tradi-
tional attitudes, originating in familial considerations, but
transferred to matters of love. This indecision is reinforced
by the limitations of speech mentioned above; expressions
of love containing even the faintest sexual allusion are
socially sanctioned only when publicly made and con-
sequently impersonal or half -impersonal; private declara-
tions are very limited. For the normal young boy or girl,
therefore, there are a certain number of persons of the other /
sex more or less pleasing, and all of them are sexually
acceptable. The ultimate choice is then made under the
influence of the family, or for various reasons all these
possibilities fall away one by one and the decision settles
upon the one remaining. The only case when this "liking"
of one person among others can ripen into love before
marriage is when for some reason the two individuals have
more opportunity to meet each other than anyone else.
After the engagement, and particularly after marriage,
exclusiveness is attained, but precisely then the love-relation
changes into the respect-relation. Of course, there is often -
love shortly before and after the wedding, but it is gradually
submerged by familial and economic interests.
The first stage of the liberation of the factor of sexual
love is actually the illegal sexual intercourse before marriage.
We call it the first stage, because it exists at the very
beginning of individualization, if external conditions are
favorable. Thus, among the young season-emigrants to
Germany, and even among wandering season-laborers on
Polish estates, who are isolated from their families and com-
munities for from seven to ten months and have the oppor-
tunity to meet privately, almost 50 per cent have sexual
intercourse and then marry after coming home, or even send
INTRODUCTION 127
money to their priest during the season, asking for the
publication of their banns. Here the mere "liking" grows
into sexual love, thanks to the actual sexual intercourse, and
may become strong enough to cause the young people to
take upon themselves the whole responsibility for their
marriage, though usually the permission of the parents
is obtained before the priest is asked to publish the
banns.
The second form of the liberation of sexual love is more
normal, because it requires no exceptional conditions and
does not break the traditional sexual morality; but on the
other hand it shows a higher stage of individualization. We
find it particularly often in America, but also in Polish
cities. It consists in the reduction of all the complicated
process of selection and courtship to an offhand proposal
to a girl who "pleases" after a relatively short personal
acquaintance. If the girl rejects the proposal, the boy tries
to find another whom he "likes" and repeats the perfor-
mance. This way of concluding a marriage shows a very
important evolution of the traditional attitudes. It is
possible only when all the familial, social, or economic
motives have lost their influence and the indecision, the
hesitation among many possibilities, is no longer artificially
maintained. The boy or girl desires to marry in general,
and in this mood, after the liberation from all social pressure,
the slight "liking" (which under the old conditions would
only suffice to put the person liked among those from whom
a closer selection would be made) becomes a sufficient
impulse to start the decisive action.
Finally, the last stage is attained when this "liking,"
under the influence of a general cultural progress, and
particularly of a development of imagination and feeling
made independent of practical activity, grows into a typical
"romantic" love, in which the sexual element is neither
128 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
stifled, as in the traditional conditions, nor given in its
crude form, as in sexual intercourse before marriage, but
exalted and idealized, and the exclusiveness results neither
from institutional reasons nor from habit, but from a rich
complexity of feelings and ideas connected with the given
person.
THE CLASS-SYSTEM IN POLISH SOCIETY
In the present state of Polish society there is a general
revaluation of social distinctions, a breaking down of the old
social hierarchy and an establishment of a new one. This
process is going on more rapidly hi certain parts of the
country (it is the slowest in Galicia), but everywhere it
includes also the peasants and the lower city classes and
exerts a great influence upon the psychology of the younger
generation in particular.
The old class-organization presents two independent and
partly parallel social hierarchies — that of the country and
that of the town population. The first is fundamental, the
second additional.
The highest rank hi the first hierarchy (and completely
dominating the second as well) was occupied by a few
families of great nobility. At the time of Poland's inde-
pendence they occupied the highest official posts, kept their
own armies, directed politics, etc. After Poland's partition
their political influence disappeared. At present fortune,
tradition, and in most cases title (there were no recognized
titles in Poland before the partition, except for a few
Lithuanian and Ruthenian princes) are all that distinguish
these forty or fifty families from the rest of the nobility.
The numerous middle nobility constitutes the second
stratum. Then comes the peasant nobility, distinguished
from the middle nobility by the lack of fortune and culture,
from the peasant, formerly by its rights, now only by
INTRODUCTION
129
tradition.1 Then coirfe the peasant farmers, formerly
classified into crown peasants (almost completely free, but
having no political rights), church peasants, and private
serfs. Finally comes the landless peasants. It was in fact
not possible during Poland's independence to draw an
absolute line between any two contiguous classes; particu-
larly the gradation of noble families on one side, the grada-
tion of peasant families on the other, was continuous, and
between the lowest noble and the highest peasant families
the distinction was political, not social. But the position
of each family was very exactly determined; rising and
falling were possible, but very seldom within a single
generation. And as far as the social organization still
persists, the same is true at present.
On the other hand, the town population was also hier-
archized, mainly upon the basis of fortune, secondarily upon
that of culture and birth. The highest place was occupied
in every large town by some wealthy trades-families; then
came the intellectual workers and the craftsmen; then the
petty merchants and unskilled workers. Politically the
rights of the old bourgeoisie, except in town administration,
were lower than those of the nobility in general; socially the
position of old and rich bourgeois families ranked with that
'"Peasant nobility" is a class found only in Poland and called in Polish
szlachta zasciankowa, "village nobility," szlachta zagonowa, "bed-nobility" (refer-
ring to their small beds of land), and szlachta szaraczkowa, "gray nobility." They
had almost full political rights, and coats-of-arms like the rest of the nobility.
Usually one large family of the same name occupied a whole village and even
several villages. They were quite independent economically, but as they had no
serfs they were in the same economic condition as the peasants. Their origin
dates back mainly to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were usually
the descendants of warriors endowed with land by the dukes, and sank to their
low economic and social level as a consequence of their numerical increase and the
division of land. They were and are still particularly numerous in the ancient
duchy of Mazovia (unified with the kingdom of Poland in 1525-27); thence large
numbers of them emigrated to, and organized large settlements in, Lithuania and
Ruthenia. At the end of the eighteenth century they outnumbered the middle
nobility — 40x3,000 as against 300,000.
130 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of the middle nobility. Outside of both hierarchies, and in
fact, with rare exceptions, outside of Polish social life in
general, was the Jew.
As early as the end of the eighteenth century many
factors began to contribute to a gradual dissolution of this
system, and the process of dissolution reached the lower
classes some thirty or forty years ago. The " Constitution
of May 3" (1791) gave political rights to the bourgeoisie,
but the later loss of independence made all political privileges
illusory. The process of personal and economic liberation
of the peasants, begun before the second partition and
carried on by private initiative and legal acts, was completed
in 1864. The development of industry, the ruin of many
noble families after each revolution through confiscation
of their fortunes, the agricultural crisis caused by foreign
importation, the spread of instruction and democratic
ideas, are all factors destroying the content of old distinc-
tions while leaving the form. The process is still going
on, and the actual situation may be stated in the follow-
ing way.
First, there are still the old classes, wherever the con-
ditions permit a certain isolation and the development
of a strong class-consciousness — that is, wherever the class
is at the same time a social group with real intercourse and
common interests. The factors which keep the old class-
consciousness strong are mainly territorial vicinity and
identity of occupation. Thus, the old families of middle
nobility settled in some district or province, the old bourgeois
families in large towns, the peasant families or the peasant
nobility settled in the same village or parish from imme-
morial time — these have still a class-feeling strong enough
to resist any external influences. They do not admit
anybody from a lower class, and they do not try to get
into a higher class. But these scattered groups have
INTRODUCTION 131
among themselves a feeling of congeniality and of equal-
ity; and intermarriage creates among them new links of
solidarity.
But these groups, without being exactly dissolved, are
diminishing through a process whose mechanism is deter-
mined by the nature of their own constitution as well as by
the changes which the economic and political evolution of
the country brings with it. The economic form corre-
sponding to the social system expressed in these groups is
that of familial property, that is, property, parts of which
are under the management, not in the complete ownership,
of the individual. In this form of economic organization
the class can subsist as a real social group because through
it territorial vicinity and identity of occupation can be
preserved through a series of generations, and class-
consciousness can persist even if it has no longer any real
basis in the political organization. Under these conditions,
if an individual is unable to maintain his part of the family
fortune the family helps him and controls him, and as far
as possible hinders his ruin. But this control and help
are of course limited. The family may be unable to help,
it may be unwilling to help, or the individual may be
unwilling to accept any control, if for some reason the
attitude of solidarity is weakened or the strain is too great.
And the economic changes of the last century make the
preservation of the old forms of property more and more
difficult, particularly since the lack of political independence
did not permit the development of any adequate social
mechanism to facilitate the modernization of the ancient
economy in agriculture, handiwork, and commerce. Thus
the cases in which the family cannot save the individual from
ruin, or even where the whole family is ruined, are very fre-
quent. And when the modernization of economy is finally
attained, it usually proves that greater individualization
132 PRIMARY-GROUP' ORGANIZATION
of property is required, the familial solidarity is thus
weakened, and the individual is left more or less to his own
resources.
But any member of the class-group who ceases to be a
proprietor is declassed. He cannot maintain the old social
relations on a basis of equality; he must usually leave his
territorial group in search of work; he loses community of
interest with his class, and, above all, he has to do hired
work — he becomes dependent. Now there is hardly another
economic distinction so profoundly rooted in Polish con-
sciousness as that between independent work on the person's
own property and hired work. The occasion of this, as is
shown by our analysis of the economic attitudes, is threefold:
(i) hired work, before the development of industry, meant
almost always "service," including personal dependence of
the employee on the employer; (2) hired work in whatever
form has the character of compulsory work as opposed to
free work; (3) hired work is more individual than inde-
pendent work, and bears no direct relation to the familial
organization. (Of course professional work, based on fee,
not on wages, must be distinguished from hired work.)
The loss of class is seldom complete in the first genera-
tion. The individual still keeps the attitudes of his class-
group and personal connection with its members. Even
in the second, sometimes in the third, generation some
attitudes remain, personal relations are not completely
severed, the familial tradition is kept up, and the question of
birth plays a role.
In this way, during the last century and particularly
during the last fifty years, there has been a continually
growing number of those who have lost class, derived from
all the social classes of the old complicated hierarchy. But
while a hundred years ago these outclassed individuals
hung about their old class in some subordinate position, the
INTRODUCTION
133
industrial and commercial development of the country has
opened for them new lines of activity and new fields of
interest, while the progress of instruction and of modern
social ideology has helped to construct new principles of
social distinction, class-solidarity, and class-hierarchy. The
result is that along with the declining, but still strong, old
social organization there exists in growing strength a new
organization, based upon quite different principles and
tending gradually to absorb the first.
An interesting feature of this new organization, dis-
tinguishing it from parallel social structures in France,
Germany, or Italy, is that the principle of hierarchization
is in the first place intellectual achievement, and only hi the
second place wealth, in its modern forms of capital and
income. This is due mainly to two factors. First, while
hi other societies the rich bourgeoisie, by becoming the
capitalistic class in the modern sense, constituted the
nucleus of the new hierarchization, in Poland the old Polish
bourgeoisie was too weak to play the same role; its number
was small, its wealth limited. Not only was the town life
less developed in Poland than in the West, but the Polish
bourgeoisie had to share its role of capitalistic class with the
Jews, who, being themselves outside of Polish society, could
not impose the capitalistic principle of social distinction.
On the contrary, the fact that the Jews were to a large
extent representatives of the capitalistic economy has
certainly helped to maintain, almost up to the present time,
a certain contempt toward "money-making" and the
attitudes of business in general. At the same time, after
the fall of Poland the conditions were not favorable for the
constitution of a bureaucracy, except, to a certain extent, in
Galicia. The "intellectual aristocracy" was therefore
almost unrivaled, and succeeded in imposing its standard
of values upon the whole new system. The second factor
134 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
which helped the intellectual aristocracy to do this was the
loss of political independence and the subsequent efforts
to keep the Polish culture in spite of political oppression.
Every intellectual achievement appeared in this light as
bearing a general national value. When later the capital-
istic class grew in power, it had to accept, more or less, either
the standard of the new intellectual class or that of the old
aristocracy, and it still hesitates between the two, but with
a marked inclination toward the first. Its wealth gives it
an additional superiority over the intellectual, not over the
birth, aristocracy, and it is easier to satisfy the intellectual-
istic standard than that of birth. Thus, the new hierarchy
gains in extension, while at the same time the intellectual
criterion becomes complicated by that of wealth. And
those criteria go down to the lowest strata of society.
There is, of course, a continual passage of individuals
from the old hierarchy to the new, and on the other hand
a growing infiltration of individuals and families of the
new class into the old class-groups through marriage and
property. But the old bourgeoisie is already largely
amalgamated with the new class-organization; the middle
nobility began to amalgamate with it some thirty or forty
years ago, and the process is going on, although rather
slowly; the amalgamation of the peasant began in the
present generation. Only the highest aristocracy and the
peasant nobility remain still isolated in their class-groups,
though losing members continually.
Finally, the individually Polonized Jews and foreigners,
when they settle in Poland and become assimilated, are
received into the new organization. The same can be said
of the bureaucrats.
In this new hierarchy we can distinguish four classes.
The highest class is constituted by those who, besides a
sufficient degree of instruction (university) and an indispen-
INTRODUCTION 135
sable social refinement, have some particular superiority in
any line — wealth, talent, very good birth, high political,
bureaucratic, or social position. The middle class — the
essential part of this hierarchy — is composed of profes-
sionals: lawyers, physicians, professors, higher technicians,
literary men, tradesmen of middle fortune, higher employees.
University instruction and a certain minimum of good
manners are, generally speaking, the criteria delimiting this
class from the lower middle class. The latter is the most
important for us in the present connection, because it is
the usual medium through which the peasant rises above
his own class, for in the old social hierarchy he could not do
this. His old social position corresponds, in fact, somewhat
to one between the lower middle class and the workman
class, and he may now rise to the one or fall to the other.
In the city the lower middle class is composed of shop-
keepers, craftsmen, lower post and governmental officials,
railway officials, private clerks and salesmen, etc. To this
class in the country belong manor officials (farm-managers,
stewards, clerks,' distillers, foresters) ; commune secretaries,
teachers, organists; rich shopkeepers and mill-owners, etc.
But we must remember that the criterion is not so much the
position itself as the degree of instruction which this requires
and the average cultural level of the men who occupy it, and
that a man of good birth, good manners, and higher instruc-
tion, even if filling an inferior position, does not fall below
the middle class. On the other hand, lack of instruction
and bad manners hardly permit even a relatively rich man
to rise to the middle-class level. Thus it may happen that
a clerk belongs to a higher social niveau than his employer
and is received in circles which are closed to the latter.
In the city the lower middle class is connected by
imperceptible gradations with the working class and in the
country with that of manor servants; the differences become
136 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
smaller the lower the social level. While education still
retains its value, the kind of occupation, money, dress, are
beginning to play a more important r61e. The criteria
which usually exclude a man definitely from the lower
middle class and place him in that of the workman are
unskilled labor and illiteracy, though the contrary does not
hold good; that is, an occupation requiring some special
skill or reading and writing does not place a man above the
working class.
Of course all kinds of pauperism and vice declass a man
definitely, put him outside of both the old and the new
hierarchy. Beggars, tramps, criminals, prostitutes, have
no place in the class-hierarchy. The same holds true of
Jews, except those who are Polonized, and to some extent of
Polish servants in Jewish houses. In Russian and German
Poland the officials and the army are outside of Polish
social life.
This system of social distinctions is even more com-
plicated than we have here described it; the distinctions
become sometimes almost imperceptible, but they are very
real, and their influence in the new hierarchy is even greater
than in the old, because in the former they stimulate
uncommonly the climbing tendency. Under the old system
progress in social standing requires the collaboration of the
greater part of the family-group, is necessarily slow, and
no showing-off can make the individual appear as belonging
to a higher class than his family, for where his family is
known, his social standing is determined, and where it is
not known, he has no real social standing. Particularly
since the old class is a plurality of class-groups, unified by
territorial and professional solidarity, and connected from
group to group by a feeling of identical traditions and
interests (sometimes by intermarriage), social advance is
essentially not passing into a higher class, but rising within
INTRODUCTION 137
the given class-group. The factors which permit a family
to rise are the development of property along the line of the
occupations of the class (land in the country, buildings and
trade in the town), practical intelligence, moral integrity,
and, in general, all the qualities which assure an influence
upon the class-group, such as good marriages within the
class-group, familial solidarity.
On the contrary, in the new social organization an
individual (or marriage-group) can rise alone and rapidly.
He is easily tempted to show off, to adopt the external
distinctions of the superior class in order to appear as
belonging to it, and, if he is clever enough, this showing-
off helps him to rise. And the rise itself is here essentially
a passing into the higher class, facilitated by the fact that
the criteria are so complicated that the territorial or pro-
fessional groups in this organization have not the importance
of real class-groups, and that no groups can have the
stability and impenetrability which the old groups possessed
before the dropping of the familial principle. The factors
of climbing are here instruction, economic development —
rather as an increase of income than as an acquisition of
property — wit, tact, a certain refinement of manners, and,
in general, qualities which assure, not the influence upon a
given social environment, but the adaptation to a new social
environment, including marriage above one's own class
and breaking of familial solidarity.
It is easy to understand how this new, fluid, individual-
istic class-hierarchy, opening so many possibilities of social
progress, must be attractive to the members of a society
in which the question of social standing and class-distinction
always played an exceptionally important role. It has
enough of democracy to permit anyone to rise and enough
of aristocracy to make the rise real. Particularly among
peasants its influence must be felt more and more, as with
138 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
the dismembering of land and growing proletarization of the
country inhabitants the possibility of rising within the
peasant community is closed for a large part of the young
generation.
Since passing into the new organization and rising within
it involve a far-going modification of the traditional atti-
tudes, there arises an estrangement, and sometimes a
struggle, between the old and new generations, and of this
we have numerous examples in this and the following
volumes.
In general, the attitude of the members of the traditional
class-groups toward the old and the new class-hierarchy is
very characteristic. All the old classes, from the highest
aristocracy down to the peasant, are based, as we have seen,
upon the same general principles, and to this extent they
understand each other's attitudes. This understanding is
particularly close between country classes, where an iden-
tity of occupation creates a common universe of discourse;
but it is not lacking either between the town and country
population, wherever they meet. And, more than this,
even the Jew, although outside of the Polish society, is
understood by the noble and the peasant and understands
them. This understanding between the old classes does not
exclude antagonism, hostility, and mistrust whenever whole
groups are concerned, whenever the peasant, the noble,
the Jew, the handworker, meet upon the ground of antag-
onistic class-interests. But it makes possible a curious
closeness of relations between individuals wherever class-
antagonisms are for a shorter or longer time out of the
question. And in spite of all antagonisms and hostilities, a
member of any class-group wants the members of any other
class to be true and perfect representatives of their class-
spirit, to incorporate fully all the traditional attitudes of the
class, including even those which are the basis of class-
INTRODUCTION
139
antagonisms. Thus, the peasant wants the noble to be a
lord in the full sense of the word, proud but humane and
just, living luxuriously, unconcerned about money, but a
good farmer; not easily cheated or robbed by his servants
or even by his peasant neighbors, but consciously generous,
conservative, religious, etc. — in a word, to have those
features which, while putting him at an inaccessible distance
above the peasant, still make him familiar and possible to
understand.
On the contrary, the members of the old class-groups
do not understand at all the new men. There is no class-
antagonism; on the contrary, in many cases there is a
solidarity of interests which may be even acknowledged. In
spite of this, individual relations between members of the
old and the new hierarchy can hardly ever be very close,
except, of course, in so far as a member of a new social class
still keeps some attitudes of the old one, or a member of
some old class-group becomes modernized. Nor is it
merely a matter of different occupations. A professional
who buys an estate, a city worker who buys a peasant farm,
can hardly ever become quite intimate with any of the old
inhabitants. All this manifests itself curiously, for example,
with regard to the Jews. The_ Jewish boycott of the two
years preceding the war extended only with great difficulty
to the country populajjon^-Jbecause in many localities the
peasant, sometimes even the old-type noble, understood
better, and felt himself nearer to, the Jewish merchant of the
old type than to the more honest and enlightened Polish
merchant of the new classl But let a rich, instructed, even (/ j-
christened, Jew, belonging essentially to the new middle fr
class, buy an estate and he will feel incomparably more
isolated from the Polish nobility and the Polish peasant \ \
than some little old crass Jewish merchant from the neigh-
boring town.
140 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
We shall see in our later volumes many and important
manifestations of the class-evolution in communal and
national life.
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
The family is practically the only organized social group
to which the peasant primarily belongs as an active member.
Outside of the family his social milieu can be divided into
two distinct and dissociated parts: (i) a political and social
organization in which he does not play an active role and
of which he does not feel a member; and (2) a community
of which he is an active member, but which is constituted
by a certain number of groups whose internal unity is due
merely to actual social intercourse and to an identity of
attitudes. This dissociation is an essential feature of the
original peasant social life; its progressive removal, the
constitution of organized groups of which the peasant
becomes an active member, is the main characteristic of the
evolution of social life which we shall study in a later volume.
i. The complete lack of political rights until the end
of the eighteenth century made the peasant only an object,
not a subject, of political activity. In the process of gradual
liberation he has acquired some political rights — communal
self-government, participation in elections. But at the
beginning he was unprepared to use them and was always
governed as before, and even since he has begun to partici-
pate actively in political life this participation, except hi
Galicia, has been limited up to the present, for the peasant
as for the other Polish classes, by the political oppression
of the country. The society developed some equivalent of
an independent state-organization, as we shall see later, but
only in German Poland is the peasant a fully active element
of this organization, while in Russian Poland he is only on
the way to it. And since in Russian Poland political rights
INTRODUCTION
141
have always been more limited than anywhere else, the old
attitude toward the state is there preserved in the most
typical form. This attitude can perhaps be best compared
with the attitude toward the natural order on one hand, and
toward the divine order on the other; it is intermediary
between the two. The political order appears to a certain
extent as an impersonal and a moral power, absolutely
mysterious, whose manifestations can possibly be foreseen,
but whose nature and laws cannot be changed by human
interference. But this order has also another side, more
comprehensible but more unforeseen, with some moral char-
acter, that is, capable of being just or unjust and of be-
ing influenced; in this respect it is the exact parallel of
the divine world. The bearers of political power whom the
peasant meets are men, and their executive activity can be
directed within certain limits by gifts or supplication, or
they can be moved to intercede before those higher ones
whom the peasant seldom meets, who are more powerful
and more mysterious, but still in some measure human and
accessible. Above them all is the emperor, less human than
divine, capable of being moved but seldom, if ever, directly
accessible, all-powerful but not all-knowing. This whole
system, this combination of impersonal power and half-
religious hierarchy, evidently permits a certain explanation
of everything, but excludes absolutely any idea of political
activity. The peasant can accept only passively whatever
happens and rejoice or grieve. He does not always even
feel able to praise or to blame, for a given fact may be the
expression of the impersonal power as well as of the person-
alities, and even in the latter case he does not know whom
to praise or to blame. Usually he tries to interpret every-
thing more favorably for the higher, less favorably for the
lower, personalities, because this always leaves some way
out of pessimism; the higher personalities may not have
142 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
known the situation; when they know it, they will change
the oppressive measures or show themselves the peasant's
benefactors. The unlimited power ascribed to the state
and the mystery with which its leaders are surrounded in
the peasant's imagination make him cherish often the most
absurd hopes or give way sometimes to the most absurd
fears. For even if the leaders are accessible to such motives
as the peasant understands, they have besides an unlimited
sphere of unknown motives and plans, exactly as it is with
God. Therefore in the state as viewed by the peasant there
is a self-contradictory combination of an impersonal regu-
larity, incorporated in the habitual functions, and of almost
whimsical change. Being a superhuman order, it is at the
same time a source of unlimited possibilities.
All this explains the traditional loyalty of the peasant
and makes us understand at the same time in what ways this
loyalty disappears. The first step is usually connected with
a change of the habitual valuations. The source of evil is
placed higher and higher, until finally, as often in Russian
Poland, the tsar is conceived as being practically parallel
with, and similar to, Satan. The unlimited possibilities
included in the state become fundamentally possibilities of
evil; the good comes only incidentally, as a consequence
of an imperfect realization of the evil, due to the fact that
the lower personalities in the state-hierarchy are more
human. Their human character acquires a positive value;
it is still weakness, but weakness in evil, resulting from an
accessibility to the motives of ordinary interest (as in
accepting bribes), and sometimes even to good feelings.
Then comes the second step — the development of a half-
mystical faith that this empire of evil can be broken and a
new and perfect organization established in its place, not
indeed with the ordinary human forces alone, but with the
supernatural help of God or by the half-supernatural powers
INTRODUCTION 143
of other states, of "the people," of "the proletariat," etc.
This is the typical psychological path of revolution in the
lower classes.
The other way is that of a progressive growth of the
peasant's positive or negative part in the state — participa-
tion in state-activities and organized struggle with the
government within legal limits. A real understanding of
the state-organization, sufficient for practical purposes, dis-
solves the mystical attitudes, while at the same time the
development of a national consciousness makes loyalty to
an oppressive state appear as national treason. This evolu-
tion has begun in Russian Poland and is nearly completed
in German Poland.
Besides the state, the two other organized social groups
of which the peasant is a member are the commune and the
parish. In both he was passive for a long time. Although
the commune is based upon the principle of self-government,
its freedom is often limited by administrative measures
of the state, and in the beginning the peasant was hardly
able to use his liberty even within these limits. The
commune was in fact governed by the secretary, who knew
the formal side of administration, and in many communes
this situation lasts up to the present. As to the parish, the
priest was all-powerful, not only in fact, but to a great
extent also in form, and up to the present in many parishes
the peasants can hardly get an account of the money which
they give. It is not so much dishonesty on the part of the
priests, many of whom are really disinterested, as the expres-
sion of the principle of patriarchal government, the influence
of the idea that any control would be harmful to the priest's
authority. The struggle for active participation in the
commune and the parish organization is one of the important
points in the actual evolution of the peasant's social life,
particularly in Russian Poland.
144 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Finally, the same passivity characterized the peasant's
part in economic life. Well adapted to the old conditions
of the local farming economy, he stood powerless, ignorant
and isolated hi face of the great economic phenomena of
the external world, and even in face of the small and informal
Jewish economic organizations of the neighboring town.
In this line his present evolution is most rapid and is particu-
larly important in its psychological consequences.
2. The social environment to which the peasant is
primarily adapted, within which he is active and lives his
everyday life, is the partly coincident primary groups — the
village, the parish, and the commune. These are here
treated, not as organized administrative units, but as
collectivities, loosely unified by personal interrelations
among their members, by a certain identity of interests which
does not as a rule give birth to common activities, by
periodical meetings, through which the particular kind of
solidarity developed for a short time in a mob is perpetuated
as a psychological deposit. To this environment we must
add the neighboring town, a part of whose inhabitants the
peasant knows mainly through business relations, and the
neighboring parishes and communes, whose inhabitants he
occasionally meets at fairs and parish festivals. The
Polish popular term corresponding to this undetermined
environment, with which the individual or the family has
close or remote, but always immediate, relations, is okolica,
"the country around," both in the topographic and in the
social sense. In the latter sense we shall use the term
"community."
Of course the circle of the community widens with the
facilities of communication and the frequency of social
intercourse, but there is always a criterion which enables
us to determine its farthest limits: It reaches as far as the
social opinion about the individual or the family reaches.
INTRODUCTION 145
Social opinion is the common factor which holds the com-
munity together, besides and above all the particularities
which unify various parts of the community, individuals, or
smaller groups with each other, and it is the only indispen-
sable factor. Occasionally there may arise a local interest
which provokes some common, more or less organized, action,
usually of an economic nature. But this faculty of common
action shows that the old community has already risen to a
new level, and is again one of the marked points of the
present social evolution of the peasant. The peasant
community subsisted for centuries independent of common
action and lacked any organization, even a transitory one.
The manner in which social opinion holds the community
together is easily analyzed. Any extraordinary occurrence
becomes for a certain time the focus of attention1 of all
the members of the community, an identical attitude toward
this is developed, and each member of the community is
conscious that he shares the general attitude or that his
attitude is shared by the rest of the community. These are
the three original elements of the mechanism of social
opinion : the phenomenon, the identity of attitude, and the
consciousness of this identity.
First of all, the social unity of the community depends
upon the frequency with which social opinion has the
opportunity to manifest itself. This is inversely pro-
portional to the size of the group and directly proportional
to the number of relatively important phenomena occurring
in it. In the community the number of phenomena suffi-
ciently important to occupy the social opinion is, of course,
much more limited than in the parish or commune, in the
parish more limited than in the village. But in any given
group the number increases with the increase of the sphere
of interests of the members. When, for example, in some
village an agricultural association has bought a new machine,
146 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
or a milk association has had an exceptionally large amount
of milk, the whole community learns of it and talks about it.
The awakening of national and political interests has the
same effect, as many phenomena occurring within the com-
munity assume a new importance from those points of view.
Finally, a very important factor is added by the press.
Through it phenomena from the external world — first only
those which have or seem to have some relation with the
interests prevailing among the members of the community,
then also those which arouse a purely intellectual interest —
are brought into the focus of social opinion, are talked
about, more or less identical attitudes are developed with
regard to them, etc.
But with the introduction of these new phenomena,
particularly the external ones, social opinion loses a character
that it possessed eminently hi more primitive conditions —
its reliability. In a primary group, with steady components,
with a form of life relatively simple and changing very
slowly, with a close connection between its members,
mistakes in the perception or interpretation of an interesting
fact are relatively rare, and gossip is usually as well moti-
vated as it can be. The peasant is a keen observer within
the sphere of his normal environment, for good observation
is there a condition of practical success, and he knows his
environment well enough to interpret exactly the observed
data. So those who start a piece of gossip are usually sure
of their fact, and those who hear it know enough to be
critical, to distinguish between the probable and the improb-
able. And deliberately false gossip incurs a strong censure
of social opinion. Of course interpretation and criticism are
exerted from the standpoint of tradition, and nothing can
prevent errors resulting from false traditional beliefs;
accusations of magic are a classical example. From our
point of view, therefore, many expressions of the peasant's
INTRODUCTION 147
social opinion are partly false. But they prove true as soon
as the tradition of the peasant community is taken into
account; for example, in normal conditions only those are
accused of magic who really try to exert it. The error lies
in the whole system of he1iWsr not in the interpretation of
a particular fact from the standpoint of this system.
But when a phenomenon of a new and hitherto unknown
kind appears in the focus of social attention, the old-,
mechanismjtails at once. Observation becomes incomplete,
the fact distorted by old mental habits; interpretation is
hazardous and real criticism impossible, because there is
no ready criterion of the probable and improbable. And
particularly if such a new fact occurs, and the gossip ori-
ginates outside of the community, the disorientation of
social opinion is complete. Aiiy absurdity may circulate
and be generally accepted^ Of course this is due, not only
to the impossibility of tracing the gossip to its source and
the difficulty of verification, but also to the general mental
attitude of the peasant who, once outside of his normal
conditions, faces the world as an unlimited sphere of incal-
culable possibilities.2
We have spoken of an identity of attitudes, developed by
the members of a community with regard to the socially
interesting phenomenon. In fact, this identity ifl a. npres-
f nnrial opinion nnrl it brrom^s more pprfprt
when social opinion is once formed, in view of the pressure
whichj:his exerts on the individual. Were it not for this
1 Thus, during the emigration to Parand in 1910-12, in many eastern isolated
communities the legend was circulated that Parand up to that time was covered
with mist, and nobody knew of its existence. But the Virgin Mary, seeing the
misery of Polish peasants, dispelled the mist and told them to come and settle. Or
a variant: When the mist was raised, all the kings and emperors of the earth came
together and drew lots to decide who should take the new land. Three times they
drew, and always the Pope won. Then the Pope, at the instigation of the Virgin
Mary, gave the land to the Polish peasants.
2 See Religious Attitudes and Theoretic and Esthetic Interests.
148 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
pressure, unanimity of social appreciation could hardly be
attained as often as it is, in view of the frequent divergence
of individual and familial interests in a given case. The
main factor in establishing this uniformity and in enforcing
it in spite of individual disagreement is tradition. The
attitude to be taken with regard to any phenomenon of a
definite class is predetermined by tradition, and an individual
who took a different attitude would be a rebel against
tradition and in this character would himself become a
socially interesting phenomenon, an object instead of a
subject of social opinion, and in fact an object of the
most unfavorable criticism. But there comes eventually a
progressive dissolution of tradition, and at the same time
an increase in the number of phenomena which cannot be
included in any of traditional categories, either because they
are quite new or because the new interests which have arisen
in the community throw a new light upon old classes of
phenomena. And the result is a dissociation of attitudes
within the community, a formation of opposite camps, more
or less durable, sometimes even a struggle, usually leading
to some crude beginnings of organization. If the divergent
attitudes assume steady directions, if they remain divergent
with regard to many new phenomena and thus point back
to certain profound social changes going on within the
community, the latter may split into two or more parties,
which may in turn join some larger organizations. But all
this does not mean that the community is dissolved. As
long as the same phenomena arouse social interest, it is
a proof that behind a diversity of, or even opposition in,
details there is^an identity of general attitudes, and it is
with regard to this identity that the community still
remains one group; only its unity is weakened, because the
stock of common traditions is poorer and the unanimity
incomplete. A complete division of the community would
INTRODUCTION
149
occur only if every identity of interests disappeared, if its
members belonged to completely different social organiza-
tions, which would respectively absorb and satisfy all their
social tendencies. This state of things is approximately
realized where different nationalities live together — Poles
with Russians or Germans, miirh less so wi'tji JgwR.1
The third element of social opinion — the consciousness
^2f the attitudes of others — is mainly kept up by all kinds of
social meetings. While individual conversation and the
communication of news favor the development of identical
attitudes, its action is neither strong nor rapid enough when
taken alone to make the social opinion self-conscious./ The
meeting not only shortens the process of communication,
but, thanks to the immediate influence of the group upon
the individual, is the most powerful medium through
which social tradition is applied to each case and an iden-
tical attitude elaborated and enforced upon the members.
Through frequent meetings a village can develop a certain
(of course limited) originality of attitudes which gives it a
particular social physiognomy. Through meetings also
a village may be much more closely connected with some
distant village belonging to the same parish than with a near
one which belongs to another parish, even if individual
intercourse with the second is more animated than with the
first. The commune, before it became a real social organiza-
tion, had incomparably less unity than the parish, because
general meetings were rare and included only a part of the
population (men farmers). The connection with people
of other parishes and communes is mainly due to meetings —
fairs, parish festivals, etc.
Among the more intelligent the popular press plays the
same part as the meeting; the correspondence or the article
1 The latter case presents this particularity, that Jewish social opinion is much
more concerned with phenomena going on among the Poles than reciprocally —
evidently because of the economic interests of the Jews.
150 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
permits the communication of the event and of the attitude
toward it, and the printed word has the same influence as
the expressed opinion of the group, because it is implicitly
assumed to be the expression of social opinion. There are
certainly essential differences between the meeting and the
paper with regard to the mechanism by which social opinion
is elaborated; the relation between the individual and the
group is immediate in the first case, mediate in the second,
and through the paper the individual as well as the com-
munity enters into relation with the external world. But
the function of the Polish popular paper, which we shall
study in the fourth volume, can be clearly understood only
if we take it in connection with the social opinion of the
community.
The nature of the influence of social opinion upon the
individual who is its object is rather complicated. First
of all, it seems that for the Polish peasant in general it is
rather pleasant to be the focus of public attention, apart
from the cause of it; even if this cause is indifferent from
the standpoint of personal value and public attention
involves no admiration, it still brings a pleasant excitement.
This would explain to a great extent, for example, the usual
vehement display of grief, even if we recognize the tradi-
tional element in it. The excitement of departure to
military service or to America contains certainly some of
this pleasure; still more the excitement of return with
anticipation of public admiration. But certainly this
pleasure never goes so far as to neutralize the feeling of
shame at being the object of intense public blame, as it
sometimes does in city criminals. On the contrary, the
negative influence of public blame in criminal matters goes
so far that suspicion of crime, just or unjust, is one of the
most important causes of suicide. Another intensely felt
public disgrace is that which follows ruin and the declassing
INTRODUCTION 151
which accompanies it. Not less intense is the shame brought
to a girl by the discovery of her misconduct. But if
this misconduct consists, not in actual sexual intercourse
(particularly if followed by the birth of a child), but in a
far-going flirtation with many boys, the distress of incurring
public blame is neutralized by the pleasure of having much
success with the boys. Finally, there is one matter in which
the peasant universally dislikes publicity in whatever form;
it is_the matter of conjugal relations. But, generally
speaking, the desire of showing off is a much more powerful
factor in the peasant's behavior than the fear of shame.
People who, by rising above, or falling below, the normal
level of the community, have learned to disregard public
blame still show themselves very susceptible to public
appreciation./ The peasant's vanity does not require for
its satisfaction explicit public praise; the general pleasure
of attracting attention is adequate. ' It may even adjust
itself to a moderate amount of blame, for which the peasant
has a ready explanation: they calumniate because they
envy. And certainly this explanation is often true. In a
community where everybody wants more or less to be the
object of general attention anybody who succeeds in this
aim becomes in so far an object of envy. We may add that
envy of notoriety is probably much stronger than envy of
economic well-being, and success in any line is appreciated
at least as much for the public admiration which it attracts
as for itself.
Behind this actual machinery of the action of public
opinion there may perhaps still remain some profound,
unconscious vestiges of forgotten motives, consisting in the
belief in an immediate, useful or harmful influence of the
appreciation expressed in words. But we have no data
which would clearly require the use of this magical explana-
tion.
152 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
The influence of social opinion upon the single individual
is only one side of the question; we must also take into
consideration its effects upon a smaller group within the
community. Here the problem is more complicated.
The starting-point is the internal and what we may call
the external solidarity of every social group, in the face of
the opinion of its social environment. The internal solidar-
ity consists in the fact that every member feels affected by
the opinion expressed about his group, and the group is
affected by the opinion expressed about any one of its
members. The external solidarity — that is, the solidarity
enforced from without — is manifested in the tendency of
every community to generalize the opinion about an individ-
ual by applying it to the narrower social group of which this
individual is a member, and to particularize the opinion
about a social group by applying it to every member of this
group.
It is quite natural that in all matters involving social
blame the external solidarity imposed by the environment
is usually the condition of the internal solidarity of the
group itself. The opinion of the environment often makes
the group responsible for its members even if there is feeble
unity in this group, and practically obliges it to become
solidary, either by reacting together against the environ-
ment or by enforcing upon every member compliance with
the environment's demand. Thus, when in a village some
people begin to develop a certain vice, the rest of the
inhabitants cannot throw the responsibility upon the guilty
members alone, for the opinion of the community will always
accuse the whole group without discrimination. So they
have either to interfere with the guilty members or to
accept the judgment and make the best of it. The latter
course is sometimes taken, and the result may be that the
vice becomes general in the village. There are, for example,
INTRODUCTION 153
villages notorious for theft, drinking, card-playing, etc.
Besides imitation, there has been in such cases also a passive
resignation and acceptance of the vox populi, after a vain
struggle, and a subsequent adaptation to the bad opinion.
The priests know very well how to deal with such cases.
When a vice is only beginning to develop in a village, they
proclaim it publicly from the chancel and brand the whole
village, without discrimination. In this way they get the
collaboration of the greater part of the inhabitants in their
struggle against the vice. But if a village has long been
notorious for some vice, the priest proclaims publicly the
slightest improvement in order to show the possibility of
changing the bad name.
The unorganized social group usually lacks, of course,
the most efficient arms against the members who bring
shame upon it, namely, exclusion. In some cases this is
attempted, more or less successfully, but then the group
organizes itself temporarily in view of this particular end.
It is possible for the individual to disclaim solidarity with
an ill-famed unorganized group by leaving it, but this
again does not happen frequently, because the individual,
supported by his narrower group, feels less strongly the
blame of the wider community. This process of enforcing
solidarity upon the group by the social environment is
frequently repeated, on a larger scale, when a community
is blamed in the newspapers for the acts of some of its
members. We find it, also, in a somewhat different form,
when in some intellectually isolated community on the
ethnographical limits of Poland national solidarity is
awakened by the blame of foreigners, for example, in German
Poland.
The contrary process, when the group acquires solidarity
in the eyes of the larger community by enforcing its own
claims to this solidarity, is, of course, found only in matters
154 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
involving social praise; the group wants recognition on*
account of the social prominence of its members, the
individual wants recognition as member of a social prominent
group. This is the well-known mechanism of familial,
local, national, pride. We have to distinguish this mechan-
ism, which is possible also in an organized group but does not
require organization, from the other, by which the organized
group demands recognition on account of its social function,
as a whole; we shall meet this problem later on.
How does the individual free himself from the influence
of social opinion ? As we have already noted, the Polish
peasant rids himself more easily of the dread of social blame
than of the attraction of social praise. But, making allow-
ance for this difference, we find that there is already in the
prjmitive_rjeasant psychology agerm ofinderjendence of
social opinion which, un4eii_favorable circumstances, can
develop. We have seen that originally conjugal life
least in part, out of the reach of public intrusion. There is,
in general, a tendency, particularly among men, to resent
intrusions^ of the community into f amily "matters ; this
tendency increases usually with the~gf6Wittg Importance of
the man within the family-group and reaches its highest
stage in old heads of the family before their resignation.
Besides this, the peasant frequently likes to keep secret
all those personal matters which would not attract a particu-
larly favorable attention of the community. And the same
is often done under the influence of his desire for publicity;
he likes to prepare carefully his effects in order to make them
unexpected and as striking as possible. This aiming at
great effects makes him often disregard or even encourage
social blame for some tune and to some extent in order to
make the contrast stronger; he may even be dissatisfied with
social praise if it comes before his own chosen moment
and spoils his effect. In this way his ambition itself teaches
INTRODUCTION
him to disregard to some extent public opinion and helps
to find a particular pleasure in the contrast between his
own economic, moral, intellectual value and the erroneous
appreciation of social opinion. Back of this all the while
is the idea that a day will come when he will show his real
value and astonish the community.
These psychological features make easier the real process
of liberation, which usually comes when the peasant becomes
a member of some group whose opinion differs more or less
from that of the community. Sharing the views of this new
group and feeling more or less backed by it, he learns to rise
above the community and to disregard the traditions. This
process is facilitated by his leaving the community, going
to a city or to America. But it goes on also among those
who stay within the traditional group. In fact, all the
recent changes of the peasants' views are taking this direc-
tion. When once a small circle of "enlightened" peasants
is formed in a community, the further movement becomes
much easier. The social workers in the country under-
stand this necessity of opposing a group to the group-
influence and always try to organize a "progressive circle,"
even the smallest one. When reading is developed, it often
suffices for the individual to communicate by letters or by
print with some group outside of his community in order to
feel strong enough to oppose the prevailing opinion. Some
popular papers have therefore organized loose associations
of the adherents of some movement, who communicate with
one another through the paper. But, even in the cases of
an almost perfect liberation from the pressure of the imme-
diate environment, there is a latent hope that some day
the community will acknowledge the value of the new ideas
and of their bearers.
At present the unorganized social environment of
the peasant is itself undergoing a profound evolution, in
156 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
connection with a modification of the traditional class-
hierarchy./ The constitution, the criteria, the interests of
-public opinion, are changing very rapidly, and the reac-
tion of the individual to the influence of this changing
environment, without being necessarily either weakened or
strengthened, is changing qualitatively, in connection with
the formation of new social classes./
x
ECONOMIC LIFE1
Among the Polish peasants we find three coexisting
stages of economic development with their accompanying
mental attitudes : (i) the survival of the old family economy,
in which economic values are still to a large extent qualita-
tive, not yet subordinated to the idea of quantity, and the
dominant attitude is the interest in getting a good living,
not the tendency to get rich; (2) the spontaneously devel-
oped stage of individual economy, marked by a quantifi-
cation of economic values and a corresponding tendency
to make a fortune or to increase it; (3) the stage of co-
operation, developing mainly under external influences, in
which economic values and attitudes are subordinated to the
moral point of view. /
To be sure, these types are seldom realized in their pure
form in concrete groups or individuals; some attitudes of a
lower stage may persist on a higher level. . It happens that
social individualism develops under influences other than
economic, while the economic attitudes logically correspond-
ing to it are not yet realized. Or the familial attitude may
1 In addition to first-hand materials, including a report on season-emigration
made by one of the authors at the request of the Central Agricultural Association
of the Kingdom of Poland to the Russian Minister of Agriculture, some data from
the following works have been used in writing this chapter: Wladyslaw Grabski,
Materyaly w sprawie wioscianskiej; Franciszek Bujak, Zmiqca (a particularly
important monograph of a village), and Limanowa; Jan Slomka, Pamietniki
wloscianina.
INTRODUCTION 157
be kept by men or groups who in economic life adapt them-
selves- to individualistic attitudes and valuations while their
family-group behaves economically like an individual or a
marriage-group. We have thus many mixed forms, some
of which will be found in our present materials. But their
distinctive feature is their instability; the discrepant ele-
ments which they contain lead soon to their disappearance.
They are interesting only as showing the way in which
evolution goes on.
i. In the first stage all the categories of economic life
have a distinctly sociological character. The economic
generalization based upon the principle of quantitative
equivalence has not been consistently elaborated, and we
therefore find distinctions between phenomena of this class
which are economically meaningless but have a real social
meaning. The same lack of quantitative generalization
leads to another result — a lack of calculation, which has
sometimes the appearance of stupidity, but is in fact only
an application of the sociological instead of the economic
type of reasoning to phenomena which are social in the eyes
of the peasant even if they are merely economic when viewed
from the standpoint of the business man or the economist.
There are three classes of property, none of which exactly
corresponds to any classical definition: land, durable
products of human activity (including farm-stock), and
money. Natural powers and raw materials, not elaborated
by human activity, cannot be included in any economic
category; things which can be used only once (food, fuel,
work — animal or human) belong, as we shall see, rather to
the class of income than to that of property, although some-
times a distinction is made between their simple consump-
tion and their productive use.
In taking land property into consideration we must
remember that for centuries the peasant was not the legal
158 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
owner of his land, and that therefore the legal side of
property plays up to the present a secondary role, although
there has necessarily been a far-going adaptation to legal
ideas since the abolition of serfdom. The difficulty of this
adaptation is shown by the innumerable, often absurd,
lawsuits about land, of which mainly Galicia, but also
Russian Poland, has been- the scene. The modern legal
categories are incommensurable with the traditional social
forms, and therefore the peasants either try to settle land
questions without using the legal scheme at all, or, when the
matter is once brought before the court or even only before
the notary, they cannot reconcile their old concepts with
the new ones imposed by the law, and a situation which
would be simple if viewed exclusively from the traditional
or the legal standpoint becomes complicated and undeter-
mined when the two standpoints are mixed.
But the influence of serfdom upon land property ought
not to be overestimated. It seems to have been rather
negative than positive; it hindered the development of the
legal side of property, but hardly developed any particular
features. Indeed, the main characteristics of the peasant
land property are found among the higher classes, although
perhaps they are. more distinct in the peasant class. The
system of serfdom has simply adapted itself to pre-existing
forms of economic life whose ultimate origin is lost in the
past.
Land property is essentially familial ; the individual is its
temporary manager. Who manages it is therefore not
essential provided he does it well ; it may be the father, the
oldest son, the youngest son, the son-in-law. We have seen
that it is usual for all the members of the family to marry
and to establish separate households, but if a member of
the family is unlikely to marry (being a cripple, sick, or
otherwise abnormal), or if, exceptionally, a member does
INTRODUCTION 159
not wish to marry, he can live with his brother or sister,
working as much as he is able, not working if he is not able,
but in any case getting his living and nothing but his living.
No amount of work entitles him to anything like wages, no
inability to work can diminish his right to be supported on
the familial farm. The same principle is manifested in the
attitude toward grown-up children living with their parents.
They have the right to live away from the farm, but they
have the obligation to work for the farm; and if, later on,
they go to work outside, the money they earn is not their
own, because the work which they gave for this money was
not their own — it was due to the family-farm and diverted
from its natural destination. Of course the collateral
branches of the family lose to some extent the connection
with the farm, but the connection is only weakened, never
absolutely severed. Its existence was very well manifested
in some localities under serfdom. If a serf managed his
farm badly, the lord could give it to someone else, but
absolutely to the nearest possible relative who gave a suffi-
cient guaranty of a better management.
This familial character of the farm should not be inter-
preted as if the family were an association holding a common
property. The members of the family have essentially no
economic share in the farm; they share only the social
character of members of the group, and from this result
their social right to be supported by the group and their
social obligation to contribute to the existence of the group.
The farm is the material basis of this social relation, the
expression of the unity of the group in the economic world.
The rights and obligations of the members with regard to it
do not depend upon any individual claims on property, but
upon the nearness of their social relation to the group.
It was therefore only with the greatest difficulty that the
idea could be accepted that the land left after the death
160 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of the head of the family should be treated together with
other kinds of property as belonging hi common to the heirs
and eventually to be divided among them.
The first form of providing separately for the members
of the family, other than the one who was to take the farm,
was certainly a payment in cash or farm-stock, made during
the life of the head of the family — the member managing
the farm. This is not the acknowledgment of their rights
to the farm, but simply an expression of familial solidarity,
a help, whose individualistic form is necessitated by modern
economic conditions. With the progress of individualism
the old principle begins to yield, and we find the first sign
in the sometimes almost purely nominal shares which after
the death of the head of the family the principal heir, or
rather the new manager, has to pay to his brothers and
sisters. Then, these shares, by which already the principal
heir acknowledges some rights of the other heirs to the land
as such, begin to increase, but they never become equal to
the share of the member who holds the land. Finally
when in rare cases the farm itself is divided (usually only
after a premature death of the head of the family) it is
seldom divided among all the heirs; usually most of them
are "paid off." And we see the older generation endeavor-
ing by all means to prevent the division. A curious strata-
gem is, for example, the bequeathing of the farm to one son,
and mortgaging it nominally and above its value for the
benefit of other heirs. A legal division then becomes, of
course, practically impossible.
The indivisibility of the farm has nothing to do with the
question of its territorial unity. Most of the farms are
composed of fragments, sometimes over a hundred of them,
disseminated over the whole area of a village neighborhood.
And changes of territorial arrangement — the exchange of
separate fragments between neighbors or the modern
INTRODUCTION 161
integration of farms — do not seem to have a dissolving effect
upon the social unity of the farm. Nevertheless, not every
farm is equally adapted to playing the part of familial
property. A farm upon which many generations of the
same family have worked is quite naturally associated with
this particular family and often even bears its name, while
a new farm is devoid of such associations. But the old
land may lose, and the new land may assume, the function
of familial property; the principle of indivisibility remains
in force even if the object to which it is applied is not the
same as before. This explains how the idea of familial
property has been kept up in spite of colonization and
emigration from province to province, and is still exerting its
influence even among Polish colonists in Brazil.
The land being thus a social rather than an economic
value — the material condition of the existence of a group as
a whole — other characters of land property can be deduced
from this fundamental fact.
No land communism is acceptable to the Polish peasant.
When the Russian government colonized Siberia, constitut-
ing villages according to the communistic principle prevail-
ing among the Russian peasants, almost the only Polish
colonists attracted there were factory workmen, who had
forgotten the peasant attitude. And it is evident that
communism would destroy the very essence of the social
value represented by the land; the latter would cease to
express the unique familial group. A comparison may
illustrate this attitude : communism of land from the stand-
point of familial property would mean something more or
less like a communism of objects of personal use from the
standpoint of individual property.
Land should never be mortgaged, except to a member of
the family. Mortgaging to a stranger, and particularly to
an institution or government, not only involves the danger
1 62 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of losing the land, but it destroys the quality of property.
Mortgaged land is no longer owned by the nominal proprie-
tor. "The land is not ours, it belongs to the bank," says
the peasant who has bought a farm with the help of a bank.
This attitude leads to a particularly irrational behavior in
matters of loans. The conditions on which the state bank
lends money on land are particularly favorable. The debt
is paid back in from forty to sixty years, and the yearly
payment with interest is from 2 per cent to 3 per cent less
than the interest on any average investment. The peasant
knows this very well, but, in spite of it, as soon as he has any
money he tries first of all to pay the mortgage. A private
mortgage is preferred, even if the interest is higher and no
partial payments possible. The peasant prefers above all
a personal debt, even at high interest and for a short term.
And this again results from the social character of the land ;
mortgaged property becomes a purely economic category
and loses its whole symbolical value. The situation is here
analogous to that which we find in every profanation; the
profaned object passes into a different class and loses its
exceptional character of sanctity.
Finally, land property is evidently the main condition
of- the social standing of the family. Without land, the
family can still keep its internal solidarity, but it cannot act
as a unit with regard to the rest of the community; it ceases
to count as a social power. Its members become socially
and economically dependent upon strangers, and often
scatter about the country or abroad; the family ceases to
play any part in the affairs of the commune, its young
generation can hardly be taken into account in matters of
marriage, it cannot give large ceremonial receptions, etc.
The greater the amount of land, the greater the possibility
of social expression. Of course all this gradually changes on
the higher levels of economic development.
INTRODUCTION 163
Land has also an exceptional value from other points of
view — as an object of work, as an object of magical rites
and religious beliefs, and later as a basis of national cohesion.
But all these questions will be considered in other contexts.
The second class of property — products of human activ-
ity— shows a partial, but only a partial, independence of the
familial idea. These products are not destined for the use
of the family as a whole, and in this sense they are individual,
but not personal, property. Members of the family own
them, but for every member in particular this ownership
is, so to speak, accidental. The head of the family owns the
farm- stock, can sell it or give it, but only as long as he is the
manager of the farm. House furniture is owned by those
who hold the house, but again only as long as they hold it.
Even valuable pieces of clothing, particularly home-made,
often passing from generation to generation, are owned
really, but only temporarily. Things bought or made by
the individual himself are no exception to this rule. The
function of this class of property is precisely to complete
the function of land property in assuring the material
existence of the group, wherever this requires individual
ownership, and the right of every member of the family to
own something individually depends upon this fundamental
aim and is determined by the position which he occupies in
the group. The head of the family owns the farm-stock
because this is necessary for his management of the farm,
and he and his wife are the general distributors of these
goods; they have to give everyone what he needs as member
of the group. To a member who stays at home they give
the only individual property which he needs to live — clothes;
he has no other function in the group except being a member.
To those who marry and establish a new household the goods
are distributed which are necessary, not only to live person-
ally, but also to fulfil the function of householders — besides
1 64 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
clothes, some house and bed furniture, some farm-stock
and farming implements. And every member of the
family should be ready to give to any other member things
which the other needs and which he can spare himself, taking
the particular position of both into account. Thus, an
unmarried member who has the opportunity to get from
without any household or farm goods should give them to a
married or marrying one. Dividing the inheritance means
primitively only dividing this class of goods, for no others
are inherited in the proper sense of the word, and the division
is regulated by the same principle: to everyone according
to his needs, as far as those needs result from his function
in the family-group, not from his personal desires. And
under no pretext should any goods of this class, as long as
they have any value, be given away to strangers, or sold
as long as anybody in the family needs them.
Money is a relatively new kind of property which has
adapted itself to the pre-existing organization and whose
importance grows as the modern economic life penetrates
the peasant community ahd makes that pre-existing organi-
zation insufficient. For the peasant, money property has
originally not the character of capital, but of an immediate
and provisional substitute for other kinds of property.
He does not at first even think of making money produce;
he simply keeps it at home. And if he lends it privately, the
mediaeval principle of no interest prevails, or at most, as
we shall see later, a reward in money or products is taken
for the service. Even now interest on private loans from
peasant to peasant is very low. Putting money into the
bank comes still later, and, last of all, using it on enterprises.
Being a provisional substitute for other kinds of property,
money is individualized according to its source and destina-
tion. A sum received from selling a cow is qualitatively
different from a sum received as dowry, and both are dif-
INTRODUCTION 165
ferent from a sum earned outside. The distinction goes
still further. The money which the husband gets for the
cow is qualitatively different from that which his wife puts
aside by selling eggs and milk, not because either belongs
personally to husband or wife, but because each represents
the equivalent of a different sort of value; the first is
property, the second is income. We shall consider the lat-
ter presently. The qualitative difference between various
sums of money equivalent to property was originally ex-
pressed in the fact that they were kept separately. And
to the difference of origin corresponded a difference of
destination. Mpjngy rprejvpri as d"wry rnnlH hp nspH nnly
to buy land, and the sa.mg was, of course, true of money
received from the sale of land. Money so derived had the
character jrfjamilifl-l property pnH it could never be diverted
to any individual end or any enterprise, not even for a time,
but had to wait for an opportunity to buy land. Money
from the sale of cattle, horses, hogs, or poultry was to be
put aside in order to meet all the individual difficulties of
the members of the family arising from the complication
of modern life and the beginning economic individualiza-
tion, particularly to help newly married couples, or, later,
to help the principal heir in " paying off" other heirs. It
was the equivalent of the second class of property. Money
earned outside, if it was not mere income but acquired the
character of property, was usually assimilated to the same
second class. But there was a general tendency to make
money pass from a lower into a higher economic class —
from the class of income into that of property, from that
of individually controlled into that of familial property.
Actual economic evolution tends to abolish all these distinc-
tions and to make money more and more fluid. But the
tendency to individualize money was so strong that up to
the present time a peasant who has a sum put aside for a
1 66 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
determined end, and needs a little money temporarily,
prefers to borrow it, even under very difficult conditions,
rather than touch that sum.
At this stage of evolution property, not income, is
exclusively the measure of the economic situation of the
family or the individual. And evidently it must be so,
since the economic situation is socially important only in
view of the social standing which it gives and since it is
property which expresses the social side of economic life.
A larger but badly managed farm is therefore more valued
than a well-managed but smaller one, even if their real
economic values are inversely proportional. And there is a
curiously mixed attitude of envy and commiseration toward
town people or manor employees who have an income much
larger than the peasant, but no property.
The concept of income itself which we use here is origi-
nally strange to the peasant. We can apply this category to
the yearly products of the farm, but we must remember that
the peasant does not apply it. The products of the farm
are not destined to be sold and not evaluated quantitatively.
Their destination is simply to give a living to the family and
to keep farming going on — nothing more. And the original
system of farming (one- third whiter crops, i.e., wheat and
rye; one-third summer crops, i.e., barley, oats, potatoes,
etc.; one- third fallow), with an average low level of agri-
cultural practice, really does not leave much to sell from a
farm of the average size of ten to thirty acres. Below ten
acres a farm gives hardly enough to feed the family and the
stock; and if the peasant cannot earn some money outside
he must in the spring either borrow grain from a rich neigh-
bor or sell his pig, cow, or even horse in order to get a living
until the new harvest. And if his situation is good, he will
think rather of increasing his stock than of selling any
products. There are also in this case greater claims to be
INTRODUCTION 167
satisfied — servants to be fed, old parents or collateral
members of the family to be supported, neighbors to be
helped, guests to be received. For, unlike the property
which should never pass outside of the family, the farm
income (products) has to be shared as far as possible with
poor members of the community, guests, wanderers, beggars,
etc. Its essence is to support human or animal life. To
waste the smallest part of it is a sin, almost a crime. To
sell it is not a sin, but perhaps even here we may find in the
background of the peasant's psychology the half-conscious
conviction that it is not quite fair. There is another way of
using what remains after the satisfaction of the needs of the
family and of the duties toward the community : the income
in products can be turned into property by increasing the
farm-stock, improving the buildings, buying new farm
implements, all of which is property. The attitude of the
village or commune toward pastures and forests belonging
to it is almost the same. They are not common property
in the real sense of the word, for the peasant does not
consider, as we have seen, raw materials as the property of
anyone. They are simply a source from which every
member of the village or commune can draw materials which
he needs in addition to the farm products in order to support
his family, to feed his stock, and to keep up his farm build-
ings, without getting into trouble with the law. Only with
regard to the relation to other villages or communes these
goods assume the secondary character of property. In this
line there has been also an evolution during the last period.
This attitude toward the natural products of the farm
explains why the agricultural progress of the Polish peasant
was so slow up to twenty or thirty years ago. There were
no sufficient motives to increase the productivity of the
land. The standard of living simply adapted itself to the
natural income, and the question of increasing the farm
1 68 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
equipment was hardly important enough to justify agri-
cultural studies, harder work, more trouble in running a
complicated system of farming, etc. If we take the passive
clinging to tradition into account, we shall hardly wonder
at the slowness of the progress. And precisely in the only
case where the motive could be strong enough — when the
farm income was not sufficient to give a living to the family
— there were no resources for making improvements.
When the general conditions began to change, the
peasant found at first additional sources of income which
allowed him to solve the new situations. The growth of the
large cities, the development of the means of communica-
tion, of national and international commerce, gave him the
possibility of selling secondary products of his farming-
butter, eggs, vegetables, fruit, etc. Home industry, which
had existed from time immemorial, although it was never
very much developed, found new markets, thanks to the
sudden interest which it awakened in the higher classes of
Polish society. But the main source of additional income
was hired season-work, at first only in the neighborhood,
hen also in more distant parts of the country and in Ger-
many, and finally work in America.
The first use of this income was to cover such new
expenses as were not accounted for hi the old economy; it
had to supply the deficiencies of the old system of living
in the same way that money property supplied the deficiency
of the old system of property. Taxes increased and had
tojbe paid in cash, whereas they were formerly paid mainly
in natural "procTucts. The multiplication of the family
obliged the purchase, whenever possible, of new land, and
this could be done usually only by contracting debts, on
which interest had to be paid in cash. New needs arose
among the members of the younger generation, needs of
city products, city pleasures, learning; individualization
INTRODUCTION 169
progressed, and the older generation had to yield, sometimes
after a hard struggle. Finally, when the products of the
farm were not sufficient to feed the family, food began to
be bought instead of being borrowed. This is the latest
stage of evolution.
But even in this evolution the principle of qualification
of economic values held good. Every sum of money, ad-
ditionally earned, had a particular end and could be used
on nothing else, not even partially and temporarily. And
there was always a tendency to let as much of it as possible
pass from the class of income into that of property, whenever
the sum was large enough to make a marked addition to the
latter. If a sum was once set aside to increase in some
particular way the property, the necessity of spending it
on some actual need was felt as a misfortune. We have
here the explanation of the stinginess of the peasant, which
remains his characteristic feature even as an immigrant.
Traditionally all the elementary needs of food, shelter,
clothing, fuel, were satisfied by the natural products of the
land, and there was and is still an aversion to spending
money on them. Even when natural products were sold,
the money was not used for living, but for other needs. We
therefore find the seemingly paradoxical situation that an
increase of income in cash usually means for a time a lower-
ing of the standard of living. In localities where they find
an easy market for their products the peasants often live
worse than in more remote villages. But they usually
spend more money on city pleasures and objects of luxury,
because with regard to expenses of this kind the inhibition
is not traditional and has to be acquired. In the same way
the peasant in America tries to limit his living expenses even
more than his extraordinary expenses, particularly if he
comes directly from the country. And when he has a plan
for the use of a sum of money which he has earned, nothing
170 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
except final misery and the impossibility of earning or bor-
rowing can compel him to spend this sum on his living.
The third kind of income known at this stage of economic
life is wages. But here again the principle is not the modern
one. Primarily there seems to be no idea of an economic
equivalent of the work done, of an exchange of values.
There is rather a collaboration, entitling the collaborator to
a living. The servant or employee, by co-operating with
his employer, is assimilated to his family. His position is
evidently inferior to that of his employer, because the latter
is the manager of the property and the distributor of the
income; but it is inferior only to that of other members
of the employer's family in the fact that these members
may become managers themselves. There can also be other
reasons of inferiority. The family of the employer has
usually a higher social standing than that of the employee.
But when the employer is a peasant, the position of an
employee or farm servant, a parobek, involves as such no
social inferiority. In the case of manor servants the element
of class-distinction enters and can never be obviated, and
the employee's work includes also always some element of
personal service essentially different from collaboration, and
involving a real personal inferiority. But in this case also
the employee is assimilated to the employer's family to the
degree that the relation involves collaboration. To be sure,
this assimilation resulting from collaboration led only to an
internal solidarity of the family-group with reference to
work and living, not to a solidarity of external reactions
toward other family-groups. The latter solidarity is
acquired only through a long life in common.
The manifestation of this attitude toward dependent
work is that the salary of the servant was always originally
given in natural products. The single servant received his
board and a determined or undetermined amount of clothing;
INTRODUCTION 171
the married servant in manors had lodging, fuel, grain (called
ordynaryd), a field for potatoes, the permission to keep one
or two cows, etc. — in short, everything included in the
peasant idea of living. Later on the same economic evolu-
tion which obliged the peasant farmer to seek for an addi-
tional income obliged the employer to pay a little money to
his employee. But that this money is considered as only
an addition, an equivalent for products which cannot be
furnished, is shown by the fact that the wages in cash paid
to manor servants amount even now on the average to only
10 per cent of the wages in natural products. Another
modification, parallel with the hired season- or day-work
of the farmer's family, is the custom by which the manor
servant keeps a boy or girl to do day-work on the manorial
farm. Originally based on the fact that the larger children
of a servant worked with him, the custom was made obliga-
tory by manor-owners, who need cheap hands for light work.
A manor servant who has no large children must therefore
hire a boy or girl (called posylka). But here also the old
principle is retained as far as possible; the servant receives
for his posylka an additional remuneration in natural
products besides the daily pay, which is therefore lower than
that of occasional workers, and the hired posylka is treated
by the manor servant in the same way as the parobek, the
farm servant, by the farmer, that is, he receives his living
and a small addition in cash.
Naturally this situation excludes any idea and any
possibility of changing income into property, of economizing
for the future. As a consequence of the principle of a
living instead of a regular wage, the servant can never
become an owner, except by inheritance from some member
of his family, or incidentally by marriage. The problem of
living in old age was solved on the familial principle. A
disabled worker was to be supported by his own family, or,
172 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
if he had served in one place long enough to become closely
connected with the family of his employer, the latter was
socially obliged to support him until his death — an obliga-
tion which was always respected.
' Another interesting consequence of this state of things
was the type of moral regulation of the relation between
employer and employee. The attitude required was essen-
tially identical on both sides, in spite of the difference of posi-
tions and spheres of activity. Its basis was "goodness,"
consisting on either side in the care for the interests and
welfare of the other side — including the families. The
employer had to be "just," that is, to reciprocate the good-
ness of his employee; the employee was to be "true," that
is, to reciprocate the goodness of the employer. The moral
regulation did not touch at all the matter of proportion
between work and remuneration. And even now, when the
peasant speaks of a "just" master or a "just" pay, he
means a master who cares well for good servants, a pay
which shows the intention of the employer to provide well
for his employees.
One of the reasons why the relation between work and
wages is not taken into account is certainly the attitude of
the Polish peasant toward work. While among handworkers
a long tradition of guild life developed an appreciation of
craftmanship and efficiency, or, more generally speaking,
attracted the attention to the results of the work, the peasant
is fundamentally interested, positively or negatively,
principally in the process of work. Many factors collab-
orated to develop this attitude. First of all, the com-
pulsory work under the system of serfdom could hardly
awaken any interest in the results. What did the serf care
whether his work for the lord was efficient or not ? On the
contrary, the process of compulsory work evoked a strong
interest — a negative one, of course, because of the hardship
INTRODUCTION 173
and loss of time which it involved, and because of its
compulsory character. But, under continual oversight, the
peasant had to work, willingly or not, and a certain obliga-
tory character has been acquired in the course of time by
the process of work as such. It was strengthened by
religion: "Man has to work, it is his curse, but also his
duty; the process of working is meritorious, laziness is bad,
independent of any results." And up to the present this
attitude is retained, even if other interests and other motives
have been added.
We should expect a different attitude from the peasant
toward the work done on his own farm. But even this
work was often half-compulsory. The peasant had to keep
his farm in good condition in order to be able to meet his
obligations to the lord. And even when this work was free,
as it was sometimes even under the serfage system, another
factor hindered the development of an appreciation of
efficiency. The ultimate result of Jform-work does not
depend exclusively upon the worker himself; his best^
efforts can be frustrated by unforeseen circumstances, ancL
in a particularly good year even negligent work may be well
repaid. On a rich background of religious and magical
beliefs this incalculable element gives birth to_a particular
kind of fatalism. It is not the proverbial oriental fatalism,
based upon divine predestination and, if consistent, making
work essentially an unimportant element of life, but a
limited kind of fatalism, based upon the uncertainty of the
fntjirp _ Thp. essential point is to get the help of God, the
distributor of good, against the indifferent forces of nature
and the intentionally harmful magical forces of hostile men
and of the devil. Now, in addition to religious magic, the
process of work itself is a means of influencing God favor-
ably; it is even the most indispensable condition of assuring
God's help, for without it no religious magic will do any
174 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
good. We cannot solve here the problem, whether the
process of work has assumed this importance only under
the influence of the Christian ideology or whether there
is a more primitive and fundamental religious character
belonging to it. The fact is that when the peasant has been
working steadily, and has fulfilled the religious and magical
ceremonies which tradition requires, he "leaves the rest
to God" and waits for the ultimate results to come; the
question of more or less skill and efficiency of work has very
little importance. The attitude is somewhat different with
regard to work whose results are immediate — carpenter's,
blacksmith's, spinner's, weaver's work. But even here it
is not so much the skill as the conscientiousness of work that
counts, and the thing made "will hold if God allows it" —
an attitude very different from that of a city handworker.
When hired work begins to develop, there gradually
enters a new motive — that of wages. But the essential
attitude is not changed. It is for the process, not for the
results of his work, that the servant gets his living; it is
for the process of work that later the employee, the hired
laborer, even the factory workman, considers himself to be
paid. Even when later the idea of wages as remuneration
for the results of the work is accepted, often eagerly accepted,
it is applied less willingly to work at home than abroad.
The most absurd explanations are given by the peasants who
reject piece-work in Poland and ask for it in Germany;
the irrationality of this attitude shows that its source lies
in the old habits.
The stress put on the process of work rather than on its
results explains also the importance which the kind of work
and its external conditions have for the peasant. The
motives of pleasure and displeasure connected with this
process are at the first stage more important than the profits.
The main factors of pleasure are freedom, variety, facility,
INTRODUCTION 175
companionship. Independent work is more pleasant than
dependent, farm-work incomparably more pleasant — or
rather less unpleasant — than factory-work, and the only
case in which the pleasure of the process of work outweighs
always and everywhere its hardship is when all the neighbors
come together to help one of their number to gather his
crops. This kind of help, always disinterested, is almost
equivalent to a pleasure party. It is becoming rare since
the new appreciation of work for its results has developed
and the old communal life has lost its primary character.
Up to the present we have spoken of the economic
attitudes which concern a single family or individual — for
even the employment relation belongs to these. We now
pass to those which determine economic relations between
various members of a peasant community. These relations
may be classed under the f ollowing seven concepts : giving,
lending for temporary use, crediting, renting, exchanging,
selling, stealing. There is no possibility of reducing these
to a more limited number of purely economic categories, but
all of them are modifications of one fundamental relation —
of an occasional solidarity between the members of a com-
munity, in the same way as all the relations between
members of a family in matters of property are modifications
of a permanent solidarity within the family.
The gift is the most elementary form in which solidarity
is expressed, because it is the simplest form of help. We
must distinguish a real gift, when the object given has a
material value, from a symbolical gift, when the value of the
object is essentially moral. The real gift between strangers
can be only an object of consumption, belonging to the
category of income, not to that of property, because, as we
have said, property cannot go out of the family. A symbol-
ical gift is usually a religious object (medal, cross, image,
wafer, scapular, etc.), sometimes an object of adornment, a
1 76 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
trifle made by the person himself, etc. It is in itself prop-
erty, but its material value is so insignificant that it does
not diminish the stock of property of the giver and does not
increase the wealth of the receiver. Its moral value con-
sists hi the social attitudes which it symbolizes and which
constitute its meaning. Now, the common meaning of all
the symbolical gifts is that they establish between the giver
and the receiver a spiritual bond, analogous to the familial
bond, precisely because they formally bear the character of
gifts reserved for the familial relation; the receiver is
conventionally incorporated into the giver's family. In
the case of a religious or magical object the latter has still
another meaning in itself which heightens the moral impor-
tance of the gift; the bond between the giver and the
receiver is sanctified, so to speak. By gradations of the
material value of the gift and of the sanctity which it
imparts to the relation between the giver and the receiver
we pass from a conventional to a real familial relation.
Thus, the boy offers to the girl whom he intends to marry
gifts of real value, which increase as the marriage becomes
more probable, and the betrothal and wedding rings have a
particularly sanctifying function, because they have been
specially blessed for the occasion.
If the symbolical gift establishes a new relation, the
real gift is the result and the acknowledgment of the pre-
existing relation of communal solidarity. It has thus a
double function, the primitive one of help in emergency and
the derived one of manifesting solidarity. It assumes the
latter on particular occasions and is then ritualized. Food,
offered at all ceremonial meetings, has certainly this char-
acter. The ceremonial meetings occur on all the important
familial occasions — christening, betrothal, wedding, funeral
— and even on secondary ones, such as the arrival of a
member of the family, the name-day of the head of the
INTRODUCTION 177
family. By inviting members of other families and offering
them food the family manifests that it wants the event to be
considered a social, not a private affair, and that in spite of
any change in its life or composition it remains solidary with
the community. Moreover, this is not a mere question of
the good will of the family; the community requires such
a manifestation. This explains the enormous proportions
which all these ceremonial meetings assume with regard to
the number of people invited, the treatment offered, and
the time the meeting lasts. Theoretically, the whole com-
munity ought to be invited, and the treatment must be a
real, not a symbolical gift; that is, every guest ought to be
really fed for a certain time, a day, two, three, originally
often more. The motive of showing off, using the ceremonial
entertainment as a sign of the standing of the family, has cer-
tainly developed later on, as a consequence of the attitude
of the community toward that manifestation of solidarity.
But on some of those occasions the community had also
to manifest its solidarity with the family by a real, effective
iclp. The idea was to assist the family in procuring a
living for a new member (at christening) or for a new
larriage-group (at the wedding). Every person invited
had to offer something for the child or the new couple. At
>resent the gifts are made in money, but we have vestiges
showing that, at least in the case of marriage, they were made
farm products — food, fuel, linen, cloth, etc. The family
lelped the new couple mainly, though not exclusively, in
latters of property; the community helped it to get a
living during the first months. That those gifts were not
intended as a reciprocity for the entertainment (as some-
times seems the case now, when the custom has degenerated)
is proved by the fact that no gifts were offered on other
:casions, when there was no actual increase of the family —
it death or betrothal, for instance.
178 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
The gift does not involve necessarily any relation of
superiority or inferiority of the giver to the receiver. In
the precarious conditions of peasant life everybody may
need help occasionally. Of course non-ceremonial gifts
are usually made by a richer to a poorer person, and the
giver is usually superior to the receiver, but this superiority
does not result from the fact of giving. Even habitual living
at the expense of others, as, for example, beggary, is not
humiliating in itself; the humiliation lies in the circum-
stances which cause this necessity — hi the loss of fortune,
or in the lack of solidarity in the family of the beggar which
permits him to lead such a life. The situation is different
if the gift is one of property, because such gifts are not in
use among peasants and anybody who accepts them from a
stranger acknowledges thereby the class-superiority of the
latter.
Closely connected with the gift, although never ritual-
ized, is lending of mobile property (property of the second
class) for a temporary use. This is a form of help quite
obligatory hi many circumstances; and if the object is used
immediately for purposes of living, the situation contains
nothing essentially new in comparison with giving. But if
the object is used for productive purposes, if, thanks to it,
the person who borrowed it gets some income, or, in other
terms, if the relation of the object to the purposes of living
is indirect, then a new moment is added : the person who
borrowed the object is morally obliged to offer a part of the
product to the owner. Thus, for example, a horse and a
cart borrowed in order to go on a visit, instruments borrowed
to repair the house, lead to no obligation. But the same
horse and cart borrowed in order to bring the crops into the
barn, or instruments used in hired work, are considered
productive, and the owner should get something for his good
service. The remuneration grows with the importance of
INTRODUCTION 179
the results obtained (even by chance), and not with the
importance of the sacrifice of the owner, although a marked
deterioration of the object should be made good. The
distinction is not very precise in detail, but the principle
is clear. The act of lending is a social service, not an
economic enterprise, and the remuneration is not an equiva-
lent of any profits lost by the owner, for this loss is accounted
for and accepted in lending as well as in giving, but an
expression of gratitude and reciprocal help on the side of
the person who borrowed the object proportionate to the
increase of the resources of this person.
The primitive attitude toward money-lending is exactly
the same, since money is at first only the equivalent of
mobile property. The debtor in paying the money back
adds a certain sum, not as interest, but as reciprocation of
social solidarity proportionate to the subjective importance
of the service rendered. Up to the present, even after the
introduction of interest, the custom is sometimes observed
that, if the debtor has been particularly successful, thanks
to the money borrowed, he will add a free gift to the
determined interest, as a sign of benevolence toward the
creditor.
But a quite different principle prevails in the matter of
rent. Land — the first object of rent — is the basis of the
existence of the family; therefore, when it is rented, it
ought to bring income, that is, it ought to enable the family
to live, as when it is cultivated. And, indeed, the form
of rent which we can consider primitive is in perfect accord-
ance with this principle. Usually a farmer who has enough
farm equipment rents the land of another who cannot
cultivate it himself, either because he has not the necessary
strength or because he cannot buy or keep the equipment.
The products are then divided. In this way the relation of
tenant and owner is already an exchange of services, but
i8o PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
it is regulated by the idea of living. But, in general,
renting is not primitively a frequent fact among peasants, for
as long as familial solidarity exists and the whole family is
not ruined or dispersed, some collateral member, assuming
the role of head of the family, usually undertakes the
cultivation of the land which the owner cannot cultivate.
This was regularly the case with the land of widows and
orphans. Renting of land for money appears as a rule only
in the temporary absence of the owner.
As to the rent for buildings, an evolution seems to have
occurred. Temporary lodging in a house was originally
equivalent to any gift of things which serve for living. It
was involved in hospitality and was always only occasional
among strangers, since almost everyone except beggars had
a steady lodging, if not in his own house, then at least with
his family, with his actual or former employer, in some cabin
lent by the estate-owner, etc. But at the same time a barn
or a stable could be lent on the same principle as any mobile
property for productive purposes; that is, the person who
used someone's barn to house his crops remunerated the
owner by giving him a part of these crops. In short, there
was no renting, but lending of buildings, and this was
perfectly logical, for the buildings belonged to the class of
mobile, manufactured property, as against land. Later
on there developed the class of komorniks, that is, people
who had no houses and lived from day labor, lodging in
other people's houses, and the principle of remuneration,
applying originally to farm buildings, was extended to
houses and rooms permanently used. There was simul-
taneously a process of regulation of the remuneration, about
which we shall speak later. Finally, in some cases, when
buildings were rented together with land, the principle of
land rent seems to have been partly extended to them,
although this last phase is uncertain.
INTRODUCTION 181
Naturally all the arrangements described above, being
based upon social solidarity, are changed as soon as soli-
darity begins to weaken, and many modifications in the
peasant's economic life are due, not to the development of a
new economic attitude, but only to this weakening of
solidarity. The result of this process is the substitution of
the principle of exchange for the principle of help along the
whole line of economic relations, except hi those which have
been ritualized. The reciprocity of help, at first undeter-
mined as to its value and time, becomes determined in both
respects; an equivalence of services is required. This
means that a relation of things is substituted for a relation
of persons, or that, more exactly, the relation of persons is
determined by the relation of things. The solidarity within
the primary group is a connection between concrete personal-
ities, and every economic act, as well as every other social
act, is merely one moment of this solidarity, one of its
results, expressions, and factors; its full meaning does not
lie in itself, but hi the whole personal relation which it
involves. An act of social help therefore does not create
an expectation of a particular and determined reciprocal
service, but simply strengthens and actualizes the habitual
expectation of a general attitude of benevolent solidarity
from the other person, which may find its expression at any
time in any act of reciprocal help. But when this concrete
personal solidarity is weakened, the act of help assumes an
independent importance in and of itself; the economic value
of the service rendered becomes essential, instead of its
social value.
When the change begins, the expectation of reciprocity
is justified by the amount of the sacrifice made by the giver,
and no longer by the efficiency of the help which the receiver
got. There must be a reciprocal service to remunerate the
giver for this sacrifice, and it must be proportionate to the
1 82 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
sacrifice itself, given at the right moment and in the right
way. This is only an intermediary stage between social
help and objectively determined exchange, but we find the
corresponding attitude very frequently. Gram lent in the
spring has to be given back with a very large interest,
because that is the time when it is most needed by the
creditor himself. Money is often lent on the condition that
it will be given back whenever the creditor needs it, and the
latter refuses to accept it at any other moment. Night and
Sunday work is valued by the worker exceptionally highly
because of the sacrifice which it involves; but the same man
may do it disinterestedly when he applies to it the principle
of solidarity and is asked for it as for a help. In selling or
exchanging some object the peasant adds to its economic
value the subjective value which the object has for him on
account of personal or familial associations. And many
other illustrations can be found.
But of course when once the egotistic attitude is intro-
duced into economic relations, these relations have to be
objectively regulated. And thus ultimately the principle
of economic equivalence of services is introduced and
becomes fundamental, while there still remains always some
place beside it for the old valuation based upon the efficiency
of the help and for the transitory valuation based upon the
subjective sacrifice. This may be said to be the actual state
of things in the average peasant community. The objective
equivalence of values is the usual norm, but its action is
modified by social considerations. The principle of equiva-
lence requires that natural products lent for living shall be
given back at a determined time without interest, but it
may be modified in two ways. If the debtor is in a bad
condition and the creditor rich, the latter ought to postpone
the payment of the debt; but if their conditions are more or
less equal and the debt was contracted in a period of scarcity
INTRODUCTION 183
and paid back in a moment of abundance, an interest should
be added which is measured by the difference of subjective
value of the product at these moments of time, and can
therefore be objectively very high.
On the principle of equivalence any mobile property or
money lent should be given back with a determined remu-
neration, representing the resultant of the three factors:
deterioration of the object, sacrifice of the creditor as tempo-
rarily deprived of its use, benefit derived by the debtor.
The remuneration is determined beforehand; but if any of
those three factors proves different from what was expected,
the idea of social solidarity requires a corresponding modi-
fication of the agreement. And the idea of solidarity
requires that if the debtor is unable to pay any debt what-
ever in the same form in which he contracted it he shall be
allowed to pay it, as far as possible, by working for the
creditor. Nevertheless, this principle became a source of
exploitation of debtors by creditors. Finally, the idea of
exchange has modified the essence of rent; the owner now
allows the tenant to profit from a determined quantity of
land in return for a determined remuneration. But if a
year proves exceptionally bad the owner should as far as
possible remit the rent, or at least allow it to be paid the
next year, and if the year is exceptionally good the tenant
ought to offer the owner more than was agreed.
Applied to work, the idea of exchange becomes the source
of the modern principle of wages as remuneration for the
result, although here it is particularly difficult to get away
from the personal relation. It is therefore almost exclusively
in hired work (day- or piece-work) and not in employment
or service that this principle is active.
The only case in which equivalence tends to be perfect
is in the simple exchange of objects. The idea is that the
objects must be really equivalent from the economic point
1 84 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of view, independent of subjective factors. To be sure, a
person may ascribe to an object a special subjective value,
or, on the contrary, give it voluntarily for a less valuable
one. But neither of these attitudes has any social sanction
attached to it. Only cheating is forbidden; the cheater
becomes an object of social condemnation; the cheated, of
ridicule.
The idea of exchange of equivalent services prepares the
second, individualistic stage of economic life, because it
introduces economic quantification, at least into the rela-
tions between members of a community. Nevertheless, it
still belongs rather to the first stage, because it can co-
exist with a strong familial organization (it is not applied
at first to the members of the same family) and because it
does not harmonize with the tendency of economic advance
which, as we shall see, characterizes the second, individual-
istic stage of evolution. It expresses an egotistic economic
organization of a community which rises very slowly and
gradually, remaining still solidary in so far as it permits
nobody to profit too much at the expense of others. No
individual fortune can be made in such a community, and
in fact no individual fortune is made within the peasant
community (except by socially condemned usury); for
this the individual must enter into relations with the external
world.
And this is illustrated by a curious fact. There was
originally no commerce between members of a community,
no buying and selling at all. It was hardly necessary in the
primitive conditions, and it would not have been in accord-
ance with the idea of solidarity as we have outlined it.
Therefore the attitudes in buying and selling developed
exclusively under the influence of and hi contact with
people from outside — Jews, foreign peddlers, town mer-
chants. Thence the necessity and importance of the fairs,
INTRODUCTION 185
where almost all the buying or selling was done. And
later, by a sort of half-conscious convention, the fair became
a place where everybody could be treated as an outsider, and
a money transaction could be concluded, not only with
somebody of a different community, but even with a neigh-
bor. It happened and may happen still that when a farmer
has a horse which his neighbor wants to buy they both go
to the fair, and there, after the first has pretended to wait
for a buyer and the second to search for a horse, they meet
and conclude the transaction. Of course neither of them
acknowledges that he intended to make the transaction
beforehand. Actually the custom is almost broken down,
but the peasant still does not like to buy from or sell to his
neighbor, because he feels morally bound by the principle
of economic equivalence and cannot hope to do a particularly
good piece of business.
This development of buying or selling in exclusive
contact with outsiders accounts for the fact that none of
the principles dominating the economic relations within the
community is applied to money transactions. Here we
find the typical business tendency in its pure form: buy
as cheap, sell as dear, as possible; no limitations of honesty,
no personal or social considerations. But the peasant had
to be taught this purely economic attitude. He had to
learn, first, that goods brought to the market acquire a new
character — that of being subjected to a common quantita-
tive standard of value, in spite of any qualitative distinctions
which they may possess as social values within the com-
munity. Everything can be bought from, or sold to,
outsiders. And it was not easy to learn this. Up to the
present many peasants do not apply the economic standard
to some of their goods and are disgusted and offended if
someone else does it. This happens most often with regard
to land, but sometimes also horses or cattle which have
1 86 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
been used on the farm are sold unwillingly, the peasant
preferring to sell the young ones. As we have seen, there
was probably an unwillingness to apply the economic point
of view to farm products which served for living, and up to
the present, except in localities near large cities, the peasant
will not sell bread. There is, of course, no such limitation
in buying, although the fact that every individual sum of
money has a particular destination, can be used only to buy
objects of a particular class, shows that there is still, inde-
pendently of the question of needs, a remnant of some
qualitative, social classification.
After learning to apply the economic standard the
peasant had to learn also that it is possible and desirable
to sell very dear and to buy very cheap. This did not come
at once either; the idea of equivalence, applied to exchange
.within the community, hindered the development of the
spirit of business, and in a few remote localities hinders it
even now. The peasant will not take more nor pjyp IPSS
Ithanhe thinln i? right; and if accidentally he makes a better
bargain than he expected, either he reproaches himself for
having cheated the other man or he feels gratitude toward
him. The Jews, whose method of business is adapted to
the average psychology of the people with whom they deal
and is consequently traditional and often correspondent with
disappearing attitudes, use in bargaining the appeal:
"Do you want to wrong a poor Jew ?" This introduces at
once the idea of equivalence and the personal element, and
the transaction becomes assimilated to an exchange between
members of the community. But of course the necessity
of making such an appeal indicates the partial formation of
the business attitude. This attitude now prevails, with few
exceptions, in all relations with outsiders. It assumes often
the most extreme forms. In buying, the peasant bargains
up to the last, and he does not like to buy if he cannot
INTRODUCTION 187
bargain, because he wants to be persuaded that he has
bought the cheapest possible. In selling, he often demands
the most exorbitant prices, particularly if he has some reason
to think that the buyer needs his goods very much. As his
business attitude is displayed only within a limited part
of his economic life, however, it is not systematically organ-
ized. The quantitative side of economic value is, in his
eyes, only one among its other qualities, brought forward
at particular moments, among particular circumstances,
with regard to particular people. Each act of buying or
selling is a single, isolated action, not connected with other
actions of the same class. The principle of cheap buying
and dear selling is therefore not limited by any idea of the
future, by any endeavor to get a class of steady customers.
The peasant at this stage avoids any contracts of delivery
which are proposed to him; he makes no calculations for a
longer time, but tries simply to get as much as possible at
the given moment. He will break any contract of work and
go to another place with higher pay, even if he loses more
in the long run than he wins. This was for many years the
practice of season-emigrants in Germany. The number of
contracts broken was enormous. This was due in large part
to bad treatment, but partly also to a lack of organization
of the business attitudes, which frequently had their first
application to work in contact with foreigners. This whole
situation left, of course, no place for any spirit of enterprise
along commercial or industrial lines.
Finally, we must take into consideration the question of
theft, as it corroborates our previous conclusions. There is
absolutely no theft in "taking" any raw material which is
not in any way the product of human activity; trees, grass,
minerals, game., fish, wild berries, and mushrooms are, as
we^have said, everybody's property. This attitude remains
unchanged up to the present, because of the sermtuts,
1 88 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
that is, the right which the former serfs and their de-
scendents have to use to a limited extent the forests and
pastures of the manorial estate. "Taking" the products
which serve to maintain the life of man or animal may be
unfair, but unless the products are taken for sale it is not
theft. "Taking" prepared food to satisfy immediate
hunger is hardly even unfair, except that it would be better
to ask for permission. When clothes are stolen and worn,
the act is on the dividing line between "taking" and theft.
But as soon as any product is stolen for sale, there is no
justification; it is theft in the full sense of the word. Even
here we find a gradation. The stealing of goods which
belong to the class of income is incomparably less heinous
than the stealing of farm-stock, particularly horses and cows.
Since money draws its character from the objects for which
it is the substitute, a condemnation of money theft varies
with the amount stolen, simply because a small sum can
represent only a part of the natural income, a medium one
an object of individual property, a large one land. And
the condemnation, on any level, increases if the proprietor
is poor and if the thief belongs to the same community;
it decreases if the thief is in real need and if the proprietor
is a member of another community or, particularly, of
another class.1 There can be no theft between members/
of the same family.
2. After the definite liberation of the peasants and their
endowment with land their condition was at first no better,
sometimes it was even worse, than before. They were
indeed free of duties and charges to the lord, but had heavy
taxes to pay; they could not rely on the lord's help in case
of emergency and were often insufficiently prepared materi-
1 We find often also the contrary reasoning: stealing in another village is
worse than stealing in one's own village, because it gives rise to a bad opinion of
the thief's village.
INTRODUCTION 189
ally and morally to manage their farms independently. But
gradually they adapted themselves to the new conditions,
and sometimes in the first generation, usually in the second
and the third, there awoke a powerful tendency to economic
advance, a " force which pushes you forward " as one peasant
expresses it. This tendency, which, as we shall see, was the
main factor breaking down the old forms and creating new
ones, found its expression in connection with the general
crisis which the country underwent at this epoch. The
progress of industry opened new fields for labor, while at
the same time the rapid growth of country population, by
increasing the number of landless peasants, made this
progress of industry particularly welcome. The improve-
ment of communication drew the peasant communities out
of their isolation and put each particular member in a direct
and continuous relation with the external world. The
growth of cities and the increase of international commerce
introduced more money even into the most distant com-
munities and helped to disseminate the quantification of
economic values and the business attitude. Emigration
opened new horizons, made the peasant acquainted with
higher standards of work, of wages, of living. The evolution
of the class-hierarchy, while to a certain extent conditioned
by the economic evolution, influenced it in turn, because the
new system gave a new motive for economic advance by
opening the way to social ambition. Finally, instruction
was popularized and helped to a better understanding of
the natural and social environment.
About half a century was required for the full develop-
ment of the attitudes involved in the tendency to economic
advance, and even now they are neither universal nor
perfectly consistent. This is quite as we should expect, for
the tendency to advance took at first the line of least
resistance; the climbing individual either adapted himself
1 90 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
to the traditional conditions and morals of his immediate
environment or simply moved to another environment where
he found conditions awaiting him which required no particu-
lar adjustment. Only gradually the more independent
forms of advance could appear — the effort to modify the
old environment or to climb within the new environment.
Land-hunger and emigration are the phenomena corre-
sponding to the lower forms of economic advance, while the
higher forms are expressed in agricultural, industrial, and
commercial enterprise at home and in the active adaptation
to a higher milieu in towns and abroad. For those who
remain in the community, increasing or acquiring property
in land is the form of advance, satisfying at once the tradi-
tional idea of fortune, the desire of social standing, and, to a
smaller extent, the desire for a better standard of living.
The first two factors are fundamental. The proportions
which land-hunger assumed in the second half of the last
century are the best proof of the power of the new tendency
to advance. But at the same time the lack of economic
calculation in buying land proves that the old attitudes
remain in force at least with regard to the qualitative
character of land property. In the consciousness of the
peasant who pays absurd prices for a piece of land there is no
equivalence possible between land and any other economic
value; they are incommensurable with each other. Land
is a. unique value, and no sum of money can be too large to
pay for it; if there is bargaining and hesitation, it is only
because the buyer hopes to get elsewhere or at another
moment more land for the same money, not because he
would rather turn the money to something else. And if
later the interest on his capital is hardly i per cent to 2 per
cent, he does not complain if only his general income, that
is, the interest and his work, is sufficient to give him a living.
He does not count his work, or rather he does not dissociate
INTRODUCTION
191
the interest on his capital and the product of his work,
because his work is due to the land, and he is glad that he
can work on his own land, not elsewhere. How strong and
one-sided the land-hunger can be is proved by some examples
of emigration to Brazil. Peasants who had twenty morgs
of cultivated land sold it and emigrated, because they were
to get there, at a cheap price, forty morgs of land, although
not cultivated. So the mere difference of size between their
actual and their future farm was a sufficient motive to
overcome the attachment to their country and the fear of
the unknown, to lead them to undertake a journey of two
months and incalculable hardship afterward. This was the
attitude of many a rich farmer, while the poor and landless
naturally looked upon this opportunity to get land as an
undreamed-of piece of luck. There was a real fever of
emigration. [Whole villages moved at once, and this
emigration, in 1911-12, was centered in the most isolated
and backward part of the country 7[ in the eastern parts of
the provinces of Siedlce and Lublin, and precisely where
the tendency to advance had still the elementary form of
land-hunger.
A phenomenon essentially different from this emigration
of colonists with their families in search of land is the
emigration of single individuals in search of work. We
shall speak of it in detail later on. Here we mention it only
in connection with the tendency to economic advance. Of
course there are many in the community — and their number
increases every year — who cannot hope to advance if they
stay in the country. Most of them, indeed, can live as
hired laborers, servants, or proprietors of small pieces of
land, and earning some money in addition by outside work.
Their living is on the average even better than that of their
fathers and grandfathers under similar conditions, but they
are no longer satisfied with such an existence; they want a
192 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
better future, "if not for ourselves, at least for our children,"
as they express it. This is the essential change of attitude
which accounts for the simultaneous appearance and enor-
mous development both of emigration and of land-hunger.
Moreover, emigration to cities, from this standpoint,
belongs to the same category as emigration abroad. When
a peasant emigrates, it is usually with the desire to earn
ready money and return home and buy land. He goes where
he can find a ready market for work involving no technical
or intellectual preparation, and he is at first satisfied with
the wages he can secure for his unskilled labor. Astonish-
ment and regret are often expressed that the peasant shows
no decided inclination to become a farmer in America, but
undertakes in mines, on railroads, and in steel works forms
of labor to which he is totally unaccustomed. But it will be
found that the peasant has selected precisely the work which
suits his purpose, namely, a quick and sure accumulation
of cash.
Usually it is the second generation which begins to rise
above the economic level of the parents by other means than
the accumulation of land, for at a certain point this means
ceases to be effective. The increase of landed property
is always limited by the contrary process of division among
the children, and there are already many localities where no
land can be bought at all owing to the fact that the larger
estates have already been parceled. Under these circum-
stances the only remaining possibility of advance lies along
the other line — increase of income through skilful farming
and through industrial and commercial under takings.
A notable progress has already been accomplished along the
first line. As a typical example, four sons divided among
themselves their father's land, and now each of them has
more income from his portion than the father had from the
whole. Industrial undertakings develop more slowly. Thf
INTRODUCTION 193
most important are mills, brick factories, the production
of butter and cheese. The development of commerce is
still slower. It is largely limited to trade in hogs, poultry,
and fruit, and to petty shopkeeping in villages.
Among those who have left the country the second
generation tends to higher wages, better instruction, and
usually tries to rise above the ordinary working-class. The
new milieu usually gives more opportunity, but requires
more personal effort in order to rise, and it is therefore here
that we find the greatest changes of attitudes.
Finally, education and imitation tend to create in the
country another form of economic progress. The parents
who cannot give their children land try to prepare them for
higher positions by giving them a general and technical
instruction instead of sending them to industrial centers, to
Germany or America, as unskilled laborers.
During this evolution the economic attitudes become
gradually adapted to the fundamental problem of economic
advance. The result of this adaptation is that they cease to
be social and become almost purely economic; they quantify
all the material values and tend to increase the quantity.
The economically progressive individual becomes approx-
imately the classical " economic man " ; that is, the economic
side of his life is almost completely detached from the social
side and systematized in itself, even if it continues to react
to social influences. Or, in more exact terms, the general
tendency to advance in the material conditions of existence
effects in the peasant an analysis of his social life, and the
result of this analysis is the constitution of a systematic body
of new attitudes, social in their ultimate nature, but concern-
ing merely material values and viewed with regard to the
greatest possible increase of their enjoyment by the subject.
The evolution of property in this direction shows two
phases: individualization and capitalization. As soon as
194 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
the problem of advance takes the place of the problem of
living, the role of the individual in matters of property
increases more and more at the cost of the family. When
a certain amount of property was assumed and the question
was merely how to live from it, the individual had no claim
to the property at all; it was there beforehand, he was not
concerned in any way with its origin and essence, but only
with its exploitation. The basis of his existence was in the
group, and he -could only help to maintain this basis. But
the situation was totally changed when he became an active
factor in the modification of this basis. To be sure, to a
certain extent even here the family could act as a unit
without distinguishing the part played by individuals in
this modification. The property often increased under the
familial regime, and up to the present we find many examples
of families behaving with solidarity hi matters of advance
as they behaved formerly in matters of living. But the
tendency to advance has necessarily a dissociating element
which the old type of solidarity cannot resist very long;
only in modern co-operation has the problem of harmonizing
economic advance and social solidarity been solved, as we
shall see in a later volume. On the one hand, the part
played by individual members of the family in the increase
of property was not equal, and, when the social and moral
side of familial solidarity began to weaken, those who were
the most efficient began to feel the familial communism as
an injustice. Still more important is the fact that the
family as a whole could advance only slowly, and the prog-
ress made by one generation was followed by a regression
in the next generation when the number of marriage-groups
increased. Consequently the members in whom the tend-
ency to advance was particularly strong and impatient
began to consider the family group as no longer a help but
a burden. And even those who, as heads of the family,
INTRODUCTION 195
represented the familial principle assumed when they were
particularly efficient an attitude of despotism which was in
itself a step toward individualization and provoked also
individualistic reactions from other members of the group.
The more intense the desire to advance and the more rapid
the progress itself, the more difficult it was to retain the
familial form of property. The individuals began by claim-
ing the products of their own activity; then the principle of
individual ownership became extended to the hereditary
familial land, and the last stage of this evolution is the
quantitative division of the whole property — land, farm-
stock, house furniture, and money — among individual
members of the family. The only vestige of the old solidar-
ity in such cases is the desire to keep the land, even if di-
vided, as far as possible in the family. The same members,
therefore, never receive cash and land, but these are appor-
tioned separately, and there remains a tendency to favor
those who take the land, in order to preserve this as far as
possible intact. But this is only one side of the process.
The familial property was the highest form of economic
value, the ultimate aim of any economic change. Other
forms of property could pass into it, but it could not pass
into them. And property in general was an incomparably
higher economic category than income; it was an end in
itself, and its use as a means of existence was a secondary
matter. It resulted from the nature of property that it
could be used as a basis of living, but its value did not
consist merely in the living which could be got out of it;
the living was always an individual matter, while property
corresponded to the group. The fact that the idea of
property could never be subordinated to the idea of income
made impossible the treatment of property as productive
capital. All this was changed as soon as property became
individual, but even then, indeed, its nature was not
196 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
completely exhausted by its being the source of an income,
since it continued to stretch by heredity over more than one
generation. Still this became its essential character and
led to a revaluation of the various forms of property upon
a new basis. The new valuation of every particular form of
property on the basis of its productivity, of the amount and
durability of the income which it brings, has two results:
it gives a common measure of all the various forms of prop-
erty, in spite of their qualitative differences, and it gives a
greater fluidity to all forms of property — makes the change
of one form into another relatively frequent and easy. The
peasant hi the country seldom reaches this complete capital-
ization of property, but he approaches it more and more.
He already begins to think of individual fortune in terms of
money, without enumerating separately land, farm-stock,
money, and objects of private use; he compares goods with
regard to their productivity, tries to increase this productiv-
ity by selling and buying, tries to change less productive
for more productive goods of the same class (land for land,
farm-stock for farm-stock), puts, not only his work, but
also his money, in improvements, even such as require long
waiting for the results. /^But even the most advanced
peasant will not yet sell his land hi order to start with this
money a more productive business of a different nature unless
he is already settled hi a city or abroad, particularly in
America. He will resign all property, sell his land, and
emigrate in order to live elsewhere as a hired workman if his
farm is too small to keep him and his family, but he seldom
tries to exchange land for something else. The economic
equivalence of land and other forms of property is not yet
fully established.
The attitude with regard to income is undergoing a
somewhat similar evolution. The individual effort to
raise the income makes of this also an individual matter;
INTRODUCTION
197
nobody has any longer the right to claim a part in its enjoy-
ment, neither the community nor even the family. At the
same time the qualitative distinctions between various sorts
of income become meaningless under the influence of a new
idea which we may term the standard of living. In a
certain narrow sense the idea was not totally absent from
the old economy. There was a social standard of living,
adapted to the average economic level of the community
and modified in each particular case with regard to the
fortune of the family. There was in matters of food,
clothing, lodging, and receptions a certain norm, and each
family limited its scale of living both below and above,
permitted it to be neither too modest nor too fastidious.
The standard of living in the modern peasant economy,
however, is very different. First, it is personal; the individ-
ual sets it himself, and he does not like any prescription of
norms in this respect from either community or family.
Again, it is virtual rather than actual; its essence lies in
the power which the individual has over his economic
environment by virtue of his income. Moreover, this power
must express itself; but its expression is free, there is no
particular line along which the income has to be spent. It
may be spent mainly in acquiring property, or in acts of
generosity, or in good eating, fine dressing, and lodging,
or in amusements, or in all these together. The ways of
spending may be varied as much as the individual pleases;
stinginess along some lines may be equilibrated by lavishness
along others. And, finally, the standard of living so con-
ceived always concerns the future, not the present, because
its meaning lies more in the possibility of spending than in
spending itself; the individual sets a standard of what he
can and will do. Such a standard therefore involves
advance. The individual usually takes into account any
foreseen increase of his economic power. The economic
198 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
standard of life becomes thus an economic ideal of life.
And of necessity the relative fluidity of this standard, the
postulated possibility of passing from one expression of
power to another, requires the translation of every form of
income into terms of money.
This attitude has been particularly developed among
Polish immigrants in America, but it exists also in Poland
among those who have succeeded in rising above the
economic level of the preceding generation. It often
becomes one of the sources of the general feeling of self-
importance typical of successful climbers, and is one of
which we find many examples in the present materials. It
has an important influence upon various social attitudes,
particularly in matters of marriage and in relations with the
family and the community. We shall point out these
consequences presently.
As increase of fortune and income is mainly effected
through individual work, the attitude toward work becomes
also essentially changed. Work was always a necessary
condition of living, but living was not unequivocally deter-
mined by work; there were other factors complicating the
relation — good or bad will of men, God's help, and the
devil's harmful activity. And even when occasionally, as
in hired daily labor, the relation between work and living
was simple, the process, not the result of work, was regu-
lated by it, and the duration and intensity of this process
were limited by the actual needs of which the peasant was
conscious; he worked only in order to satisfy a determined
want. The search for better work which we find at a later
period was at first merely an endeavor to get more pay for
the same limited amount of activity. But all this was
changed when advance, instead of living, became the end
of work. There are no predetermined and steady limits
of advance. In the tendency to rise the needs grow con-
INTRODUCTION
199
tinually. The peasant begins to search, not only for the
best possible remuneration for a given amount of work, but
for the opportunity to do as much work as possible. No
efforts are spared, no sacrifice is too great, when the abso-
lute amount of income can be increased. The peasant at
this stage is therefore so eager to get piece-work. It is
well known in Germany that good Polish workers can be
secured only if a large proportion of piece-work is offered
them. And during the period when piece-work lasts
(harvesting) the peasants often sleep and eat in the field,
and work from sixteen to twenty hours a day. And as
wages in Germany are about 50 per cent higher than at home,
all the best workers prefer to go there rather than work on
a Polish estate, though the work is much harder and treat-
ment worse. They take the hardship and bad treatment
into account, but accept them as an inevitable condition
of higher income. When they come back, they take an
absolute rest for two or three months and are not to be
moved to do the slightest work, proving that work is still
highly undesirable in itself and desirable only for the income
which it brings. Another consequence of this new attitude
is that instead of changing work if there is a slightest hope
of immediate improvement, and without regard to ,the
future (as expressed in contract-breaking and wandering
from place to place), the peasant now begins to appreciate
more and more the importance of a steady job, particularly
in America.
But the evolution does not end here. When the relation
of the results of work to wages has been once established
through the medium of piece-work, a further step brings to
the attention the difference of results and of wages between
skilled and unskilled labor. The mere increase of the
quantity of work proves more limited and less effective than
the improvement of quality. While this difference was
200 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
abstractly known before, it acquires now a concrete, practical
importance, since social evolution has opened new possibil-
ities for the unskilled worker to pass into the skilled class,
and the tendency to advance becomes sufficiently strong
to overcome the old passivity and lack of initiative of the
peasant. The problem of skilful and efficient work therefore
begins to dominate the situation. At first the skill is valued
only with regard to the income which it brings; but slowly
and unconsciously the standpoint is shifted, and finally the
skilled or half-skilled workman attains the level of the old
guild hand-worker, is able to evaluate the results of his work
and to be proud of his skill even without immediate refer-
ence to the remuneration. This reference changes its
character. The question of earning a certain amount for
some particular piece of work becomes secondary as com-
pared with the general earning power of the individual. The
ultimate level reached here is parallel with that which we
found at the culmination of progress in matters of income.
There the tendency to rise expressed itself finally in an ideal
incorporating the highest possible buying power at a given
stage. Here an increase in the general earning power is
the object, and it finds its expression in a corresponding ideal
which gives direction to the efforts to acquire a higher
technical ability. Necessarily, these two ideals are closely
connected, and we should expect that finally the question of
buying-power would become secondary to that of earning-
power; but the peasant does not seem to have reached this
stage of systematization of £he economic attitudes except
in a few cases in America. j»The attitude of perfect security I
and independence with regard to the actual income can be
acquired only by a man who has the consciousness of his
own earning-power along the line of independent business
and who is, moreover, not limited to a single specialty. But
the Polish peasant, in the great majority of cases, had not
INTRODUCTION 201
had time enough to develop the spirit of initiative and the
rapid adaptability which characterize, for example, the
native American. This explains, among other facts, why
no Polish peasant has succeeded up to the present in making
a really big fortune, either in America or at home. The fear
of failure, resulting from a feeling of insufficient adaptation
to the complexity of modern economic life, necessarily
hinders the undertaking of great enterprises./
The economic attitudes expressed in the relations to
other men undergo a parallel evolution. The economic
importance of the family and the community diminishes
very rapidly as the relations of the individual with the
external world become more various and durable. It may
happen indeed that an individual who in his habitual
economic life is almost a modern business man still behaves
occasionally in the traditional way in his relations with some
member of the traditional groups. But this occurs only
if those relations are few and rare and if the old attitudes do
not hinder the individual's advance. Thus, for example,
an emigrant who has been for many years in America and
has become relatively rich will occasionally show an unex-
pected generosity toward some poor relative, often even
without regard to the degree of familial connection — which
is of course quite contrary to tradition. And it is quite
typical that a peasant settled in a city or abroad will receive
his fellow-countryman with particular hospitality, and when
he visits for a short time his native village will treat all of
his old friends and acquaintances in an ostentatious way.
This occasional display of the old attitudes has in it, of
course, much of showing off. The attitudes of solidarity
may be in reality very weak, but they get strength from the
desire to manifest the importance of the individual's own
personality in a way which is sure to bring recognition in his
old milieu.
202 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
But if the individual still lives among his family or in
his community, the old economic attitudes are dropped as
hindering advance. Usually the attitudes which were
formerly applied to the community are now transferred to
the family. The obligation of help is acknowledged only in
matters of living, not of property, and to a limited extent.
For example, a member of the family can enjoy the hospital-
ity of another member, but only for a time not exceeding a
few months, or varying in individual cases. After that
time he has to pay for his living. In matters of property the
attitude of help may still exist in the form of lending, but
not of gift. The dominant principle is that of exchange of
equivalent goods. The attitude formerly employed toward
strangers may be extended in some measure to the com-
munity, though a real exploitation of the members of the
community, as in the not infrequent case of usury, is con-
demned. Even the ritualized attitudes — for example,
ceremonial receptions and gifts, — do not escape the influence
of the general egotism; reciprocity begins to be expected
and lack of reciprocity provokes contempt. Only in
matters of marriage does the new evolution lead to a greater
disinterestedness, because the possibilities of individual
advance make marriages without dowry possible, and
because the marriage-group, isolated from both families,
behaves in economic matters as a single individual.
The new attitudes are thus to be sought hi the in-
dividual's relation to the world outside of his community,
which is now his real economic milieu. Here the dominant
feature of economic advance is, as we have seen, a progres-
sive adaptation to a higher and more complex economic
organization, and every economic act takes the form of
business; it is an investment with the expectation of a
profit. The individual always wants to get from others
more than he gives. In this way his behavior corresponds
INTRODUCTION
203
to the classical economic type. His business acts are
organized with regard to the future and constitute a prac-
tical system, a life-business. And as far as the individual
meets others who have aims which interfere with his own,
competition arises. The business attitudes are too well
known to require analysis here. The point is that they did
not exist at the beginning in the peasant's economic life,
but appeared as the result of a long and complicated evolu-
tion.
3. In the second half of the past century, particularly
after tha unsuccessful revolution of 1863, there originated
among the intelligent classes of the three parts of Poland
a movement to enlighten and to organize the peasants in
order to prepare them for a future participation in some new
effort to recover national independence. The movement
began in a different way in each part of Poland. In Galicia
the starting-point was political organization, in Posen
economic organization, in Russian Poland instruction.
But gradually the problem of organization along all lines
of social activity assumed an importance by itself, not alone
with regard to a future revolution; and as the advance of
modern militarism proved more and more the hopelessness
of any endeavor to recover independence by arms, the idea
of a national revolution almost lost its hold except in con-
nection with the idea of social revolution or a European war.
At present the social organization of the peasants is imme-
diately connected with the problem of constituting a strong
national unity of the social type as a substitute for national
unity of the political type (the state), and economic organi-
zation is the most important part of this problem. All the
traditional and modern economic attitudes, solidarity as
well as individualism, are used to construct a new form of
economic life based on co-operation. There is an imitation,
of course, of the western peasant associations and labor
204 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
organizations, and the most self-conscious tendency in this
line has been the importation of the English form of co-
operation, but the whole movement has an original character
through its connection with certain traditional attitudes on
one hand and with the national ideal on the other. We shall
study this movement in detail in our fourth volume.
The economic evolution of the Polish peasant gives us
thus an exceptional opportunity to study the process of
development of economic rationalism, since, in consequence
of particular circumstances, the process has been very rapid,
and all of its stages coexist at the present moment, as
vestiges, as actual reality, or as the beginning of the future.
We see that in the first stage economic life was completely
subordinated to, and indissolubly connected with, social
organization, that any methodological abstraction which
constructs a system of economic attitudes as isolated from
other social attitudes, and any theory which tries to deduce
social organization from economic life, must fail. Then out
of this first stage we see a new state of things developing—
a historical status which corresponds practically with the
classical economic theory. The economic life becomes
abstracted in fact from the rest of social life; economic
attitudes are elaborated which can be of themselves motives
of human behavior. These are connected among them-
selves so as to constitute a rational practical system which
is isolated in the consciousness of the individual from other
spheres of interest, although occasionally interfering with
them. But this is not a general law of economic life, only a
particular historical status, due to the appearance of the
tendency to economic advance. Finally, the third status,
as we shall see in detail later on, realizes historically, in
part, the socialistic doctrine of dependence of social organi-
zation upon economic life. The economic organization
INTRODUCTION 205
becomes in fact one of the fundamental conditions of a
social organization, of the social national unity. But this
is effected only through particular historical conditions and
under the influence of particular social and moral ideals.
We do not assert that the evolution of the Polish peasant
gives us a general law of economic evolution. It did not go
on independently of external influences, and the action of
those influences cannot as yet be methodologically excluded.
A study of other societies in different conditions is indispen-
sable, because only by comparison will it be possible to
determine what in the process of economic evolution of the
Polish peasant is fundamental and what accidental.
RELIGIOUS AND MAGICAL ATTITUDES1
The religious and magical life of the Polish peasant
contains elements of various origin. There is still the old
pagan background, about which we know very little and
which was probably itself not completely homogeneous;
there is Christianity, introduced in the tenth century, and
gradually disseminated, partly absorbing, partly absorbed
by, the old stock of beliefs; there are some other oriental
elements, brought later by the Jews, the gipsies, infiltrated
from Russia, Turkey, etc.; there are German elements,
brought by the colonists; finally, much is due to the gradual
popularization of the contents of classical literature and of
mediaeval learning. It would be an impossible and useless
1 In the following volumes we do not give a particular place to magic and religion
as concrete data, partly because they do not possess for us relatively so great an
importance, and partly because this is a field in which the data of peasant
experience have been collected on a relatively complete and extensive scale —
though these data have never been given a systematic sociological treatment.
But on this account we offer here a relatively full treatment of the magical and
religious elements in order to establish their proper importance in the peasant's
scheme of attitudes and values. We have drawn freely as to details (but not as
to theory) from Oskar Kolberg's great work, Lud ["The People"], and from
the ethnographical materials published by the Cracow Academy of Sciences
(Mater yaly antropologiczno-archeologiczne i etnograficzne) .
206 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
undertaking to attempt a historical analysis of this complex.
What we seek at this point is a determination of the funda-
mental attitudes shown by the peasant in his religious and
magical life, aside from the question of the origin of these
attitudes and of the beliefs and rites hi which they express
themselves. And of these we find four partially independent
types: (i) gpnpraj am'rriation of natural objects^, but no
spirits distinct from the objects themselves; solidarity of
life in nature; no distinction possible between religion and
magic; (2) belief in a world of spirits, partly useful, partly
harmful, and distinct from natural objects; the beliefs are
religious, the practice is magical; (3) absolute distinction
of good and evil spirits; the relation with the good spirits
is religious and expressed in social ceremonies, the relation
with bad spirits is magical and established individually.
(4) TntrnHiirtirm r>f mysticism, tendency to self -perfection
ancLsalvation; personal relation with the divinity.
Although it is possible that these^Types of attitude
represent as many necessary stages hi the development of
religious life, this cannot be affirmed with certainty without
comparative studies. And in a concrete religion like Cathol-
icism we naturally find mixed elements representing various
stages of religious evolution, and a concrete group or
individual shows a combination, often a very illogical one,
of attitudes belonging to various types.
i. All the natural beings — animals, plants, minerals, the
heavenly bodies, and the earth — are objects of the peasant's
interest and sympathy. His motives are not consciously
utilitarian, although, as we shall see, natural objects are
always in some way related to the man's life and welfare.
We may perhaps assume that it is this general interest which
causes the man to invent a direct utilitarian connection
between himself and some natural object (a connection
which in fact does not exist) when he wishes to justify his
INTRODUCTION 207
interest rationally.1 This point will become clearer when
we determine the essence of the relation between man and
nature.
But the fact that natural objects are related to man's
welfare at all distinguishes this interest from the purely
aesthetic one whose origin we shall analyze elsewhere. The
common feature in both is the tendency to individualize.
The individualization goes far. Not only all the domestic
animals, but even the wild ones, are always, as far as possible,
identified, which act sometimes (with domestic animals
always) expresses itself in name-giving. Every tree, every
large stone, every pit, meadow, field, has an individuality
of its own and often a name. The same tendency shows
itself in the individualization, often even anthropomorphiza-
tion, of periods of time. At^leaj^onejjhird of the daYS_Qf
tire year are individually distinguished^ and the peasant
never uses numbers for these dates, but always individual
names. The Christian consecration of every day to a
saint is very helpful in this respect, and the peasant usually
substitutes (for example, in his innumerable proverbs) the
saint for the day.2 Tales in which months or days are
anthropomorphized are frequent. The anthropomorphiza-
tion itself is not serious, but it is a sign of the tendency to
individualization. Thanks to this tendency, time becomes a
part of nature, and individualized periods of time become
natural objects. There is little trace of an analogous
individualization of space, except the usual distinction of
the six cardinal directions — objective: east, west, south,
. I It is forbidden, for example, to touch a swallow*s nest or even to observe the
swallow too persistently when it is flying in and out of it. The rationalistic justi-
fication of this attitude is that the swallow may become angry and drop her excre-
ment into the man's eye, causing blindness.
3 For example: "When St. Martin comes upon a white horse, the winter will
be sharp." Or: "St. Matthew either destroys the winter or makes it wealthy."
Or: "If Johnny begins to cry and God's Mother does not calm him, he will cry till
St. Ursula."
208 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
north, up, down; subjective: right, left, before, behind,
up, down.
When individualization is impossible, as, for example,
with regard to many wild animal species, there is at least
a tendency to invent an imaginary individual which becomes
then the representative and the head of the whole species.
Thus we find everywhere the legend of a king of the serpents,
whose crown in some tales a peasant succeeds in stealing;
the wolves, deer, boars, hawks, owls, etc., have particularly
old and powerful individuals whom they obey; in many tales
there appear various individual animals and birds endowed
with exceptional qualities and knowledge to whom their
species has to listen, and even if in some cases these animals
prove to be metamorphosed men, this is not essential at all,
and even such changes, as we shall see, can be explained
without any appeal to extra- or supra-natural powers.
For the interesting point hi all this individualization of
natural objects is that, while there are no spirits in or behind
the objects, the latter are always animated, often conscious
and even reasonable. To be sure, we find also spirits
attached to objects in the peasant's belief, but these cases
belong to a quite different religious system. In the system
we are now considering we find only living beings whose life
is not at all distinguished from its material manifestation —
no opposition of spirit and body. The animals, the plants,
the heavenly bodies, the earth, the water, the fire, all of
them live and all of them think and know in varying
degrees. Even individualized fields and meadows, even
days and times of the year, have some kind of independent
existence, life, and knowledge. The same characters belong
in various degrees to manufactured objects and to words.
In short, anything which is thought as individually existent
is at the same time animated and endowed with some
consciousness; the "animated and conscious thing" seems
INTRODUCTION 209
to be a category of the peasant's thinking in the same sense
that the mere "thing" or "substance" is a category of
scientific reasoning. Or, more exactly, when a scientist
isolates an object in thought in order to study it, his act is
purely formal; the object does not (or rather, it should not)
acquire in the eyes of the scientist any new property by being
thought, except that of becoming the subject of a judgment.
But the peasant, at least at the stage of intellectual culture
which we study here in its vestiges, cannot isolate an object
in thought without ascribing to it (unintentionally, of course)
an independent existence as an animated and more or less
conscious being.
We find innumerable examples of this attitude. If we
take only one manifestation of nature's consciousness — her
conscious reaction to man's activity — we see that up to the
highest forms of animal life and down to the manufactured
thing or to the animated abstraction of a time-period man's
action is understood and intentionally reacted upon. An
animal not only feels gratitude for good treatment and
indignation at bad treatment, not only tries to reward or
to avenge, but even understands human motives and takes
them into account. This is not only shown in all the animal
tales, but is manifested in everyday life. A peasant in whom
this belief is still strong will never intentionally mistreat
an animal, and tries to explain or to cause the animal to
forget a mistreatment due to accident or anger. After the
death of the farmer his heir has to inform the domestic
animals of the death and to tell them that he is now the
master. Some animals understand and condemn unmoral
actions of man even if these do not affect themselves. The
bees will never stay with a thief, the stork and the swallow
leave a farm where some evil deed has been committed;
the same was formerly true of the house snake. As to the
plants, if fruit trees grow well and bear fruit, if crops succeed,
210 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
it is not merely a result of a mechanical or magical influence
of the man's activity; the plants are conscious of being well
treated and show their gratitude. This must be taken
literally, not metaphorically. We find the same belief
dignified in the tales, where, for example, an apple tree
bends its branches and gives its best fruit to a girl who
cleaned its trunk from moss, and refuses anything to another
who did not do this. The same literal sense is contained in
a saying about the gratitude of the earth, which consciously
rewards the laborer's well-intentioned and sincere work.
Every field knows its real owner and refuses to yield to a
usurper. The earth is indignant at any crime committed
upon its face; it was crystalline before Cain killed Abel and
became black after this. It sometimes refuses to cover a
self-murderer, particularly one who has hanged himself.
The sun sees and knows everything that happens during
the day. If something is said against it, it punishes the
offender, while it is no less susceptible to thanks and bless-
ings. Prayers are still addressed on some occasions to
the moon, and evil doings are to be performed rather when
the moon does not see them. The stars understand the
man who knows how to ask them, and give an answer
literally and immediately in the form of inspiration, not
mediately, through the calculation of their positions, as in
astrology. The water should not be dirtied or dried up.
Nothing bad should be done or said near it, because it knows
and can betray. In the tales a pit shows the same gratitude
Ifor being cleaned as the apple tree. Fire is perhaps still
I more animated and conscious, and there is a peculiar respect
I shown toward it. The children who play with the fire are
told: "Don't play with the fire. It is not your brother."
The fire should be kept with the greatest care and clean-
liness, blessed when lighted in the morning, blessed when
covered with ashes at night. Once a year (on St. Lauren-
INTRODUCTION 211
this' Day) the old fire is extinguished and a new one lighted,
both ceremonies being accompanied with thanks and
blessings. Fire should never fop Ipntj pjtVipr from respect or
because jtjsjiajlicularlz connected with thejajnily/ There
is a tale of two fires meeting; one of them praised its hostess
for treating it well, the other complained that its hostess
mistreated it, kept it carelessly, and never blessed it. Then
the first fire advised the second to avenge itself, and on the
following night the second burned the house of its hostess.
Nothing offensive should be said against any natural
phenomenon — wind, thunderstorm, hail, rain, cold — or
against a season of the year; vengeance may follow. Again,
we have tales in which anthropomorphized natural phenom-
ena (e.g., frost, wind) prove grateful for good and revengeful
for bad treatment. A peculiar attitude can be noticed with
regard to the days of the year. Each day, in view of its
individuality, is particularly fit for determined action,1 or,
more exactly, reacts favorably upon some actions, unfavor-
ably upon others. But, more than this, each day returns
the next year and can then avenge a bad action or reward a
good action committed last year. Thence comes mainly the
importance of anniversaries. The same is true of week-days
and months, and we find here also the exaggeration of the
normal attitude in tales, where days and months are anthro-
pomorphized. Traces of the same (but here only half-
conscious) belief that things understand are found in the
peasant's unwillingness to change the pronunciation of
words or to play with them; the pun is seldom if ever used
by the peasant as a mere joke. Nor should words ever be
misused, great words applied to petty things, etc. Finally,
1 There is scarcely any relation between this belief and astrology. Of all the
mediaeval magical doctrines astrology was the last to reach the peasant, when he
already knew how to read almanacs; like all other book-doctrines, it reached bun
in disconnected fragments, while the belief stated in the text is systematically
applied to the whole year.
212 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
the power of blessings and curses depends in a certain
measure upon the immanent life of the words. It seems
natural to explain this respect for words by a magical con-
nection between the word as a symbol and the thing symbol-
ized, because for us the word is nothing but a symbol, and
we have difficulty in imagining how a word can have life and
power in itself independently of any relation to something
else. But for the peasant the word is not only a symbol, it
is a self-existent thing. We find also, 'as will be shown,
magical power ascribed to the word, but then we are in
a different system of beliefs. The attitude toward the word
as an independent being exists. This fact we must fully
recognize, and only then can we raise the further question
whether there is any direct genetic relation between this
attitude and the magical one.
In connection with the objects made by man the animat-
ing tendency is expressed perhaps less clearly than hi con-
nection with natural objects, but it is essentially the same.
No object should be hurt, destroyed, soiled, neglected,
or even moved without necessity and this not because of
utilitarian considerations alone nor because of the fear of
magical consequences, although those reasons are also active.
The object has an individuality of its own, and, even if it
is not alive and conscious in the proper sense, it has a certain
tendency to maintain its existence. There are cases of an
almost intelligent vengeance taken by man-made objects,
and in tales they are also often endowed with consciousness
and speech. The animation decreases in the case of objects
whose process of manufacture has been observed, and
disappears sometimes (but not always) almost completely
in the case of those which the individual has made himself.
And the latter are also the only ones which the individual
has sometimes implicitly the moral right to destroy, if he
does so immediately after having made them. By existing
for a certain time they acquire immunity.
INTRODUCTION 213
The intelligence of natural objects, particularly of
animals, manifests itself, not only in the conscious reaction
upon human activity, but also in other lines. While the
animal does not know everything man knows, every animal
has knowledge about some matters which remain hidden
from man. The properties of wild plants and of minerals
have been mainly learned by man from the animals, and he
has yet much to learn. For example, swallows and lizards
know herbs which can resuscitate the dead; the turtle know
an herb which destroys every fence and wall, breaks every
lock, etc. The snakes and the wild birds are the most
knowing, but the quadrupeds, even the domestic ones,
understand some things better than man. Another knowl-
edge which all the animals possess to some degree is the
prevision of future events, particularly changes of weather
and deaths. If man carefully watches their behavior, he
can avoid many mistakes, and he would be still wiser if he
understood their language. The plants, heavenly bodies,
earth, water, and fire have the same knowledge of one
another's properties and the same prevision of the future,
but in varying degrees.
Nevertheless, except in tales, where all the anthropo-
morphic properties of natural objects are exaggerated, we
can hardly say that in point of knowledge man is generally
inferior to his environment. In some matters he knows less, /
but in others more. There is no contrast of any kind
between man and nature. Man is a being of the same class
as any natural object, although men understand one
another better and are more closely connected with one
another than with the animals or plants. In saying that
man is a being of the same class we mean also that he has no
spirit distinct from the body, leaving it temporarily in
dreams and forever in death. As to dreams, there is no
trace of the belief that a part of the personality, a soul in
any sense whatever, leaves the body and visits other places.
\
214 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
This explanation exists, but in connection with another
system of beliefs. The fact of seeing everything in dreams
seems to call for no explanation at all, because it is simply
assimilated to the fact of imagining things in the waking
state; it is too naturally accepted to be a problem. The
problem appears only in connection with prophetic dreams,
explicit or symbolical, but here again it is not distinct from
other facts of prophecy or second sight found hi the waking
state, and the explanation is made, not on a theory of the
soul, but, as we shall see presently, on the basis of the whole
conception of the natural world. As to death, there is
certainly a "spirit" which leaves the body, but it is only
"vapor" or "air" which dissolves itself in the environment.
The body simply loses the part of its vital power of which
the "air" or "vapor" is a condition, in the same way as it
loses in sleep the power of voluntary movement, seeing, and
hearing. And even then the body is not really dead; it
is never quite dead as long as it exists, for under certain
influences it may come to full life again. It may awake
periodically at certain moments, or, if it has a particularly
strong vitality, it may live indefinitely in the tomb, coming
out every night to eat. This is the case with the vampire.
A man who will be a vampire can be distinguished even
during his life by the redness of his cheeks, his strength, his
big teeth. And all of this has nothing to do with the
question of a returning soul.
This, however, is only a partial life. To have a real
second life the body must be destroyed, and then the man is
regenerated and lives again, in this world or in some other.
The regeneration is nothing particular. Every year the
whole of nature is regenerated from death. There are cases
of men who, without waiting for natural death, let their
bodies be destroyed and arose again, young and powerful.
In other cases the regeneration in this world took place in
the form of a tree, a lily, an animal, etc. Thus regeneration
INTRODUCTION
215
in another world is a fact classed with many other perfectly
natural facts. The only difference is that the man usually
lives his second life somewhere else, out of reach of his
friends, though sometimes mystical communication is
possible. The instrument of destruction and regeneration
can be either fire or earth. The purificatory properties of
fire make it particularly fit for destruction, the fecundity
of the earth for regeneration. I^oth cremation and burial
were used in funerals at different epochs, anidagriculture
gaYe~analogies opjgenerallori by bothjnean§^ In primitive
agriculture the forest was burned and the soil acquired a
particular fertility. The branch of the willow placed in the
earth grows into a tree.
Now this whole world of animated and more or less
conscious beings is connected by a general solidarity which
has certainly a mystical character, because the ways of its
action are usually not completely accessible to observation
and cannot be rationally determined, but whose manifesta-
tions express the same moral principle as the solidarity of
the family and of the community. Even in the reaction of
nature upon man's activity which we have indicated in the
examples enumerated above, this solidarity is manifested.
But we find still more explicit proofs. There is a solidarity
between certain plants and certain animals. When the an-
imal (for example, a cow) is sick, the peasant finds the
proper plant, bends it down, and fastens its top to the
ground with a stone, saying: "I will release you when you
make my cow well." The same evening the cow will
recover. Then the man must go and release the plant, or
else on the next day the cow will fall sick again and die.
Similarly animals are interested in plants and can influence
them. Hence the numerous ways of assuring good crops
or the successful growth of fruit trees through the help of
animals. A stork nesting upon the barn makes a full barn.
A furrow drawn around a field by a pair of twin oxen insures
216 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
it against hail, and the same means is used against the pest,
with the addition that twin brothers must lead the oxen.
Sparrows should be allowed to eat cherries in summer and
grain in winter, and pigeons should be allowed to eat peas,
because these birds are allies and companions of man, and
for their share in the crops help them to grow. If there are
many maybugs in spring, it means that millet will be good.
The cuckoo can call only till the crops have ceased to
blossom, because then they fall asleep and the bird ought
not to wake them.
There is also a relation of solidarity between the earth
(also the sun) and all living beings, which is strikingly
expressed in such beliefs as the following: The earth can
communicate its fecundity to an animal (for example, to a
sterile cow), and, on the other hand, the fecundity of
animals or women can be communicated to a sterile field.
The sun should not look upon dead animals, because it is
disturbed, sets in blood, and may send hail and rain. Fires
lighted on the eve of St. John (June 24), in some localities
before Easter, make the crops succeed — an old pagan custom.
There is also solidarity between the fire and all living beings.
It is used in many mystical actions whose aim is to increase
life, and it should never be fed with anything dead (rem-
nants of dead animals; straw from the mattress of a dead
man, or even remnants of wood left after the making of a
coffin), unless of course the aim is the regeneration of the
dead object.1 The same is true, although perhaps in a
lesser degree, of water.2
1 A particular solidarity exists between the fern and the fire; therefore nobody
should plant the fern near his house, or else the house will burn. In general, the
fern is a privileged plant. Whoever finds its flower (it is supposed to blossom at
midnight, June 24) sees all the treasure under the earth and all the things which
were lost or stolen.
2 We shall speak later of the magical use of fire and water as symbols of mystical
powers; here their influence results from their own nature and their solidarity with
other beings.
INTRODUCTION 217
But between beings of the same class the principle of
solidarity is still more evident. Plants are solidary and
sympathetic with one another. Therefore the success of
some of them results in the success of others, and, on the
contrary, the destruction of any kind of plants never goes
alone, but influences the lot of others. Predictions can be
made about crops from the observation of wild plants, and
this can hardly be interpreted as a rational inference based
upon the knowledge that these plants need the same at-
mospheric conditions. No such explanation is in fact at-
tempted, even when the peasant is asked for the reason of
his belief. Among animals the solidarity is still greater.
The house snake is solidary with the cattle and poultry;
if it is well treated all the domestic animals thrive, but if it
is killed they will certainly die. The same kind of sympathy
exists between the goat (also the magpie) and the horses.
If a swallow's nest is destroyed or a swallow killed, the cows
give bloody milk. The cow is also related by some mysteri-
ous link with the weasel; whenever a cow dies some weasel
must die, and reciprocally. When there is danger the
animals warn one another. In autumn the redbreast rises
high in the clouds and watches; when the first snowflake
falls upon his breast he comes down and informs everybody,
calling: "Snow, snow!" (§nieg). Again, night animals are
more closely connected with one another than with others.
But animals of the same species are naturally more solidary
than those of different species, and their solidarity is less
mysterious, because more often observable empirically and
more easily interpreted by analogy with the human solidar-
ity. An. animal, particularly a wild one, can always call
all its mates to its rescue if attacked or wounded, and there
is always some danger hi hunting even the apparently most
inoffensive animals.
The knowledge ascribed to natural objects is also -as
much a sign of solidarity as of intelligence, because it is
2i8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
always a knowledge about other natural objects, either a
result or a cause of the mystical affinity between them. We
cannot omit here the analogy between social life and nature.
In social life solidarity reaches as far as the sphere of the
peasant community, that is, as far as people know one
another or about one another, and only secondarily and
accidentally, under the influence of the belief that a guest
may be the bearer of some unknown power, is it applied
to the stranger. Nature is also a primary group, and man
belongs to this group as a member, perhaps somewhat
privileged, but not a "king of creation." The attitude of
natural beings toward him, as well as his attitude toward
them, is that of sympathetic help and respect. Nature is
actively interested in man's welfare. The sun gives him
warmth and light (in tales it considers this to be its moral
duty), the earth gives him crops, fruit trees give fruit,
springs and rivers give water. Domestic animals give him
milk, eggs, wool, the dog watches his house, the cat keeps
the mice away from his food, the bees give honey and wax,
the stork, snake, swallow, and mole give him general hap-
piness, the magpie brings him guests, the fire prepares food
for them. The cuckoo makes him rich or poor for the year,
according to the amount of money (or some other possession)
he has in his hand when hearing its voice for the first time.
And all this is not a metaphor; the "giving" is to be under-
stood really, as a voluntary act. Other animals, particularly
birds, advise him what to do. The lark, the quail, the land-
rail, the pigeon, the sparrow, the frog, etc., tell him when to
begin some particular farm- work, their calls being inter-
preted as indistinctly pronounced phrases. And at every
moment he is warned by some intentional sign against
misfortune. If a hare or a squirrel runs across his way, it is
an advice to return. The horse foretells a good or bad end
of the journey; the dog foresees fire, pest, war, and warns
2IQ
his master by howling; the owl foretells death or birth, etc.
The mice help the children to get good teeth if the child's
tooth is thrown to them and they are asked to give a better
one. Any sickness which befalls the man or his farm-stock
is healed by the help of animals and plants, for this is the
essence of medicine in the system of beliefs which we are
now analyzing. We find an enormous number of remedies
against sickness, and among the oldest of them some which
contain not the slightest trace of magical symbolism and
also are not based upon the concept of purely physical action,
but can be explained only by the idea of sympathetic help.
We have seen that plants by being bent are compelled to
help the domestic animals; there are plants which act
remedially by the mere act of growing in the garden; others
which destroy sickness when brought home on Easter or
Pentecost (ancient pagan spring holidays, symbolizing the
awakening of nature), St. John's Eve (midsummer holiday),
or on Mary's Day (August 15, and harvest-home holiday).
And probably many of the plants used internally or applied
to the body owe their power to the mystical solidarity, not
to the magical or mechanical influence. There is no doubt
that the same attitude prevails with regard to animals, at
least when the help of the animal is asked, though in the use
of various parts of the dead animal we find mainly the
magical attitude, and this is quite the contrary of the
attitude of mystical solidarity. Thus, while from the latter
standpoint the killing of a snake is a crime, we find in the
magical system of beliefs that the ointment made from a
snake killed and boiled (or boiled alive) in oil is among the
most efficient remedies.1
1 The use of stones seems to be mainly magical. There is, for example, a small
stone which, as the peasant believes, comes from sand melted by lightning, and
this is particularly efficient, because it has a symbolical relation to the power of
the lightning. But in some cases a stone helps by its own immanent power, and
these stones are usually found by birds and reptiles, and their use is learned from
them.
220 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Plants and animals have also the power of provoking
toward a given person favorable feelings in others, and of
promoting in general the social solidarity among men. In
addition to magical love-charms we find also some plants
which when sown and cared for by a girl help her to succeed
with boys, without any magical ceremony. The stork, the
snake, and the swallow, among other functions, keep har-
mony in the human family with which they live.
Finally, even with regard to the beings whose relation
toward man is not determined (spiders, moths, flies) or which
may even seem harmful (bugs, mosquitoes, fleas, etc.) the
normal attitude is expressed in the words: " We don't know
what they are for, but they must have some use." And, as
most of the old beliefs are interpreted now from the Chris-
tian standpoint, a peasant says to a boy who wants to kill a
frog: "Don't do it. This creature also praises our Lord
Jesus." Christian legends are indeed connected with most
of the natural beings who have a mystical value. Healing
properties of certain plants brought in on the midsummer
day are explained by the legend that the head of St. John
when it was cut off fell among these plants. The lark, which
soars so high, is the favorite bird of the angels; during a
storm they hold it in their hands, and when, with every
lightning-flash, the heaven opens, it is allowed to look in.
The nightingale leads the choir of birds which sing to the
Virgin- Mary on her assumption day, etc.
Although the belief in the solidarity of nature is
most evidently manifested in connection with isolated
and somewhat extraordinary occurrences, we see that it
pervades, in fact, the whole sphere of the peasant's
interests.
The solidarity of nature, in the peasant's life, is neither
a matter of theoretical curiosity nor an object of purely
aesthetic or mystical feelings aroused on special occasions.
INTRODUCTION 221
It has a fundamental practical importance for his everyday
life; it is a vital condition of Vn's pyisfpnrp Tf V.P has fo^g
and clothing and shelter, if he can defend himself against
evil and organize his social life successfully, it is because he
is a member of the larger, natural community, which cares
for him, as for every other member, and makes for him some
voluntary sacrifices whose meaning we shall investigate
presently. Even the simplest act of using nature's gifts// , /K
assumes, therefore, a religious character. The beginning \V
and the end of the harvest, storing and threshing the crops,
grinding the grain, milking the cow, taking eggs from the
hen, shearing the sheep, collecting honey and wax, spinning,
weaving, and sewing, the cutting of lumber and collecting of
firewood, the building of the house, the preparation and
eating of the food — all the acts involving a consumption of
natural products were or are still accompanied by religious
ceremonies, thanksgivings, blessings and expiatory actions.
And here we meet a curious fact. Usually when a tradition
degenerates the rite persists longer than the attitude which
was expressed in it. But here the old rites have often been
forgotten, more often still changed into Christian ceremonies
(religious or magical), while the attitude persists unchanged.
This is an evident sign that the essence of the old belief is
still preserved, Christianity has bfpn pb1^ tr> HpQtmy t>>p
rite but not the attitude. There is a particular seriousness
and elation about every one of those acts, a gratitude which
only by second thought is applied to the divinity and first of
all turns to nature, a peculiar respect, expressing itself, for
example, in the fear of letting the smallest particle oj food
be wasted, and a curious pride, when nature favors the man
(with a corresponding humiliation in the contrary case),
quite independent of any question of successful efforts, and
reminding us of the pride which a man feels when he is
favored by his human community.
222 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
And man must in turn show himself a good member of
the natural community, be as far as possible helpful to
other members. Many old tales express explicitly this
idea. The hero and heroine are asked for help by animals,
plants, mountains, water, fire, etc., in distress, and they give
it out of the feeling of sympathy, often without any idea of
reciprocity, although some reciprocal service usually follows.
These extraordinary cases give, as usually, only a more evi-
dent and striking expression of a habitual attitude. But
every work done in order to increase and to protect life
assumes the character of an act of solidarity and has a
religious value. Work is sacred, whenever its immediate
aim is help. Plowing the field, sowing^ sheltering^ and feed-
ing the domestic animals, digging ditches and wells, are
actions of this kind. They have, of necessity, human
interest in view, but this would not be enough to make them
sacred. They consist mainly in a mere preparation of con-
ditions in which the immanent solidarity of nature can
work better.
On the other hand, any break of solidarity is immediately
punished. Some examples have been given, but there is
an innumerable quantity of them. Cutting a fruit tree
means sure death to the criminal. Killing a stork is a
crime which can never be pardoned. In old times a man
who killed a house snake ceased to be a member of the
human community, probably because he was no longer a
member of the natural community. A man who kills a dog or
a cat is up to the present avoided by everybody unless indeed
he shoots these animals, for curiously enough this is toler-
ated. Even lack of solidarity among men is avenged by
nature. We have already seen that the stork leaves a
house where some evil deed has been committed. If some-
one refuses a pregnant woman anything which she asks for,
mice will destroy his clothes. The destructive forces of
INTRODUCTION
223
nature (about which we shall speak presently) usually
abide, when personified, upon the ridges between fields,
because those places are desecrated by human quarrels and
hate. The bees give testimony to the purity of the girl and
the honesty of the boy by not stinging them. And so on.
In this system of attitudes the relation between bad
work and bad results in agriculture is not that of a purely
physical causality, but that of a moral sanction. If nature
does not yield anything to a lazy and negligent man, it is
to avenge his neglect of the duties of solidarity. And the
sanction may be expressed in a quite unexpected way, on a
different line from that of the offense. A neglect of the
duties of solidarity toward some animals or insects may be
punished by bad crops; careless behavior with regard to
fire or water may result in some unsuccess with domestic
animals, etc.
But there is always a certain amount of destruction neces-
sary for man to live; all actions cannot be helpful and
productive.^ And in nature itself there are hostilities and
struggles, not solidarity alone. How is this to be recon-
ciled with the beliefs stated above ?
In order to understand these partly apparent, partly real
breaks of solidarity we must know what is the general mean-
ing, the aim of this solidarity itself. It cannot be a struggle
with the external world, for the solidarity embraces the
whole world; nor a struggle with any evil principle, because
there seems to be no evil principle in nature; nor yet the
struggle against bad and harmful beings, for there are no
beings essentially bad and harmful. The only reason for
nature's solidarity is a common struggle against death, or
rather against every process of decay, of which death is the
most absolute and typical form. Sickness, destruction,
misery, whiter, night, are the main phenomena correlated
with death.
224 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
It is really difficult to say how far this essentially negative
idea of death is interpreted as meaning a positive entity,
because the peasant's attitude toward it seems not to be
quite consistent. On the one hand, indeed, death with all
the connected evils has no place within the community of
nature. It is neither a natural being nor a natural force,
for there are no forces distinct from individual things, there
is no trace of a philosophical abstraction to which any kind
of reality could be ascribed. There is therefore only a
plurality of phenomena of decay, each of which separately
seems to be nothing but a result of the immanent weakness
of the decaying thing itself — everything "has to die," is
" mortal " — or of a harmful influence of some exterior natural
things which make a break in solidarity or punish such a
break. But, on the other hand, death as an objectified
concept is an animated thing and can be anthropomorphi-
cally represented, like other phenomena of decay. We
know by tradition of two usual shapes which death assumes
— that of a nebulous woman in white and that of a skeleton.
The latter seems to be derived from Christian paintings.
But it can change its shapes and appear in the form of an
animal, plant, or any other natural object; it may also be, as
in some tales, shut up by man in a cask, buried in the earth,
etc. It likes also to stay on ridges between fields and about
hedges. In short, it has no exclusive form or abode and
differs therefore from natural beings, while there is an evi-
dent analogy between it and the spirits. The same is true
of diseases (pest, fever) and sometimes of "misery." Winter
has a little more of the character of a natural being. We
find here a hesitation between attitudes and a type of belief
intermediary between naturalism and spiritualism, resulting
from the fact that for death, diseases, misery (poverty),
etc., as independent beings there is no place in the com-
munity of nature and therefore they must, if anthropo-
INTRODUCTION 225
morphized at all, stay outside. But precisely for this
reason this is the only case where objectification and ani-
mation have no essential importance. The activity of every
natural object and its relation with others result, as we have
seen, from its character as an animated and conscious
being. But it is not so with death. It is impossible to
interpret all the actual facts of death in nature by the
activity of the death-spirit, and such interpretation is
never attempted. We find at most the fact of human death
explained in this way. This limitation of the activity of
the death-spirit to the human world is still more evident
with regard to the "bad air" or "black death," that is, the
pest, which is more distinctly represented as a woman, some-
times flying on bat-wings, sometimes waving a red kerchief
above villages and towns; but this "black death," whose
essence is quite inexplicable for the peasant, is afraid of many
natural beings — of water, fire, reptiles. In short, as soon as
death is conceived as a being, its power is limited; and it is
not at all identical with a general principle of natural decay.
Such a conception seems, therefore, to be a late result of evo-
lution, going on with a separation between the human and
the natural world. The more determined the image of
death (as well as of disease, misery, etc.), the farther we are
from the primitive naturalistic system. It is probable,
therefore, that originally death, more or less vaguely identi-
fied with disease, misery, winter, meant an undetermined
"something," "it," or "the evil" — rather a species than a
unique entity, having just enough reality to provoke a mixed
and characteristic attitude of dread, hate, and disgust which
the peasant manifests in the presence of anything connected
with death.
This attitude is found in the aversion which the peasant
always shows to talking about death, passing near a ceme-
tery or near a place where someone died, staying with a
226 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
dead body, etc. It is bad luck to meet a coffin containing a
dead body, and particularly to look after it. The straw from
thp lagf frpH ar>rl t^ pplinfprg Wf; frnm flip rnffi'n shr^ilr! nnt
be left in the house, because somebody else may die in the
house.^ (We have seen that they should not be burned out
of respect for the fire.) For the same reason no one should
j look into a mirror which hung in the dead person's room
.,0/4^ [I during death, and no member of the family should throw
ju^ ^J* \
, uJ 'inearth upon the coffin when it is sunk into the grave. All
l r these beliefs are magical, but tlipy^nw hnw fnr|r|pTnpnia1
is_t^&-dfeft4-<iLdeath. And anyone who by his occupation
has some connection with death is more or less feared, hated,
and despised — the executioner, the gravedigger, even the
women who wash and dress the body. A person who cuts
down the body of a hanged man, even with the best inten-
tions, is particularly shunned. This attitude prevails with
regard also to animal death. Those who have something
to do with killing animals and preparing their bodies are
avoided almost as much as the executioner. Among these
are the dog-catchers, tanners and skin-dealers, butchers
(if they kill), etc. All these functions were therefore usually
performed by Jews, or by men who had little to lose. Up to
the present, in Russian Poland the dog-catchers are often
men who at the bidding of the authorities act as the execu-
tioners of political offenders, and most of the butchers and
skin-dealers are still Jews. But hunting does not provoke
this attitude, perhaps because in old tunes it was indispen-
sable to defend the crops and the domestic animals.
The same attitude, as we have already seen in some
examples, is ascribed to other natural beings. The sun
hates the sight of death; animals and plants foresee it for
themselves and for the man; they avoid and despise any-
body who brings death, they will not abide in a place soiled
with death, etc. Only earth, water, and fire, while they
INTRODUCTION 227
should never be profaned uselessly by anything connected
with death, are still, in a sense, above the dread, because
they have a power over death.
Sickness (except pest), misery, and winter do not pro-
voke the attitude of dread and hate to the same extent
because, although they are varieties of the same evil, their
influence is weaker, they are more easily avoided, and their
effect is more easily repaired.
But this dread of death never rises to a tragical pitch,
never leads to a pessimistic view of existence or to fatalism.
The tragic attitude comes only with Christianity, with sin,
the devil, and hell. In the naturalistic religious system
life is always ultimately victorious over death, thanks to
the solidarity of living beings. Within certain limits, death,
total or partial (for example, sickness, misery), can be
avoided through reciprocal help, and when it comes it is
always followed by regeneration. And this explains at the
same time the necessity of sacrifice, required from all the
natural beings by the natural solidarity, and the possibility
of sacrifice, since no sacrifice is ultimate in view of the future
regeneration.
The life of every natural being can be maintained only
by willing gifts of other beings, which may go as far as a
voluntary gift of life. In many tales we find animals con-
sciously sacrificing their life for the sake of man or of one
another, even if this sacrifice proves usually only temporary,
because the animal is regenerated in the human form, which
was its primitive form. In some legends animals and plants
sacrifice themselves for the Virgin Mary, or for Jesus during
his human life. A reward usually follows. In everyday
life there is no explicit acknowledgment of the readiness of
natural beings to sacrifice themselves, but implicitly this
readiness is assumed; while, as we know, any useless
destruction of life is a crime because a break of solidarity, a
228 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
destruction which is necessary to maintain the life of other
beings, is permitted. This applies indifferently to man and
nature. We find the story of a girl, the ward of a village
elder, whom the latter buried alive during the pest, making
thus an expiatory sacrifice in order to save the life of the
rest of the inhabitants. Man is justified in killing animals
for food, but never more than he actually needs and not for
sale, although, sophistically enough, he may sell the living
animal knowing that it will be killed. He can cut trees to
build a house or a barn, but it is not fair to cut them for
sale. Dry wood should be used as firewood, and only
when none can be found is it licit to fell some tree; old or
poorly growing trees should be selected for this purpose,
even if the forest belongs to the state or to a manor, and
therefore no utilitarian considerations prevail. The only
case in which it is permitted to cut, sell, or burn any trees
is when the land is to be turned to agricultural purposes,
because here destruction will be expiated by production.
The man may destroy the insects which damage his crops
or the rats in his barn, but it is always better to drive them
away by some means — to frighten them, for instance, by
catching and maltreating one of their number. The wolf
is justified in eating other animals, but man is also justified
in slaying him. In short, every living being has the right
to get its living and to defend itself against death or decay
in any form, and other beings have to acknowledge this right;
but every destruction beyond the necessary is a crime, and
then retaliation is just. And there is, in this respect, no
essential difference of value between man and animal which
would justify destroying life for his purposes. We have an
interesting story which shows this very plainly. A lark
complains to a hungry wolf that a mole threatens to destroy
her nest with her young ones — an unnecessary act of destruc-
tion, since the mole should take the trouble to pass around
INTRODUCTION
229
the nest. The wolf helps her and kills the mole, but on the
condition that the lark will procure him food, drink, and
amusement. The lark does this, but at the cost of a human
life, and this situation is morally all right.
The idea that natural things may be destroyed only if
there is an immediate relation between them and actual
needs of living beings explains the peasant's aversion toward
the industrial exploitation of nature on a large scale. In-
deed in this exploitation the relation between the act oL
destruction and the need to be satisfied becpmpg go r^mnt^
andmediate, and the needs themselves are so abstract when
viewed from the standpoint of the traditional industrial
activity, that the peasant fails to see any adequate reason
for destruction, anoVthe latter seems a crimeagainst natural^
solidarity. Such is always the first reaction of the peasant
when a sawmill, a brewery, or a sugar factory is set up, a
railway bujl^ ™- * Tt\\^ ^ng; perhapseven the use ofjigri-_
cultural machines is disliked partly because through them,
the .relation ofrnati toward nature becomes impersonal and
devoid of warmth and respect.
But the sacrifice of life necessary to support the life of
others is, as we have said, never ultimate. Regeneration
always comes unless death was a punishment for a break
of solidarity. The ideal is a regeneration of the same indi-
vidual in the same form, that is, resurrection. This ideal
is depicted in tales. We find it in the pagan funeral cere-
monies, where the dead man was burned with his horse,
his dog, his agricultural instruments, arms, etc. In Chris-
tian legends actual present resurrection, not a future life
in heaven, is the favorite theme, and traces of this belief
are found also in the tales of today. The annual return of
leaves and fruits to the trees, the recovery from a sickness,
the melting of ice on the rivers, the phases of the moon,
eclipses, the growing heat of the sun in spring, the lighting
230 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of a fire which was kept under the ashes, and other analogous
phenomena are conceived as partial resurrections after a
partial death. And whenever resurrection cannot be ad-
mitted attention is turned at least to the continuity of
successive generations, and the connection between genera-
tion and regeneration in the peasant's mind is thus very
close. The familial attitude, the continuity of the family
in spite of the death of its members, the lack of purely indi-
vidual interests, certainly gave a particular strength to
this partial identification of the resurrection of the individual
with the regeneration of life in new individuals. The appre-
ciation of home-bred domestic animals above those pur-
chased, the unwillingness to change seeds, manifested even
now in many localities, may have their background also in
the same attitude.
Even when the continuity of generations is lacking,
however, the idea of regeneration is not absent. The dead
may appear in a different form, or a different individual
may appear in his place. Between these two ideas the dis-
tinction is not sharply drawn, and sometimes we do not
know what the real idea is. The changing of men, animals,
and plants into one another — a particularly frequent sub-
ject of tales and legends — gives us definitely the first idea;
the individual is the same throughout the process of regen-
eration, in spite of a different form, and may assume some-
times his preceding form. The change, we must remember,
is quite real and should never be interpreted as a mere
assuming by a spirit of different bodily appearances. The
second idea, that of new individuals appearing in the place
of the old ones, is found when, after the burning of a forest,
crops grow upon the same soil, when a new fruit tree is
planted upon the spot where .another grew, when worms
are "born from" a dead body. But in such examples as
the following: a willow growing upon the grave of a girl
INTRODUCTION
231
and betraying her sister as her murderer; lilies growing
upon the grave of a murdered husband and betraying the
wife, we cannot tell whether it is the same living being or
another. And it is easy to understand that in view of the
general solidarity of nature this question has not a very
great importance. As the familial attitude helps to oblit-
erate the distinction between individual regeneration and
generation, so the close solidarity of communal life and the
corresponding social attitude make the difference between
change of form and change of individual a secondary one.
Death is regarded both from the individual standpoint and
from that of the group; and while from the first it is of
great importance whether the same individual or another is
regenerated, for the group it signifies relatively little, so
long as the number and value of the individuals are not
diminished. Death is dreaded in general for the human or
natural group, but the dread is much weaker when only
the death of a particular individual, even of the subject
himself, is in question. The peasant is able to prepare him-
self calmly for his own death or for that of his dearest ones,
but he grows almost insane with fear when a calamity
menaces the whole community. The memory of pest and
war has lived for two centuries in some localities.
Of course, the easier the regeneration, the less importance
ascribed to death and to acts of destruction. In general
therefore, man is freer to use plants than animals, though
the question of a higher degree of consciousness and indi-
vidualization and of a greater similitude with man plays
a part here. Among plants, again, those are more freely
used which are regenerated every year. When the forests
in Poland were large, the inhibitions with regard to trees
(except fruit trees) were much weaker than they are now;
the forest seemed to restore itself easily and spontane-
ously. Among the animals, aside from the question of
232 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
economic value, the more productive ones are less appre-
ciated individually — more readily sold or killed, etc.
The religious system which we have sketched does not
require any magician, priest, or mediator of any kind be-
tween the layman whose everyday occupations keep him
within the sphere of profanity and the sacred powers which
are too dangerous to be approached without a special
preparation. Here every man in his practical life is con-
tinually in touch with the religious reality, is supported and
surrounded by it, is an integrate part of the religious world.
The opposition of sacred and profane has no meaning in tl
system; if sometimes it appears later, it is only when the re
ligious attitude toward nature encounters an irreligious one
But there is another practical problem connected wit
the present system which makes a religious specialist nece
sary. In order to prosper within the community of nature
the peasant must know the relations which exist among the
members of this community. He must know his own right
and duties; he must know how to make good an off ens
against the group of which he is a part, how to avoid ven-
geance, how to conciliate the good-will of, and to get helj
from, his fellow-members. The relations hi the natun
society are still more various and complicated than in the
human society, and it is indispensable to know the degre
and the kind of solidarity between any and all natui
beings in order to act upon one through another. Last but
not least, only a man who knows nature and understam
the warnings and signs which other beings give to
can foresee future events and direct his activity accorc
to this foresight. But it is evident that the ordinary rm
has among his occupations no time to acquire all this knowl
edge, even if he is sufficiently intelligent. Thence come
the necessity of a specialist, of a "person who knows." A
man who "knows" is usually called wroz or wiedzqcy,
INTRODUCTION
233
"prophet" (augur) or "knower"; a woman mqdra, "the
wise one." Both should be strictly distinguished from the
magician and witch on the one hand, the priest on the other,
although actually they often degenerate individually into
magicians and witches. The wroz is often recruited from
among those who have to deal much with nature and have
leisure enough to learn what they need to know — bee-
keepers, shepherds, sometimes foresters, but seldom hunters
or fishermen, whose occupation requires killing. Woman's
activity in peasant life is less specialized, and therefore any
woman, but usually one who has not many children, can
become a mqdra. There are somewhat more wise women
than men, probably because the woman's usual occupations
involve a closer relation with plants and domestic animals,
and because the woman finds more easily the necessary
leisure; but this numerical difference is not even approxi-
mately so great as that between magicians and witches, and
this shows that the sex as such has no importance in matters
of "knowing," while it has much in magic.
The fundamental functions of the wise man or woman are
to preserve from generation to generation the store of
naturalistic-religious "knowledge," including the legends
and tales, and to give practical advice and help. They are
paid for their advice, but they never try to harm anyone
as the witches do, and can be moved by no reward to do
this, because they are afraid of incurring the vengeance of
the natural community. Their usual answer in such cases
is, " I am not allowed to do this." With regard to the Chris-
tianjreliftion they behave rather indifferently. They go
to church, perform the rites, use Christian formulae in their
conjurations, but they do it rather in order to qyt credit
among the people and not to be identified with witr.hes and
magicians than from true Christian feeling. On the other
hand, they never use Christian sacred objects in a perverted
234 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
sense, and sacrilege has no value for them as it has for the
witches and magicians. In fact, not only are there no ma-
gical elements in their practice, but they are able to destroy
magic. They recognize magical influences easily ; they know
at once a magician or a witch and show a curious atti-
tude of hate and contempt for them. Their main means of
destroying magic is conjuration, in which they address them-
selves to the spirit in the bewitched object with entreaties
and threats, and call for help to good spirits and to natural
objects.1 Nature in generaj. is regarded as hostile to harm-
ful magic, and natural beings help one another against ma-
gical influences and harmful spirits and collaborate also
with useful spirits. The same plants and animals which
bring good luck to man can defend him against evil forces.
Flowers and plants which while growing are helpful imme-
diately to men and animals keep the witches away when cu
and buried under the threshold, and when burned disclose
the presence of a witch. In one of the tales the bluebell
defends a woman against water spirits; the magpie when
killed and hung above the stable hinders the bewitching
of the horses, etc. It is easy to understand that magic
appears as a disturber of the natural harmony, but the
faith in nature, as long as it remains alive, permits man to
hope that the community of natural beings has power enough
to defend its members against this unnatural evil as well as
against the natural evil — death. It is only when the faith
in nature is partly lost that this hope is shaken and man
appeals to supernatural powers — that is, to good magic
in order to defend himself against the harm brought by evil
magical influences.
2. We have now to examine the second system of reli-
gious beliefs and attitudes, based upon the admission of a
. t- 1 A
an
—
vil
.1:
1 The concept of "spirits" is of course here borrowed from the second religious
system, treated below, in which we find the properly magical action developed.
INTRODUCTION
235
world of spirits within, beside or above natural objects.
We point out that no historical connection can be established
in the present state of historical knowledge between this
system and the one just examined, and perhaps it will never
be possible to establish it with certainty, since Christianity
has destroyed as much as it could of the vestiges of the
pagan past. Most of the spirits and magical practices of
the present were introduced with the Christian religion, but
in the pagan period a system of spirits coexisted with the
naturalistic system. It is even possible that the two were
more closely connected at that time than later and that
Christianity had the effect of dissociating them. It brought
a world of spirits in which the pagan spirits but not the
pagan naturalism found a place. Two examples will illus-
trate this supposition. The lightning or thunderstroke
(piorun) was at the same time a natural being (fire) and a
divinity or the expression of a divinity; probably the two
meanings were not quite distinguished. Its second char-
acter was assimilated to the Christian mythology, but not
the first. We find, therefore, two contradictory beliefs.
The lightning is the instrument of punishment in the hands
of God or a weapon of the angels in their fight against the
devils; a man struck by lightning must be a great sinner.
But there is also a belief that a man struck by lightning is
without sin and goes immediately to heaven, because fire
in the naturalistic system is the purifactory instrument of
regeneration.1 Another example is the snake. The snake
was a powerful natural being, and at the same time it was
consecrated to a divinity. In the Christian system it
became a symbol of the devil, but its first character was
1 A mixture of both elements is found in another belief — that lightning is
turned mainly against the souls of children who die without christening. There is
present the idea of punishment and also of regeneration. The souls are persecuted
for not being Christian, but at the same time the fire seems to be an equivalent of
baptismal water.
236 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
left unheeded, and thus we find the curious contradiction
that the snake is sometimes considered a benefactor and its
killing is a crime, and sometimes again it is the incarnation
of the evil spirit and should always be destroyed.
The existence of mythological beings is not in itself
always sufficient to constitute a religious system different
from naturalism, for these beings may be conceived as
natural beings and included in the system of natural solidar-
ity. Thus, when we find legends of giants and dwarfs whc
live more or less like men within nature, helped by, am
helpful to, animals, plants, or men, and who, like all natun
fight against death and destruction; or when there are
mythical home-, field-, and forest-beings who need humai
offerings of food and drink in order to live, and prove theii
gratitude by protecting the house and the crops, who avenge
a breach of solidarity, and who run away if not cared foi
we have nothing but an imaginary extension of the natun
world, not a supernatural structure outside of this worlc
The attitudes which man shows toward these beings am
which he ascribes to them are not different from those whic
characterize the whole natural community. And we
easily understand why such an extension of nature is neces
sary and what its role is. In any given stage of knowledge
about nature extraordinary and unexpected phenomei
cannot always be derived from the assumed properties ol
the known natural beings, and then two ways are openec
Man may either suppose that his knowledge is false, that
the natural beings have other properties than those which he
ascribed to them, or he can imagine that the inexplicable
phenomena are caused by some beings which up to tl
present he had no opportunity of knowing. The secom
explanation requires, certainly, less intellectual effort am
has been used in the history of human thought more fre
quently than the first. We do not know how far the mythc
INTRODUCTION
237
logical beings of the naturalistic religious system were
spontaneously invented and how far brought from elsewhere ;
but their function in either case is clear: they have to
account for the extraordinary and unexpected, to fill even-
tual gaps in the system. Their role is therefore limited;
they are only one class of natural beings among others and
share with others the peasant's religious attention at certain
moments and in certain circumstances.
The new religious system is found only when behind all
the natural events, ordinary as well as extraordinary, su-
pernatural powers are supposed to reside and to act, where
there is a dissociation between the visible, material thing
and process on the one hand and the invisible, immaterial
being and action on the other. No such dissociation is
found in the naturalistic system. The things themselves
have a conscious, spiritual principle indissolubly united
with their outward material appearance, and the mystical,
invisible influence of one natural being upon another imper-
ceptibly mediates a visible material action. When these
elements are dissociated, the invisible, immaterial principle
is a spirit in the proper sense of the word, as opposed to the
material objects and distinct from them, even if it should
manifest itself, not only by acting upon these objects
from outside, but by entering into an object or dwelling
permanently hi it. And the invisible, immaterial process
of action of one thing upon another becomes magical as
against the visible process of material action, even if it
should be exerted, not only by a spirit upon a material
object or reciprocally, but by one material object upon
another.
There are many categories of spirits, differing by the
nature of their relation to material objects. Some of them
are scarcely more than naturalistic mythological beings;
thedr spiritual nature manifests itself only indirectly by the
238 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
fact that man's attitude toward them is the same as toward
other spirits and differs from that toward natural beings.
Here belong, for example, water spirits, boginki, who have
human bodies but can become invisible at will, who can be
heard washing their linen at night or at midday, and who
bear children. They often try to exchange their children
for human ones, usually only so long as the latter are not
yet baptized. Like real spirits they can assume the foi
of any woman, and it even happens that under the aspect
of friends and relatives they entice a woman after childbirtl
from her home into the forests and marshes and mistreat
her there, while one of them steals the child, puts her o\
in its place, and remains in the house in the form of th(
abducted woman. A changed child can be recognized froi
its bad temper, its growing ugliness, and its enormous
appetite. The boginka who took the place of the real worm
is also bad-tempered, capricious, and evil. In order t(
force the boginka to give the child back, a naturalistic means
is often used. The boginka's child must be mistreated am
beaten. Then the boginka brings the real child back am
takes her own away, but she tries to avenge herself by
biting off, for example, a finger of the real child, or by mak-
ing it as bad-tempered as her own. With the exception of
this means of getting the real child back (which shows
that the boginka is still very much a mythological pagaiT
being), the other means are mainly magical and the same as
against the devil — the sign of the cross, Christian amulets,
exorcisms. The priest can free the woman from the hands
of the boginka, but he must wear all his ceremonial clothes
turned wrong side out.
Another kind of beings, intermediary between mytho-
logical natural beings and spirits, are the topczyki — children
born of illegal relations and drowned secretly without
baptism. Except for the last point, in which the analog
:
Is
INTRODUCTION
239
with real spirits of the dead is evident, the topczyk is a
natural being. He has a body, which he may, indeed, some-
times change. He grows hi water. His action is physical,
not magical. He spoils the hay, draws by mere strength
animals and men into the water, etc. Magical rites have
no particular power against him. The best way is simply
to avoid him. The naturalistic tendency in the representa-
tion of the topczyki is shown in a legend in which two of
them are drawn by fishermen out of a pond. One was
hunchbacked from having been shut up hi a pot for seven
years; the other was covered with hair like an animal.
They were taken to a human house and christened, but they
died soon after.
Skrzat, the house-being, and lesny, the wood-being, have
lost the importance they had hi pagan times. The first
was beneficent, the second brought little harm except by
making men lose their way. The last vestige of a field-
being is probably preserved in the poltuLnica, midday- woman,
who strangles anybody who sleeps at noon in the field,
particularly upon the ridge between fields. Will-o'-the-
wisps (compare below) are beings who live in marshes and
meadows ; they have little of a spiritual character, have very
small bodies, warm themselves around a fire, etc. They
viciously mislead drunken people, but do no other harm
unless aroused by some tactless action. Religious magic
is only partly efficient against them.
The belief in cloud-beings, planetniki or latawce, is very
indeterminate and hesitant. Sometimes they are mytho-
logical natural beings dwelling in the clouds; sometimes
spirits directing the clouds, bringing rain, hail, thunder-
storm; sometimes spirits of children who died without
baptism (often represented as persecuted by the clouds and
lightnings); sometimes even living men and women, magi-
cians or witches. The means of attracting or dispelling
240 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
clouds are sometimes based, therefore, upon natural solidar-
ity— against lightning, the stork and swallow; against hail,
plowing around the field with oxen, particularly twins,
planting certain trees, etc. — and sometimes again magical,
as we shall see presently.
Another being is the kania, which appears in the form of
a beautiful woman and steals children, who are never seen
any more. The jedza is a horrid old woman who eats
children; the wil, a being who comes in the night, terrifies
children, and hinders people from sleeping ("It stands
always where you look"). The nightmare, zmora, has two
meanings: it is sometimes a soul, as we shall see later, but
sometimes also a distinct, half -spiritual being which strangles
sleeping men and rides at night upon horses. All these
beings have the same intermediary character between
natural objects and spirits; they are more or less material-
istically conceived, but they are acted upon mainly by
magical means, not by appeals to natural solidarity.
The probable origin of their intermediary character can
be traced. They were primitively nothing but natural
beings, requiring some help from man and harmful only
if this help was refused. But Christianity tried to assimi-
late them to the devil and to fight against them by magical
means. Thus they assumed gradually the features of beings
against which man had to fight, and which consequently
were essentially harmful, and some of the spiritual character
of the devil was transferred to them. We find facts, in the
past and even in the present, proving that the peasant for
a long time hesitated between the two attitudes. Officially
he used the magic of the church against them, treated them
as harmful, and tried to drive them away; but privately
and secretly he kept the old duties of solidarity toward
them, sought to excuse himself for using the church magic
against them, and tried to win their help. Even if accept-
INTRODUCTION
241
ing their help was as sinful in the eyes of the church as
accepting the help of the devil and led to damnation, the
peasant could hardly be moved to believe this. And he
did not even believe in the complete efficiency of church
magic against them. Up to the present magic remains
only partly efficient, and it is easier to get rid of the devil
than of these intermediary beings.
A particularly interesting gradation of beliefs is found
with regard to the human soul. There are at least six
varieties of beings corresponding to the concept of soul —
the ordinary vampire, the man-nightmare, the Christian
vampire-spirit, the specter, the soul doing penance on earth,
the soul coming from purgatory, hell, or, occasionally,
paradise. The relative degree to which these spirits are
detached from the body and lead an independent existence
is the reason for this diversity.
The ordinary vampire, mentioned in the preceding sec-
tion, is scarcely a spirit at all. It is a living body, even if
less alive than before death and devoid of some of the human
ideas and feelings. It can be touched, even grappled with,
and killed for the second time, after which it does not appear
again. Sometimes it continues to occupy itself at night
with farm- or housework, and the male vampire can even
have sexual intercourse with his wife and bring forth chil-
dren, but they are always weak and die soon — of course be-
cause the father has less life. The only spiritual characters
of the vampire are relative independence of physical condi-
tions (ability to pass through the smallest opening, to dis-
appear and to appear suddenly, etc.), which was acquired
only after death, and the possibility of being influenced to
a certain extent by religious magic — sign of the cross,
prayer, amulets — again a character not possessed by the
man during his life. But the most effective means of getting
rid of the vampire are the well-known natural actions —
242 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
cutting off the head, passing of an aspen pole through the
heart, binding of the feet with particular plants, etc.
The human nightmare is already a soul, detaching itself
from the living body during sleep and embracing, strangling,
sucking the blood of men and animals or the sap of plants.
During its absence the body lies as dead, and real death
may follow if someone turns it, because then the soul cannot
find the way back. The soul is of course half -material,
since it exerts immediate material action, can be wounded
(the scar is then seen upon the body), can be physically
grasped. But it is also spiritual, because it can be detached
from the body, assume various forms — animal, plant, even
inanimate object — can pass where a material being could
not pass, and finally because the really efficient means
against it are magical (Christian amulets), not natural.
The Christian vampire is also a soul, of the same nature
as the nightmare, but walking after the man's death, and
thus still more dissociated from the body. It is not even
referred to any particular body. We call it "Christian"
because it originated from the primitive, bodily vampire
under the evident influence of the Christian theory of the
soul and of Christian rites. On the one hand, a christened
soul must be detached from the body after death; the old
bodily vampire theory is therefore not in accordance with
the Christian system of beliefs. But, on the other hand, the
christened soul cannot be a spirit- vampire, unless damned,
and then it belongs to a different class of spirits. The con-
tradiction was solved by a theory, to which the Catholic
rites themselves gave birth, that there are two souls, one
of which becomes Christian through baptism, the other
through confirmation. The second soul of the unconfirmed
lives on earth and becomes a vampire. According to a
different legend, there was a time when vampires were
frightfully numerous, and the people appealed to the pope
INTRODUCTION
243
for help. The pope advised them to give two names at
baptism, in order to christen also the second soul. Since
that time the vampires have almost disappeared.
The specter is a very undetermined kind of spirit. It
is always some soul, but seldom identified, and its aim is
unknown. It is neither harmful nor useful. It appears in
a visible form at night, walking near a cemetery or a church,
sometimes in the church. It is thus not anti-Christian, not
afraid of church magic. There is a story of a specter
frightening men who planned a sacrilegious use of church
objects. It is an intermediary being between the souls
which are still partly connected with the system of nature
and those which are already quite supernatural.
The souls doing penance upon earth belong to the latter
group. Their origin seems purely Christian, as the idea of
penance itself. Spirits of this class are very numerous.
They manifest their existence mainly by noises, but some-
times they talk, sometimes they appear hi any form. The
bodies which they assume can often not be touched, even
when, as sometimes happens, they enter into real bodies,
human, animal, or plant. To this group belong unchris-
tened people (some of them, as we have seen, still natural-
istically conceived), those who died suddenly, without
penitence, and those who have sinned only in some particu-
lar line. The penance which they do has a magical char-
acter; it is always analogous to the sin and has thus the
aim of destroying the sinfulness. Children who died with-
out baptism try to attract attention by various noises —
cracking in the fire, rapping on the furniture and walls,
moaning in the wind, etc. — in order to be baptized; the
man who hears them should throw some water and baptize
them, giving them always two names, Adam and Eve, for
the sex of the dead is unknown. Not only unbaptized
children, but also men who were wrongly baptized, wander
244 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
after their death. For instance, there are in one locality
many graves of Russians killed in a battle against the Poles
in the eighteenth century, and their souls find no rest any-
where, for they were christened according to the rites of the
Greek church. They cannot be helped, and must await
the last judgment. Those who died a sudden death always
haunt the place where they died. They want to confess
their sins, and it happens sometimes that they succeed and
are saved, if only they find a courageous priest to absolve
them. Any sudden death has something uncanny for the
peasant and is supposed to be sent, not by God, but by the
devil — whether with God's permission or not is not always
clear. Finally, people whose sin was not, as in the previous
cases, a lack of religious purification, but some particular
evil deeds, often try in vain to undo the harm which they
wrought. Thus a man who was a miser during his life,
wronged the poor, or refused gifts to the church, and par-
ticularly one who buried or in any way hid his money, hovers
about his collected wealth, wants to show the living where
it is or to compel his heir to divide it with the poor and the
church; but the devil usually hinders the living from under-
standing or fulfilling his bidding. The soul of a surveyor
who measured falsely during his life wanders in the form of
a will-o'-the-wisp, looks over his wrong measurements, and
wishes in vain to correct them. The soul of a woman who
did not respect the food and threw the remnants into the
pail with the dishwater is heard at night dabbling in the
pail in search of remnants in order to still her hunger. A
man who once slapped his father wanders at night, in human
but indistinct form, and compels his own living son to give
him a blow. Two kums who quarreled during their life
cannot find rest until somebody brings them together and
reconciles them. A man who hunted on Sunday during
the mass wanders after his death and hinders people from
INTRODUCTION
245
hunting. Another who swore by the devil and never said
his prayer on Angelus shows himself at noon in the form of
a dog which devils, in the form of crows, chase about. And
so on.
These souls still dwell in their old world, though they are
spirits, completely detached from material bodies, which
they assume only in order to carry out their particular end,
and absolutely dependent on magic, not at all on natural
actions.
The last class of souls, while always more or less inter-
ested in their old environment, dwell elsewhere — in purga-
tory, hell, or paradise, as distinguished from heaven. Those
places are sometimes thought to be beyond, sometimes upon,
the earth, in remote localities. In one myth they are beyond
Rome, and from one of the Roman churches the funnels
of hell can be seen. The souls come occasionally to their
old residence, to warn or to help the living, to ask them for
prayers or good deeds; those from purgatory come every
year on All Souls' Day, and listen to a mass which the soul
of some dead priest celebrates. From paradise they come
relatively seldom and only on some altruistic mission.
Whenever a soul manifests in some way its appearance (this
concerns also, to some extent, the previous category of
souls), it should be addressed with the words: "Every
spirit praises God." If it answers: "I praise him also,"
the living person should ask: "What do you want, soul?"
Whatever it begs for, prayer or good deed in its favor, ought
to be granted. But if the soul answers nothing to the first
greeting, the living person should make the sign of the cross
and say, "Here is the cross of God; fly away, contrary
sides." For it is a damned soul and can no longer be saved.
The devil is not regarded as a unique character. First,
of course, there are many devils, though only a few of them
have distinct names. The devil is not an essentially evil
246 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
being, although often malicious, harmful, or disgusting.
The proverb: "The devil is not so terrible as he is painted,"
is very popular, as well as the other: "Who lives near hell,
asks the devil to be his kum." In dealing with men the
devil is often cheated, not only because he is not particularly
clever, but also because he usually shows more honesty in
keeping agreement than men show. Often the term
"devil" is simply substituted for some other mythological
being whose old character and name are forgotten. With
regard to the devils we therefore find also a gradation of
spirituality. But all the devils are more spiritual, more
detached from the natural world, than the mythological
beings of the first category and than most of the souls, so
that the substitution of the devil for the boginka, the night-
mare, the vampire, etc., means an evolution from the
naturalistic toward the spiritualistic religious system.
The least spiritual are the local devils, who are more
or less attached to particular places — ruins, marshes, old
trees, crossroads, etc. They are usually invisible, but can
show themselves at will either in the form of animals (usually
owls, cats, bats, reptiles, but also black dogs, rams, horses,
etc.) or in a human or half -human body. Although popular
imagination has naturally been influenced by the traditional
mediaeval pictures of the devil and orthodoxly conceives
them as representing the devil in his real form, still it has
constructed for itself representations more adequate to the
popular sense. The devil is represented as a little man
in "German clothes" (fashion of the second half of the
eighteenth century) with a small "goat's beard," small
horns hidden under his hat; sometimes he has a tail and one
horse- or goat-leg, as in the paintings. The local devil has
nothing to do with the questions of temptation and salva-
tion; he does not try to get any souls, but is a mischievous
being who frightens the living and gets them into trouble,
INTRODUCTION
247
often merely in the way of a joke. Sometimes he has indeed
a serious function to perform, for example, watching buried
treasures, lest the living should get them; there is a real
danger of life in searching for treasures, or for the fern
flower which opens the eyes of the possessor and enables
him to see the treasures under the earth. It is believed
that these devils purify the treasures once a year with fire,
and do it as long as the soul of the man who buried them
does penance; after this, the devil ceases to watch the
treasure and it can be found by the living. In this tale
the local devil is already associated with the purgatory devil.
The second class of devils are those who possess the
living beings, men or animals. Possession is quite different
from the assumption of a visible form. In the latter case
we have to do with an apparition, but in the first with a
natural thing in which the devil, himself invisible, dwells.
The natural thing can be explicitly thought to have a soul
besides the devil, or the matter of the soul may be left out
of consideration. The devils who take possession of a per-
son may be many — three, five, seven. Not all of them are
harmful ; some are good and useful to the possessed person
as well as to others. And if we note that sometimes a wise
woman is identified with a possessed one, we must conclude
that the idea of possession, originating in the Christian
mythology, was simply applied at a later time to phenom-
ena which had a different meaning under the system of
naturalism.
The third kind of devils are those who, while leading
an independent existence outside of the natural world, are
still mainly interested in matters of this world. According
to the orthodox tradition their only aim ought to be tempting
men in order to get them damned, but the peasant sometimes
makes them play also the part of spirits with whom simple
co-operation on the basis of reciprocity is possible, without
248 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
involving damnation. They have supernatural powers, but
they lack natural achievements, and this makes a co-
operation fruitful for both sides. Thus, a devil may become
the apprentice of a blacksmith or a miller and learn the trade
while teaching his master supernatural tricks. In connec-
tion with the witches, the devil wants to learn what is going
on in the human community (for he is not all-knowing)
while he bestows some of his own magical powers upon the
witch. Or he gives the witch the means of getting an excep-
tional quantity of milk, while she must bring him, for his
unknown purposes, butter and cheese. Or he sows the
field in company with a man, for he does not know agri-
culture, but he can make the crops grow better, or he gives
the man some money out of a hidden treasury. This is the
£ type of devil with whom witches have sexual relations or
* »* who receives his friends at a weekly (sometimes monthy
•A
g > % or yearly) banquet on the top of the Lysa Gdra.1 Of course
^ vf tne m°tive of damnation is very popular and important,
* f* ^but its moral value is sometimes doubtful. The devil,
J^ ,V
^ ^ according to an explicit or tacit agreement, takes the soul
<^ * ^ °f a man as n*s own reward for some service, in the same way
£ <& as m relations among men a poor peasant may become a
^ % servant of his rich neighbor for a certain time to pay a
Sf debt which he cannot pay in another way; there is often
scarcely any idea of moral punishment. A man may even
promise his child to the devil before the child is born. And
it is here that the deviHs most often cheated, for at the last
moment the man frequently gets rid of him by magical
means. The idea of temptation, in this system of beliefs,
does not mean "temptation to commit a sin," but tempta-
tion to do business. And if the sin as such leads to hell, it
is because of its magical influence, of the break of the magical
1 "Bald Mountain," proper name applied now mainly to a mountain in the
province of Kielce, but used also in other provinces in relation to local hills.
INTRODUCTION
249
solidarity with the heavenly powers and the establishment
of a magical solidarity with the devil. The only sins to
which the devil really instigates his followers are those which
have immediately this magical consequence — sacrilege,
denial of the heavenly powers, recognition of the devil,
and rites whose effect is to establish a magical affinity with
him. On the other hand, we find also attitudes which pre-
vail in the naturalistic system transferred to the spiritualistic
one; the devil often appears on earth as well as in hell as
an avenger of breaks of solidarity between men, or even
between men and nature. He performs vicariously the
functions which human society or nature are for some reasons
unable to perform.
The last class of devils are those who dwell permanently
in hell and have almost no relation with nature or living
men, except sometimes taking souls from the earth to hell.
They torture the souls and endure punishment themselves
for their revolt against God.
The category of heavenly beings — God, Jesus, the Holy
Spirit, the Virgin Mary, the saints, and the angels — are
completely spiritualized. Any connection between them
and actually existing natural beings, if it ever existed, has
been forgotten. For example, heaven is identical with the
skies and is God's dwelling-place, the thunder and lightning
are manifestations of God's activity, etc., but there is not
the slightest trace of any identity of God with those natural
phenomena.
Naturally the theological problem of the Trinity seldom
attracts the peasant's attention. The Holy Spirit has
little importance, and is individualized only through the
liturgical and popular prayers addressed to him and through
his symbolization by the dove. God and Jesus are cer-
tainly, in this system, dissociated beings, owing to the earthly
life of Jesus. The names are often mixed, but the functions
250 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
are sufficiently distinguished to allow us to consider God
and Jesus as separate divinities in the eyes of the peasant.
God's main attribute is magical power over things.
This power is not limited by the nature of the things them-
selves, and in this sense God may be called all-powerful;
but it is limited by the magical power of the devil and even
of man, although it is certainly greater. It may be used at
any moment and with regard to any object, but it is not so
used in fact; many phenomena go on without any divine
influence. God directs the world when he wishes, but does
not support it. The idea of creation is rather undetermined
and does not play an important part in the peasant's
mythology ; it is usually assimilated to workmanship.
The divine power can be used for beneficent or harmful
purposes without regard to properly moral reasons. It is
qualitatively but not morally antagonistic to the devil's
power. There is, of course, a certain principle in the harmful
or beneficent activity of God; an explanation can be given
of every manifestation of God's benevolence or malevolence.
But this explanation has a magical, not a moral, character,
even if it is expressed in religious and moral terms. God's
attitude toward man (and toward nature as well) depends
upon the magical relation which man by his acts establishes
between God and himself. If the magical side of human
activity or of natural things harmonizes with the tendencies
of divine activity, the latter is necessarily beneficent, and
it is necessarily harmful in the contrary case, that is, when-
ever the acts of things are in harmony with the intentions
of the devil. The main sins, therefore, are those against
religious rites — that is, all kinds of sacrilege — and every
other sin is termed as "offense of God," that is, assimilated
to sacrilege. Therefore also magical church rites can destroy
every sin, and it is enough to establish a relation of magical
harmony with God in order to keep one's self and one's
.
INTRODUCTION
251
property safe from any incidental harm. But from this it
results also that the consequences of the sin reach much
farther than they should if the idea of just retribution were
dominant; the magical estrangement from God extends
itself over the whole future situation of the man and thus
leads to eternal damnation if not made good by some con-
trary act, and it may also extend itself over the man's
milieu and bring calamities to his family, community, farm-
stock, and even to his purely natural environment.
Jesus, in this religious system, has the somewhat sub-
ordinated position of a magical mediator between the divine
power and man. He is the founder and keeper of the magi-
cal rites by which man is put into a relation of harmony
with God or defended against the devil. Accordingly it is
Jesus who judges men's actions and personalities as har-
monizing or not with God, and upon whom the lot of the
soul after death mainly depends. He is somewhat more
personalized than God, but he is also not a moral divinity;
in his eyes the magical, not the moral, value of the act is
always important.
ity , helping always a.nd everybody hy_the way of miracles.
In fact, she is the only divinity working miracles even now.
For, although the whole activity of God and Jesus is super-
natural, it does not break the normal order of things, because
this normal order includes material as well as magical
phenomena, or, more exactly, there are two coexisting orders,
the material and the magical. The real miracle is therefore
one that breaks both orders. Healing a sick person is only
a magical action when sickness is a result of natural causes or
of some spontaneous action of the devil or the witch, but
it is a miracle when the sickness is a necessary consequence
of sin, of a dissolution of the magical harmony between man
and God. This is precisely the kind of miracles, besides
252 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
simple magical actions, ascribed commonly to the Virgin
Mary. She disturbs in favor of men the divine magical
order itself; she saves men from the consequences of their
sins in this world and even in the other.
The saints have a more limited sphere of activity. Every
saint has a special line along which he acts, usually benefi-
cently, by modifying, through a supernatural influence,
natural phenomena. Some saints, as, for instance, St. Fran-
ciscus, give also magical help against the devil, but this
is less frequent than help in natural difficulties. Thus,
St. Anthony helps to find a lost article, St. Agatha to extin-
guish a fire, etc. Every man's patron saint saves him in
danger. Every parish has a patron saint who averts
calamities from it; the day of this saint is a parish festival.
There are patron saints of corporations, fraternities, cities,
provinces. St. Stanislaus is the patron of Poland; St. Casi-
mir, of Lithuania.
The functions of the angels are rather undetermined.
They have to fight against the devils, to praise God, to take
human souls to paradise from the earth or from purgatory,
to fulfil, according to their original meaning, errands of God.
The guardian angel of every man watches over him, to keep
him from natural and magical dangers, and defends his soul
against the devil immediately after death.
If we omit now all the intermediary stages between
natural beings and spirits, atid take the spiritual world in
its pure form as distinguished from the material world, we
notice that there are two antagonistic spiritual communities
— divine and devilish. To the first belong also once and
forever the souls of the saved, to the second the souls of the
damned. Souls in purgatory are on the way between the
two. These communities are connected, each separately,
by a particular kind of solidarity which we can call magical,
and they are opposed to each other also by a magical con-
INTRODUCTION
253-
trariety. The living men belong partly to one, partly to
the other community, and they pass from one to another
according to the magical bearing of their acts. All other
natural beings, animated or not, can also acquire a divine
or a devilish magical character, but they are without excep-
tion passive, objects, not subjects, of magical activity,
although a spirit can enter into them and act through them.
In this respect their role differs completely from the active
one which they play in the naturalistic system.
In order to understand this spiritual solidarity, we must
analyze more closely the magical attitude, for this does not
originate in the belief in spirits, but both have a common
root from which they grow simultaneously.
The common feature of the physical and the magical fact
is that in both there is an action of one object upon another.
Without this external influence the object is supposed not
to change; and if change is already included in its nature,
its formula remains the same.1 Thus, when a body at rest
is suddenly set in motion, physics and magic alike will
explain it by the action of external forces. Even if it is an
animated being, the movement will be explained either
psychologically, by a motive which is ultimately referred
to the external world, or physiologically, by an irritation of
physiological elements whose ultimate source is also in the
external world or by a magical influence. The system of
magical interpretation is less complete and more immediately
practical. It is applied to phenomena whose practical
importance is perceived at once, consequently to those which,
being to a certain extent more than ordinary, require some
change in the habitual course of life. For example, puberty,
sickness, and death require a magical explanation more
insistently than the ordinary physiological functions,
1 Magic applies this principle even more rigidly than physical science, for it
seldom includes change in the definition of the object.
254 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
sexual life more insistently than eating, eating more insist-
ently than breathing. The phenomenon of snow is hardly
explained magically by the Polish peasant, while hail and
thunderstorm are very frequently referred to magical
activities.
But this is only a difference of degree between the magi-
cal and the physical systems. The difference of nature lies
elsewhere. Magical action differs essentially from physical
action in that the process by which one object influences
another is given and can be analyzed in physical action,
while in magical action it is not given and avoids analysis.
There is a continuity between physical cause and physical
effect; there is an immediate passage, without intermediary
stages, between magical cause and magical effect. Thus,
when a woman comes by night to her neighbor's stable and
milks the cow; when a man in a fight strikes another a blow;
when wind drives hail-clouds away; when crops rot in the
field because of too much rain — in all these cases the process
of action of one thing upon another is known, or supposedly
known, the cause and effect are connected with each other
without any break of continuity, and we can analyze the
process into as many stages as we wish. But when a witch,
by milking a stick in her own house, draws the milk of her
neighbor's cow into her own milk-pot; when by saying some
formulae and burning some plants she causes headache to
her distant enemy; when the first chapters of the Four
Gospels, written down and buried at the four corners of a
field, avert hail-clouds; when peas, sown during the new
moon, never ripen, but blossom again every month until
winter — here between the cause and effect continuity is
broken, the influence is immediate, we do not know any-
thing about the process of action and we cannot analyze
the passage between the state of one object and the state of
another. Therefore we can, of course, modify in many ways
INTRODUCTION 255
a physical process, direct it by introducing various additional
causes; but we can only abolish the magical influence
destroy it, by introducing some determined contrary factors.
This character of the magical relation explains the fact
that most of those relations are., or rather appear to us to
be, symbolical. This symbolism can assume different forms.
Sometimes it is analogy between the supposed cause and
the desired effect, as in the example of the witch milking a
stick, or in the very general case when two bones of the bat,
resembling respectively a rake and a fork, are used, the first
to attract something desirable, the second to push away
something undesirable. Sometimes, again, it is a part repre-
senting the whole, as when some hairs or finger-nail parings
of a man are used to harm or to heal through them the
whole body, or when a rite performed upon a few grains
taken from a field is supposed to affect the whole crop. Or
an action performed upon some object is presumed to exert
an influence upon another object which is or was in spatial
proximity with the first, as when an object taken from the
house or some sand from under the threshold is used to
influence magically the house or its inmates. Succession
in time, particularly if repeated, becomes often a basis of a
magical connection; this is the source of many beliefs in
lucky or unlucky phenomena. The connection between the
word and the thing symbolized by it is, as we know, par-
ticularly often exploited for magical purposes. The words
exert an immediate influence upon reality, have a magical
creative power. The relation of property is also assumed
to be a vehicle of magical action; the owner is hit by magic
exerted upon some object which belongs to him, and, re-
ciprocally, by bewitching the owner it is possible to affect
his property. Things often connected by some natural
causality can be easily connected by a magical causality;
food can be spoiled by bewitching the fire upon which it is
256 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
cooked, the miller can arouse the wind by imitating its
effect, that is, by turning the wings of the mill. The last
example gives us a combination of two kinds of symbol-
ism: by analogy and by the relation of (natural) cause
to effect. Such combinations are very frequent in the
more complicated kinds of magic, as when a witch, by
sitting upon goose eggs, brings hail as big as those eggs, or
when a consecrated host is put into a beehive in order to
make the bees prosper. This last is a triple magical rela-
tion : the words of the priest change the host into the flesh
of Jesus; the particle represents the whole divinity; the
supposed effect of religious perfection which the host
exerts upon the soul of the man is transferred by analogy
to the insects.
Now in all these cases magical relation is supposed to
exist among objects which are in some way already connected
in human consciousness, so that one of them points in some
way to the other, reminds one of it, symbolizes it. And we
can easily understand that this is a necessary condition,
without which it would be hardly possible to imagine the
existence of a magical relation between two given objects.
Indeed in physical causality we can follow the process of
causation, and therefore (except in cases of error of observa-
tion or reasoning) we know what effect a cause has or what
is the cause of a given effect. But in magical causality the
process is hidden, and there would therefore be no reason to
think of a given fact A as being the cause or effect of a
determined fact B rather than of any of the innumerable
other facts which happen about this time if A and B had not
been connected previously in the mind. Sometimes the
facts are connected traditionally and the reason for this
connection can no longer be determined, but whenever we
see the reason it is always a symbolical relation of some of
the types enumerated above.
INTRODUCTION
257
If, now, the magical causality existed alone, it would
probably be considered natural, not supernatural. But it
coexists, in the peasant's experience, with a multitude of
cases of purely physical causality, including most of the
common material phenomena, and ic becomes supernatural
by antithesis to these, exactly as spirits become super-
natural by antithesis to material beings.1 And certainly
the fact that most of the magic came to the peasant with
Christianity and was already connected with spirits must
have helped to develop this opposition between natural and
supernatural causality.
But the connection of magic with the spiritual beings is
not merely the result of their common opposition to the
material world. Magic contains in itself elements which,
at a certain stage, make this connection necessary. Indeed,
magical causality is by no means an instrument of theoreti-
cal explanation but of practice; only such relations as are
supposed to help to attain a desirable end or to avoid a
danger are taken into consideration. Every magical rela-
tion is therefore connected in some way more or less closely
with the idea of the conscious intention of somebody who
acts, who wants to apply it to a certain end. In many
cases, even in a relatively primitive magic, intention is a
necessary condition of causality. The witch who milks
a stick must think at the same time of the woman whose
cow she wants to deprive of milk, and it is her intention
which directs the magical effect. It is also indispensable
in all endeavors to convey sickness to direct the attention
to the person whom one desires to harm. In searching for
a hidden treasure harmful magical powers are neutralized
if the digger has at this moment the intention (provisionally
1 The antithesis is particularly evident when the same object exerts a natural
and a magical effect. Thus, water naturally washes physical stains, but con-
secrated water magically purifies an object from the devilish magical power.
258 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
assumed) of giving the treasure to a church. And we know
that in religious magic the use of consecrated objects can
have its whole influence only if exerted with a determined
intention and belief in its efficiency. There are certainly
many cases in which the effect of a magical cause is pre-
sumed to come mechanically, when the intention is not
necessary to produce it. This happens when an object,
amulet or talisman, has a permanent property of magical
action, or when a magical effect is brought about inadvert-
ently. But usually we find some intentional action in the
beginning. Most of the amulets and talismans (when their
action does not result from their own natural power, that is,
when they are not members of the first, naturalistic, reli-
gious system) have been at some moment intentionally
endowed with magical powers; such are all the consecrated
objects and many of those which the magicians and witches
prepare. Most of the inadvertent actions have a magical
influence because they are actions of conscious beings who,
even if they have no explicit intention at the given moment,
have a latent power of will, are capable of intentional influ-
ence. By the usual association the inadvertent action is
supposed to exert the same influence as the intentional
action which it resembles, because the spiritual power, non-
directed, takes the habitual channel. And even when there
is no conscious action in the beginning, the peasant tends to
suppose, more or less definitely, some kind of intention in
every case of imprevisible good or bad luck which happens
to him. In short, in every magical causation there is more
or less of the conscious element completing the mechanical
magical relation between cause and effect; there is always
behind it somebody, man or spirit, and the object through
which the action is exerted is here merely an instrument,
not a spontaneously acting being, as in the naturalistic
system.
INTRODUCTION 259
But there is a curious gradation of the part which con-
sciousness plays in magical causality, which is also the basis
of distinction between human and spiritual magic. In the
ordinary ritualistic magic the intention is only one compo-
nent of the magical action, more or less necessary, but sub-
ordinated to the objective causal relation between visible
phenomena — the more so, the more complicated the rite.
Its role is increased in the action by words, particularly
when the words are not traditional formulae (to a great
extent efficient by their mere sound and arrangement), but
spontaneous expressions of an actual feeling or desire. The
blessing or curse is efficient whatever its form, which proves
that it is the intention, not the expression, which is essential.
In the evil eye sometimes the visible act counts more, some-
times the intention. In any case there is a marked dispro-
portion between the physical act, trifling in itself, and its
consequences. Evidently the "evil eye" has a magical
influence only because it is a conscious being which looks,
because in the eye spiritual powers are concentrated. But
man can never exert a magical influence by consciousness
alone, without the help of visible means. This is the privi-
lege of the spirits who, when completely detached from
nature, can act immediately by the magic of their will.
Those who are intermediary between spirits and natural
beings may sometimes need the help of visible rites. The
devil who keeps hidden treasures cleans them with fire; local
spirits and some of the lower devils can get a man into their
power by holding any part of his body or his clothing, etc.
But the more spiritualized and powerful devils and the
heavenly spirits do not need anything for their magical
action. And of course the whole practical importance of
supernatural beings depends upon their ability to exert a
direct magical influence by their mere will. If they were
unable, to do this, they would not count at all, for, being
2<5o PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
detached from nature, they cannot act through material
objects. In other words, the dissociation of mythological
beings from the material world is possible only on the con-
dition that those beings can influence this world by the
magic of their will, and thus the magic of consciousness is
the condition of the existence of spirits. For spirits without
practical influence cannot exist in the popular mythology;
their power is the measure of their reality.
This magical power, which, among the spirits, God pos-
sesses in the highest degree and of which the spirits in general
have more than men, is nothing but the facility of producing
magical effects. It is quite parallel with the "energy" of
physics. The spirits and certain living men possess it from
the beginning. Its manifestations can be directed and often
checked at will. This is the case among higher beings, but
among men it happens that the magical power tends to
manifest itself even in opposition to the present conscious
act of will. The case is exactly analogous to that of an
"inborn" tendency to evil; the permanent direction of the
will is stronger than an actual motive; the individual's
nature is so bent upon exercising magical influence upon all
objects which come within his sphere of action that he can
only with difficulty refrain from exercising it upon some
particular object. Thus, many persons who have the evil
eye do harm even when they do not wish it and must use
particular means in order to neutralize their power, for
example, look upon their own nails before looking upon any
object which may be harmed. Of the witches, in many
localities the opinion prevails that they are more unhappy
than guilty, that their magical power is either inherited or
communicated to them by a curse of God (a curse, since
their power is contrary to the divine power), and cases are
even quoted in which a witch, unable or unwilling to harm
her neighbors, exerted her influence aimlessly upon inani-
INTRODUCTION 261
mate objects, or even bewitched herself. But a person
whose magic is of a higher quality, as, for example, a priest
or a wise person who uses magical power only for good pur-
poses, can use it or not, at will.
This magical power can be communicated to men or
things, and we can suppose that, as magical causation in-
volves some degree of intention, all the magical powers of
things are communicated to them by men or spirits, as they
are in the Christian system. There is always some kind of
consecration, actually performed or presupposed, explicitly
or implicitly. Obviously we do not mean to say that the
idea of consecration was in fact the historical origin of
the magical powers ascribed to things, but only that in the
magical system of the Polish peasant the magical power of
things is actually believed to have originated always in some
kind of a consecration. For example, there are innumerable
legends in which the beneficent or maleficent magical powers
of animals, plants, or stones are ascribed to a blessing or
curse of God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the saints. If some
animals are connected with the devil, it is not only because
the devil used to appear in their form, but also because he is
supposed to have endowed them with magical power; such
are the snake, the cat, the owl, the peacock, the rat, black
dogs, black goats, etc. In the same way it is the devil who
communicates magical properties to the localities in which
he resides, to many instruments which the witches use, to
money, etc., and all the witches who are not born such are
consecrated by the devil, or sometimes by other more power-
ful witches. The consecration is, moreover, the more
efficient the more powerful the consecrating man or spirit.
The power of Christian amulets depends upon the position
in the church hierarchy of the priest who consecrated them
(ordinary priest, bishop, pope); the consecration of the
witch by the devil is worth more than by another witch.
262 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
The curse of a saint is more influential than that of an ordi-
nary person. Thus, nobody in or from the town Gniezno
can ever make a fortune since St. Adalbert cursed the town
more than nine centuries ago. Numerous are the legends
of towns, churches, castles which sank into the earth, of
men turned into stone when cursed by priests, hermits, etc.
But the magical power of spiritual beings when acting
upon material objects must adapt itself to the immanent
laws of magical causality in the same way as human
technique must adapt itself to the laws of physical causality.
The idea of consecration is used to explain magical powers
of objects only within the limits of the symbolism of which
we have spoken above. Thus, not every object can be con-
secrated to every use, but each one by consecration acquires
only a particular and determined power of action. For
example, in Loreto consecrated bells are particularly adapted
to avert thunderstorm, salt consecrated on the day of
St. Agatha extinguishes fire, determined plants, when con-
secrated, acquire a magical power against determined
diseases, etc. Nowhere perhaps is this adaptation of spirits
to the immanent laws of magical causality so evident as
in the use of water. As we have said above, because
water washes away material dirt, consecrated water, by an
evident symbolism, purifies magically, that is, destroys the
stamp which the devil put upon the objects, consecrating
them to his own use. Hence water becomes the universal
and dominant purificatory medium, as against fire in the
naturalistic system.1 Another good example of adaptation
of the spirits to the laws of magic is found in the curse. The
father's or mother's curse is particularly powerful because
of the relation between parents and children; God must
fulfil it. A priest has communicated to us that an old
1 The use of fire in hell and, secondarily, in purgatory has a completely dif-
ferent meaning; in hell, fire tortures without purifying.
INTRODUCTION
263
peasant confessed the cursing of his son as the most heinous
sin of his whole life. The son went to the army and was
killed, and in his confession the peasant said: "Why did I
interfere with the business of God ? " He felt that God was
obliged to see to it that the son was killed.
We have already met more than once the problem of
magical dualism. The belief in magical causation leads
necessarily to the standpoint of a duality of contrary influ-
ences. Indeed, whenever a magical action does not bring
the intended result, the agent can only either deny the
efficacy of the means used or suppose that the influence of
the magical cause was neutralized by a contrary influence,
the causation destroyed by an opposite causation. In physi-
cal explanation a process of causation cannot be destroyed,
but only combined with another process, because we can
follow both in their development and their combination;
but in magical explanation, as we have seen, the process of
causation is not given, and when the effect does not come the
causal relation must be assumed to be annihilated.
Of course this opposition of contrary magical influences
does not involve any absolute appreciation. From the
standpoint of the subject who desires to attain a certain
effect a magical influence favorable to this aim will be valued
positively, an influence which destroys the first, negatively.
But the appreciation changes with the change of the stand-
point, and no magic can be termed good or evil in itself.
There are, indeed, actions which bring harm and actions
which bring benefit to other individuals or to the community
as a whole, but in order to make this a basis of classification
of magical actions the moral viewpoint must be introduced
into magic and religion, and this is done only in the third
religious system, which we shall analyze presently. Before
this moralization of religion, actions performed with the
help of magic can be useful or harmful, the person who
264 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
performs them can be virtuous or wicked, but the magical
power is neither good nor bad in itself. This is particularly
evident if we remember that the same magical influence can
be, according to circumstances, useful or harmful to the
community or to the individual. The bringing or stopping
of rain is a good example. Even directly harmful influences,
such as those which bring sickness or death upon a man, can
sometimes be useful to the community, when the harm is a
punishment for a breach of solidarity. And if this is true
of actions which have a determined result, it is the more true
of magical powers which spirits, men, or things may possess,
for these powers can be used for very different actions.
We understand, therefore, that not even Christianity,
in spite of its absolute opposition of God and devil, heaven
and hell, was able to introduce at once the idea that there
is a good magic and an evil magic, and that the magic of
heavenly beings and of priests was good, all other magic evil.
We do not raise here the question how consistently this idea
was developed in Christianity itself. The peasant, standing
on practical, empirical ground, could frequently not avoid
the conclusion that the effects of divine magic can be disas-
trous as well as beneficial, and that the devilish magic does
not bring harm always, but may often be very useful. The
ideas of reward and punishment in future life were hardly
ever strong enough with the peasant to influence his choice
in a decisive way, the less so as it was always possible to
cheat God during life and the devil at the moment of death
by accepting any good which might come from both sources
as long as it was possible and by turning to God when
nothing good could any longer be expected from the devil.
This is the attitude which persists in most of the tales and
in real life, in spite of some incidental, evidently imitated and
formal, moralization. If God were alone against the devil,
the influence of religion upon peasant life would be very
INTRODUCTION 265
equivocal. But the factor which, in spite of all this, makes
the religious magical system so powerful as to direct the
peasant's attitudes in all the important events of his life
is the above-mentioned magical solidarity of all the divine
beings, on the one hand, and all the devilish beings, on the
other. This solidarity consists, not in an essential opposi-
tion between the two magics as such, but in the fact that
the magical action of any divine being always supports and
corroborates the magical action of all the other divine beings
and is always opposed to the magical action of any devilish
being; the same is true of the devilish community. On this
basis, when a man acts in harmony with the divine com-
munity he is assured of the protection of this whole com-
munity, because he becomes its member, while by a single
action supporting the tendencies of the devilish community,
he becomes indeed a member of the latter, but makes all
the divine beings his enemies.
The choice between these communities will depend upon
three factors : First, the number and the concreteness of the
divinities belonging to them respectively. In this regard
the devilish community had a decided superiority in the
beginning, when the church itself put all the pagan mytho-
logical beings, numerous and concrete, into the same class
with the devils; the influence of this rich and plastic world
must have been, and was indeed for a long time, stronger
than that of the poorer and relatively pale community of
heavenly beings. This, more than anything else, accounts
for the long persistence of the devilish mythology and rites.
But gradually the heavenly pantheon increased in number
and concreteness; many local saints were added to it,
legends grew up about them, their graves preserved a magi-
cal power, churches consecrated to them perpetuated their
memory and made them familiar and plastic divinities.
With the development of reading, lives of the saints became
266 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
a favorite topic; and before this their lives were related by
priests, amulet-peddlers, pilgrims, etc. In this way many
foreign saints became known and worshiped. The Virgin
Mary, whose cult came down from the higher classes to the
peasant, became through the many churches, miracles, and
legends one of the most powerful divinities. Particular
legends connected God, Jesus, Mary, the saints, and the
angels with the familiar environment of the peasant, and
most of them were adapted to Polish life and nature and
bear thus a distinctly local character. Finally, art in all
its forms — painting, sculpture, music, architecture, poetry-
contributed in an incalculable measure to make all the
beings of the heavenly pantheon concrete and alive. Of
course the hell-pantheon grew also, but its growth was less
extensive and was decreased by a loss in number and con-
creteness of the pagan mythological beings.
The second reason for choosing the divine rather than
the devilish community is that of their relative power. In
this respect the church has also done very much to increase
the power of the heavenly world as against hell, even if the
latter is not too much minimized, in view of other considera-
tions of which we shall speak presently. We notice, for
example, that the pagan mythological beings assimilated to
the devil have a rather limited sphere of activity. The
most important natural phenomena — sunshine and thunder,
summer and winter, birth and death, extraordinary cata-
clysms and extraordinarily good crops, war and peace, etc.—
are as far as possible ascribed to God. We have already
spoken of the power of Mary as manifested in her miracles,
and of the patron saints to whom most of the more usual
phenomena of social and individual life are subordinated.
Jesus, whose main function is to attract men to the divine
community, to defend them against the devil — and to give
them up to him if they are stubborn — is always shown as a
INTRODUCTION 267
more powerful magician than the devil. The angels are
always depicted as victorious against the devils in direct
struggle. Finally, the decision of the lot of the human soul
after death belongs mainly to the heavenly community,
because Jesus, if he wishes, can always take the soul away
from the devil on the basis of a single good deed, and after
paying its due to the devil in purgatory the soul can reach
paradise, while the devil cannot take a saved soul into hell.
But another tendency of the church in the same line did
not succeed quite so well. The objects to which divine
magical powers were communicated by consecration and
which were to help man to attain influence over the spirits
and over nature ought to belong also exclusively to the
divine order, ought to bear such a magical character as
would make them by themselves useful only to the members
of the divine community and harmful to the devil. Here
belong, for example, the localities and instruments of divine
service, amulets, holy water, consecrated wafers, etc. But
this idea implies the distinction between good and evil
magical powers, and therefore the endeavor of the church
failed. The use of objects consecrated by the church could
be made in the favor of the devilish as well as of the divine
community, according to the intention of the person who
used them. Sometimes it was necessary, indeed, to use
them in a perverse way in order to attain results favorable
to the devilish community, especially in cases where the
long use for divine ends had evidently imparted to these
objects a certain incompatibility with the world of the devil.
We find this attitude in such facts as the saying of prayers
backward, crossing with the left hand and in the contrary
direction, etc. But very often consecrated objects can be
used at once for devilish purposes. Every witch or magi-
cian tries to get hosts, church candles, consecrated earth,
water, oil, or salt, fringes from church banners, etc., for
268 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
magical purposes; sometimes even the devil asks them to
get such objects. A candle put before the altar with certain
rites and a determined intention had the same magical
effect as a waxen image of the person whom the witch
wanted to kill; the person was consumed with sickness and
died while the candle was gradually burned away during
divine service. A piece of clothing put upon the organ
caused insufferable pains to the person to whom it belonged,
whenever the organ was played. The churches, cemeteries,
crosses, and chapels erected upon the roads or in the fields
are places near which devilish forces are supposed to reside ;
one of the means of calling the devil is to walk, with cere-
monies, nine times around a cross or chapel.
But of course the fact itself that the church was in actual
possession of so many objects endowed with magical power
increased enormously, not only its influence, but the influ-
ence of the divine community of which it was a part and
which it represented. The political supremacy of the church
made it impossible for the devilish community to have as
many magical things at its service. One of the meanings
of sacrilege, which all the witches and magicians feel morally
obliged to perform whenever they can, is to destroy the
magical power of consecrated objects and to weaken in this
way the church and the divine community.
In trying thus to increase the divine powers at the
expense of the devil the church went still farther and tried
to introduce the idea that whatever the devil does he does
only by God's permission, that God leaves to him volun-
tarily a certain sphere of activity. But this idea seems to
have been assimilated by the peasant rather late and only
in connection with the religious system which we next treat,
for the church itself apparently contradicted it by making
all possible efforts to ascribe useful phenomena to the effects
of divine magic, all harmful phenomena to the devil. This
INTRODUCTION 269
last distinction, the beneficent character of the divine as
against the maleficent character of the devilish community,
became the third great factor helping to the victory of the
divine community in the consciousness of the peasant. But
to the unsophisticated peasant mind it seems evident that
the devil must have some power of his own in order to do
as much harm as the church tries to lay upon him if God is
to be conceived as an essentially beneficent being. The
omnipotence of God had to be sacrificed to save his good-
ness, though the latter was as yet only practical, not moral,
goodness. And, even so, it was impossible to establish at
once on the magical ground an absolute opposition between
God as source of all good and the devil as source of all evil ;
the contrast could be only relative. As we have seen,
harm and benefit brought by magical actions are relative
to the subject and to the circumstances. The first and
indispensable limitation of the principle was necessitated
by the duality of the religious world itself; only those who
belonged to the divine community could be favored by the
good effects of divine magic, or else there would be no par-
ticular reason for belonging to this community. But in
that case the good which "the servants of the devil"
experienced must have come from the devil, not from God.
And some of the evil which befell the members of the divine
community must have come from God, or else, if it came
only from the devil, many men would be moved rather by
the fear of the devil's vengeance than by the attraction of
the divine gifts. All this was admitted, but the Christian
teaching succeeded in partly overcoming the difficulty with
the help of the contention that the good which the devil
offered to his believers was not a real good and the evil
which God sent down upon his servants was not a real
evil. The good given by the devil turned ultimately to evil,
sometimes only in the next world but often even in the
270 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
present one. And the evil sent by God, if man did not lose
his faith and did not turn to the devil, was sooner or later
rewarded by a greater good. In short, the heavenly com-
munity proved true with regard to its human members,
while in the hell community they were cheated. An inter-
esting expression of this belief is found in many tales. In
these it is the theatrical contrast between appearance and
reality which suddenly discloses itself to men in their rela-
tions with the divine as well as with the devilish world. Any
trash given to a man by some member of the first turns
into gold; apparent calamities sent by heaven prove to be a
source of happiness; divinities in human form behave
apparently in the most absurd or cruel way and disclose
afterward the wisdom and benevolence of their acts. On
the contrary, devilish gold becomes trash, devilish food,
seemingly the finest possible, is in reality composed of the
most disgusting substances, the splendor and beauty with
which the devil or his servants appear to men change into
the utmost poverty and ugliness. Even if this tendency to
lower the value of the hell community is not completely
successful, it is not without its influence. The great resource
of the church in inculcating the belief that the devil is ulti-
mately harmful was, of course, the conception of future life.
All the pictures of future life in hell, without exception,
represent the devil as torturing the souls. The Christian
teaching had probably no contrary ideas to combat or to
assimilate in the sphere of the representations of the human
soul's existence after death, since in the naturalistic system
there were no souls.
The whole evolution of the divine community, the growth
of the number, concreteness, power, and benevolence of the
heavenly beings, resulted finally in an actual state of things
in which the importance of divine magic is incomparably
greater in practice than that of devilish magic. While the
INTRODUCTION
271
first -still pervades the whole life of the peasant, is an in-
dispensable component of all his practical activity, the
second is mostly degraded to an "old women's stuff," not
disbelieved, but unworthy of a real man's occupation; it is
used only incidentally, except for a few individuals, and is
more a matter of credulous curiosity than a part of the
business of life. It still exerts an attraction, but this attrac-
tion itself is due to its abnormal character, and evidently
when an attitude comes to be considered as abnormal it is
no longer socially vital.
This concerns of course only the intentional magical
activity of men; it is the voluntary alliance with the devil
which is rare. But the magical importance of the devil
himself within the whole magical system still remains great
enough to make the question of belonging to the community
of God or of the devil the main religious problem. Indeed
it is not only by voluntary and conscious choice that men
can become members of the devil's community; every act
which is as such contrary to the divine solidarity, every
"sin," if not expiated, causes a temporary or durable exclu-
sion of the man from the community of heaven and auto-
matically makes him a member of the community of hell.
The man passes many times during his life from one com-
munity to the other, not because he does not want to be a
member of the divine world, but because the limitations and
the duties which this membership imposes upon him are
numerous and difficult to keep.
The devilish community, in this magical religious system,
is an indispensable condition of the existence of the divine
solidarity itself. In the naturalistic system the aim of the
solidarity of natural beings was the struggle against death.
Here the magical solidarity of the heavenly world has its
only reason in the fight against the world of hell. The aim
of the whole heavenly community, from God down to the
272 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
humblest saved soul, is to attract as many new members
as possible from among the living and to own as much as
possible of the material world. But as the hell community
wants the same for itself, the struggle goes on. At the
same time both communities, exactly like any human com-
munity, want only true members, such as do not destroy
the harmony of the whole; they therefore exclude those
who are not solidary. The heavenly community is more
difficult in this respect, probably because it does not need
new members as much as hell; but neither does the devilish
community accept new members without selection. In
tales and legends there are cases in which the devils drive
away untrue members. In magical pacts with the devil
the man must be consistent, and, for example, any mention
of Jesus or the saints may lead to a terrible punishment.
There are men whom neither heaven nor hell wants. Pur-
gatory is not a mere place of punishment, but also a prepara-
tory stage for heaven, making the souls eager and likely to
be true members of the heavenly group.
The material world is also an object of contest. The
heavenly beings as well as the devils want to appropriate,
in the name of their respective groups, as many material
objects as they can. We may say that the material world,
with regard to the magical communities, plays the same
part as property with regard to the family. It is perhaps
not the basis, but at any rate one condition of the existence,
of the group. It gives a dwelling-place, and we must re-
member that in this respect the devil was wronged at the
beginning. It gives, as we have seen, the means of extend-
ing the power of the community among men who can act
magically only with the help of material objects, and it is
therefore important to give into the hands of the living
adherents as many magical instruments as they can handle.
Finally — and this point is not very clear — the spirits, at
INTRODUCTION
273
least the souls, seem to need natural food and clothing; it
is difficult to say whether this conception is only a vestige
of the belief of regeneration after death or belongs to the
magical religious system itself.
The character of the priest and the witch (or magician)
within this system can be easily determined from what has
been said. They are persons who by divine or devilish
consecration have acquired a magical power superior to
that of ordinary men, or sometimes they became priest or
witch because they originally possessed this power hi a
higher degree. At the same time they have a knowledge
of the world of spirits and of the means of magical action
which was communicated to them partly by the spirits
themselves, partly by other priests or witches. The priest
"knows all the things, present, past or future"; the witch
has perhaps a less extensive knowledge, but with regard to
the devil and devilish magic she knows even more than the
priest. With regard to their knowledge the functions of
the priest and of the witch do not differ much from those
of the wroz or mqdra, except that there the object of knowl-
edge was nature, here it is the supernatural world. But
from the superior magical power of the priest and the witch
result new functions. As technically trained and efficient
specialists, they take the place of the ordinary men wherever
strong magical action is necessary; their own power is added
to the power of the magical instruments and they can attain
with the latter more important results than the layman.
At the same time they are intermediaries between the pro-
fane, natural life and the magical, supernatural powers.
The magical power as such is undetermined; it may have
any incalculable effect, and for anybody who has not
power enough himself it is dangerous to manipulate objects
and rites endowed with power, because he cannot efficiently
direct their action. The priest and the witch can do this
274 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
because their will, their intention, has more magical influence
by itself than the will of ordinary men, devoid of the same
power.
Finally, the priest and the witch are permanent members
of the respective communities (the priest can scarcely ever
go to hell, the witch to heaven), and in this character they
are intermediaries between the layman and the community
which they represent. But this function is not necessarily
limited to the official representatives of heaven or hell; a
holy man, without being a priest, a possessed person, with-
out being a witch, can play the same part. It consists in
helping the respective communities to get new members or
in rejecting those who are harmful, and hi helping laymen to
become active members of the magical groups.
The influence of this whole magical religious system
upon the peasant's life-attitudes was very durable and of a
great, mainly negative, importance. The belief in imme-
diate, magical causality, inculcated for nine centuries by
those whom the peasant always regarded as his intellectual
superiors and applied to all the important matters of human
existence, developed a particular kind of credulity with
regard to the effects which may be expected from any inci-
dents, things, or men outside of the ordinary course of life.
Anything may happen or not happen ; there is no continuity,
consequently no proportion, between cause and effect. Out
of this a feeling of helplessness develops. The peasant
feels that he lacks any control of the world, while he has
been accustomed to think that others have this control to
an almost unlimited degree. He has no consciousness of
the limitations of power of those who are his intellectual
superiors and whom he does not understand, and he ascribes
to somebody the responsibility for anything that happens.
His only weapon in these conditions is cunning — apparent
resignation to everything, universal mistrust, deriving all
INTRODUCTION
275
the benefit possible from any fact or person that happens
to come under his control.
3. The third type of religious system is purely Christian,
contains no pagan elements except ceremonies which the
church has assimilated and christened. It has attained its
full development recently, and certain of its consequences
began to manifest themselves only a few years ago. Its
basis is the idea of a moral unity of the human society, under
the leadership of the priest, with a view to the glory of God
and to the benefit of men, in conformity with the divine law
and with the help of the divine world. The mythological
beings are nominally the same as in the preceding system,
but the attitudes are completely different, often contrary,
and this obliges us to treat this system as a different religion.
In practice the corresponding attitudes of the peasant
have originated mainly in the parish life, and of course
the church is their initiator. The parish is a kind of great
family whose members are united by a community of moral
interests. The church building and the cemetery (originally
always surrounding the church) are the visible symbol and
the material instrument of this unity. It is the moral
property of the parish as a whole, managed by the priest.
We say "moral property," because economically it does not
belong, in the eyes of the peasant, to any human individual
or group; it is first God's, then the saint's to whom it is
dedicated. The priest manages it economically also, not
as a representative of the parish, however, but only as
appointed by God. This explains why in America the
Poles so easily agreed in earlier times to have their churches
registered as property of priests or bishops, not of the con-
gregations who had built them. It was not a question of
ownership, but a mere formality concerning management.
Gradually, however, they became accustomed to the idea
that churches can be treated as economic property, but up
276 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
to the present certain consequences of the American stand-
point, such as the sale of a church, appear in some measure
as sacrilege. The claim of the parish to the church as
moral property consists in the right of the group to guard
the religious destination of the church. The latter cannot
be used for any other ends than those which are involved
in the religious life of the group — meetings, parish festivals,
dispensation of sacraments, burials, etc. Any use of the
church building and its surroundings for any profane ends
whatever is not only contrary to the magical character of
these objects, but is a profanation of their social sacredness,
an injury done to the parish-group. On the other hand, it
is a moral duty of the latter to make the church as fit as
possible for its religious and social purposes, and no sacrifice
is spared in order to fulfil this duty. There is a striking
contrast between the poverty of the peasants' private
houses and the magnificence of many a country church.
Building and adorning the church is one of the manifestations
and the most evident symbol of the solidary activity of the
parish for the glory of God. At the same time a beautiful
church satisfies the aesthetic tendencies of the peasant,
gives an impressive frame for religious meetings, and
strengthens the feeling of awe and the exaltation which all
the religious ceremonies provoke.
The moral rights and duties of the parish with regard
to the church originate thus exclusively in the functions
which are performed in the church. The most important
events of individual, familial, and communal life occur
there, at least partly; all the essential changes which happen
within the parish-group are sanctioned there; the relations
of the group with the highest powers are identified with this
place; moral teaching, exhortation, condemnation, are re-
ceived in the church. In short, the most intense feelings
are connected with the place, which is therefore surrounded
INTRODUCTION
277
with a nimbus of holiness, is an object of awe and love.
Its sacred and familiar character is still stronger because
it was in the same sense a center and symbol of moral unity
with the preceding generations, since, as far as the peasant's
tradition reaches, his fathers and forefathers had met in
the same place, their bodies had been buried around it,
their souls might return there on All-Souls' Day and cele-
brate divine service. And after the present generation
their children and grandchildren will meet there also "up
to the end of the world," with the same feelings toward
those now living as the latter have toward the preceding
generations. We understand, therefore, what the peasant
loses when he emigrates, why he moves unwillingly from
one parish to another and always dreams of going back in his
old age and being buried in the land of his fathers. We
understand also why the matters concerning the parish
church are so important and so often mentioned in letters.
The divine service, at which all the parishioners meet,
is the main factor in the moral unity of the group. We
have already mentioned, when speaking of the peasant's
social environment, the importance of meetings for the
primary unorganized group. At this stage it is almost the
only way for a group to have consciousness of its unity.
Now in the religious meeting, during the divine service, the
group is unified, not only by the mere fact of its presence in
one place, but also by the community of interests and
attitudes, and this community itself has particular features
which distinguish it from any other form in which the
solidarity and self -consciousness of the group are elaborated.
When a primary group meets incidentally, it is not deter-
mined beforehand what interests among all those which its
members have in common will become the center of atten-
tion, and what attitudes among all those which are the same
in all or in most of its members will be unanimously
278 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
expressed. Even if the meeting is arranged with regard
to a determined practical problem, and if thus a certain
common interest is presupposed, the attitude which the
members will take with regard to the problem is not formally
predetermined, even if it may be foreseen. The conscious
unity of the group is therefore mostly produced anew during
every meeting — does not antedate the meeting itself. But
the religious unity of the parish — not its administrative
unity, of which we do not now speak — depends upon the
meetings; the conscious community of interests and
attitudes is kept alive only by the common assistance at
the religious service. And for each particular meeting this
community is predetermined; the center of interest is
known beforehand, and the attitudes can be only of a
definite kind and direction. This is made possible by the
ceremonial. Every ceremony performed by the priest
before the congregation has not only a magical meaning
(through which it belongs to the preceding magical religious
system) but also a social and moral tendency; it symbolizes
a certain religious idea of a type which we shall analyze
presently, and it makes this idea the center of interest of the
present group. The response of the latter is also embodied
in ceremonial acts — in gestures, songs, schematized prayers
—and those acts symbolize and provoke definite attitudes
common to all the members. This goes so far that even
the sermons, with their varying contents, and the process
of listening to a sermon are objects of a certain ceremonial,
to some extent spontaneously evolved, non-liturgical. The
gestures and intonations of the priest are performed accord-
ing to an unwritten code. The congregation reacts to them
in a determined way by gestures, sighs, sometimes even
exclamations. A priest who does not know how to use this
unofficial ritual can never be an influential preacher. Thus,
through a series of successive meetings, the ceremonial
INTRODUCTION
279
maintains a continuity of group interests and attitudes,
which without it could be attained only by a perfect
organization.
Besides the general meetings of the whole parish on
Sundays and holidays there are partial meetings of an
undetermined number of members on other occasions-
mass on week days; evening prayers and singing on holiday
eves; service during May in honor of Mary; service during
December, preparatory to Christmas; prayers and songs
during Lent commemorating the sufferings of Jesus and
inciting to contrition; common preparation for the Easter
confession; adoration of the Holy Sacrament during the
week after Corpus Christi Day, etc. Whoever lives near
enough and has leisure tries to assist at these meetings. In
more remote villages small groups of people gather on
winter evenings and sing in common half -popular, half-
liturgical songs on religious subjects. The after-Christmas
songs are called Kolenda and concern the coming of Christ;
those during Lent are called Gorzkie zale, "bitter regrets,"
in remembrance of the Passion. In almost every parish
there are religious associations and fraternities whose aim
is a particular kind of worship, such as the adoration of the
Holy Sacrament, the worship of Mary or some saint, common
recital or singing of the rosary. They have a determined
part to perform during each solemn divine service; they
cultivate religious song and music. Some of them have also
humanitarian and practical ends — the care of the sick and
poor, help to widows and orphans, funeral and dowry
insurance. These last functions are performed mainly by
fraternities in towns; in the country, where familial and
communal solidarity is stronger, the necessity for philan-
thropy and organized mutual help is less felt. All of these
meetings and associations, composed mainly, but not
exclusively, of women and elderly men, are under the
280 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
direction and control of the priest, even if he does not
always actually preside.
It is easy to understand how powerfully this intense
religious life operates in developing the unity of the parish.
On other, more extraordinary, occasions the members of the
parish get into an immediate touch with other religious con-
gregations. Such occasions are festivals, celebrated once
a year in every parish, where all the people from the neigh-
borhood gather; religious revivals, organized usually by
monks; visitation by the bishop; festivals during the
consecration of a new church, an image, etc. ; priest jubilees;
pilgrimages to miraculous places. The last assume a great
importance in the peasant's life when they are made col-
lectively, often by hundreds of people, under the leadership
of the priest. Hundreds of such "companies" come every
year to such places as Czestochowa, Vilno (Ostra Brama),
and many localities of minor importance. Some people
take part in pilgrimages to Rome, Lourdes, even Jerusalem;
many a man or woman economizes for many years in order
to be able to make such a pilgrimage.
In cases of extraordinary calamities which befall the
parish (drought, long rains, epidemics) the priest organizes
a special divine service with solemn processions, carrying
the Holy Sacrament through or around the parish, etc.
But even individual or familial occurrences give an
opportunity for religious meetings. Every christening,
wedding, or funeral is attended by numerous members of the
community, and the occasion itself, as well as the corre-
sponding ceremonial, arouses in all the assistants the con-
sciousness of an identity of interests and attitudes.
The meetings are the most powerful factor of the moral
unity of the parish, but not the only one. All the members
of the group in their individual religious and moral life, as
far as this life is regulated by the church, are also obliged
INTRODUCTION 281
to manifest the same interests and attitudes. They must,
all alike, go to confession and communion, perform the same
duties with regard to the church, behave more or less
identically in their relations with the priest; they ask for
his advice, listen to his remonstrances; they say the same
prayers on the same occasions, use the same consecrated
objects, perform the same traditional ceremonies in the
familial circles, greet one another by the same religious
formulae, read the same religious books, etc. In short,
they have in common a vast sphere of attitudes imposed by
the church, and they are conscious of this community even
outside of religious meetings — in their personal relations of
every day. This makes the unity of the parish still closer
and more persistent. At the same time this unity is dis-
tinguished from that which is due merely to social opinion
by the fact that its form and content are equally fixed and
imposed by the superior power of the church. To be sure,
any phenomenon belonging to the religious sphere can also,
at any moment, become the object of social opinion; the
religious sphere is a part of the peasant's social environment,
but it is its most fixed part. The parish in the religious
sense of the term is, indeed, not an organized group like a
commune or an association; it does not function as a
unique group within the social world in a steady and
determined way; we cannot speak of the functions of a
parish. But the attitudes of its members which constitute
its unity are relatively independent of the fluctuations of
social opinion and are embodied in stable symbols, and in
this sense this part of the peasant's social environment rises
above the level of the primitive community and popular
tradition, is an intermediary stage between the community
and the higher, organized group of the church.
The central object of the religious attitudes of the parish
is the glorification of God and the saints by acts of worship.
282 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
God becomes for the religious consciousness of the peasant
the supreme lord and master of the human community;
the saints, its guardians, intercessors, and* models of per-
fection. The difference between this conception and the
one which we find in the preceding system is quite essential.
There the function of the spirits is magical; here it is moral
and social. There man, by the magical bearing of his acts,
becomes a member of a spiritual community; here the
spirit, by the moral character which is ascribed to it, becomes
incorporated into the human community, and social wor-
ship is the form which this incorporation assumes. A char-
acteristic expression of this difference is found in the fact
that, while in the magical system Jesus is subordinated to
God, in the moral system he takes the place of God. The
name of Jesus is incomparably more frequently used as that
of the spiritual head of human society than the name of God.
This is of course the result of the half-human personality of
Jesus, which makes his incorporation into the human com-
munity much more easy and natural.
As the mythology is almost identical in both systems,
the difference is evidently based upon practical attitudes.
It is not a pre-existent theoretical conception of the magical
nature of the spiritual world which makes the man use magic
in his religious life, but the use of magic which causes the
spiritual world to be conceived as a magical community.
In the same way the source of worship is not a theoretical
conception of the divinity as spiritual leader of the com-
munity, but the practice of worship, gradually elaborated
and fixed in the complex ceremonial, is the origin of the
social and moral functions of the divinity.
We have seen that in the magical system the magical
bearing of human acts has been extended from those which
are intentionally performed to produce a determined magical
effect to the whole sphere of human activity, so that there
INTRODUCTION 283
is hardly any action which is magically indifferent. The
same happens in the moral system. The idea of worship
does not remain limited to the ceremonial practices, but is
extended to all human actions which have a moral value
in the eyes of the community. God (Jesus) as the lord of
the community is interested in its harmony, and thus
every act which helps to preserve the harmony becomes at
the same time an act of worship. Altruistic help, peda-
gogical and medical activity, maintaining of concord in the
community, spreading general and religious instruction,
become religiously meritorious. By a further extension
every contribution to the material welfare of men by licit
means is willed by God (Jesus), even the good management
of one's own property. Further still, Jesus is glorified also
by anything which helps to maintain a teleological and
aesthetic order in the natural environment of men — agri-
cultural work, raising and feeding domestic animals, adorn-
ment of houses, establishment of orchards and flower
gardens, etc. Partly perhaps under the influence of the
church, but more probably in a spontaneous way^ thanks
to the old idea of the natural solidarity and animation of
natural objects, the idea arose that the whole of nature,
even the meanest natural beings, glorify God by their life
as men do. Unnecessary destruction is therefore forbidden
in this system as well as in the naturalistic one, although the
subordination of nature to human ends is incomparably
greater since only man glorifies God in the prescribed way,
only man has an immortal soul, and it is for man that
Christ died.
As against this moral organization of the human com-
munity under the spiritual leadership of Jesus and the saints,
the devil and devil-worship assume for the first time a
distinctly evil character; they are not only harmful but
immoral. The reason for this is evident. There is no
284 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
human community which would enter into the same relation
with the devil that the parish enters into with God; the
relation with the devil is individual and lacks social sanction
and social ceremonial. The opposition between the divine
and the devilish world is thus associated with the opposition
between social and individual religious life, and both op-
positions acquire through this association a new character
and a new strength. The divine world becomes socially
acknowledged, a positive social value; the devilish world
is socially despised, a negative social value. The worship of
God is meritorious, official, and organized; the worship of
the devil illicit, secret, and incidental. A man who serves
God is a good member of the community, trying to be in
harmony with his group; a man who serves the devil is a
rebel, trying to harm his fellow-citizens. Since every
socially moral action is subordinated to the glorification of
God, and since there is an essential opposition between God
and the devil, every socially immoral action is conceived as
serving the devil.1
It is only in the latter sphere, in things subordinated to
the devil, that magical action keeps most of its old character,
precisely because this sphere, becoming secret and individual,
did not undergo the same evolution as the sphere of divine
things. In the latter, actions whose meaning in the magical
system consisted in bringing immediately and mechanically
a determined effect become now acts of worship, and their
old effect is now conceived as a divine reward, as conscious
action of the divinity moved by human worship. It is no
1 Naturally the devil, thrown out of social life, has lost still more of his old
importance. Whatever he does, he does it by God's permission; God allows him
to tempt men in order to give them the merit of victory. But even temptation
becomes rare. The peasants have a curious explanation of this fact. God does
not allow the devils to tempt men as much as they did before, because men have
grown so evil themselves that if the devil could use all his power no man could be
saved. The women are a little better, and therefore they are more subject to
temptation and see the devil more frequently.
INTRODUCTION
285
longer the letter, but the meaning of the prayer and the
religious feeling which accompanies it that influence God
or the saint; it is the confidence in, and the love of, God,
manifested by the use of consecrated objects, that compel
God to grant the men what they need when they are using
those objects.
Only human magic, however, has changed its significance.
The magical power of God remains the same. God's action
still exerts an immediate influence upon the material world.
But now he is supposed to exert his power with a view to the
moral order which he wishes to maintain in the world, not
in the interests of the heavenly community; his activity be-
comes altruistic, while in the magical system it was egoistic.
The role of the priest is modified in the same way.
From a magician he becomes a father of the parish, a
representative of God (Jesus) by maintaining the moral
order, a representative of the parish by leading the acts of
common worship. From his representation of Jesus results
his superior morality, implicitly assumed wherever he acts,
not as a private individual, but in his religious, official
character. Therefore also his teaching, his advice, his
praise or blame, whenever expressed in the church, from the
chancel, or in the confessional, are listened to as words of
Jesus, seldom if ever doubted, and obeyed more readily than
orders from any secular power. This influence is extended
beyond the church and manifests itself in the whole social
activity of the priest, though there it loses some of its power,
since it is not quite certainly established by the peasants
whether the priest outside of the church is still in the same
sense a representative of Jesus. On the other hand, from
the fact that the priest is the representative of the parish in
acts of worship it results that all his religious actions are
supposed to be performed in the name of the community, and
he is socially bound to perform them conscientiously and
286 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
regularly. In general, the greater the role of the priest, the
greater is his responsibility and the more required from him
in the line of moral and religious perfection. In later
volumes we shall have the opportunity of studying more in
detail the role which the priest plays in peasant society
because of his place in the moral-religious system. For
this system is now decidedly the dominating one. Natural-
ism survives only in fragmentary beliefs and practices and
in a general attitude toward nature, whose real meaning is
already in a large measure forgotten. The magical system
is still strong, and the influence which it has exerted upon
the peasant psychology can hardly be overestimated. But
it is no longer developing, no new elements are added to it
and in fact it is rapidly declining.
The fourth system, that of individual mysticism, whi
we shall presently define, is still rare among the peasants and
does not seem to be on the way to an immediate and strong
development. But the moral-religious system not only
retains almost all of its traditional power, except in some
limited circles, but is still growing as new conditions of
communal life arise and the old principle is applied to new
problems. We already see in these first volumes of letters
that most of the religious interests explicitly expressed
belong to this system, and we shall see it still more clearly
in other volumes.
4. Religion as a mystical connection of the individu
with God expressed by the attitudes of love, personal sub-
ordination, desire of personal perfection and of eternal life
with God, etc., is, as we have said, not very much developed
among the peasants. The peasant is a practical man;
religion remains interwoven with his practical interests,
while mysticism requires precisely a liberation from those
interests, a concentration of thoughts and feelings upon
beings and problems having little relation with everyday life.
INTRODUCTION
287
A sign of the lack of mysticism is the absolute orthodoxy of
the peasant; unless by ignorance, he never dares to imagine
any religious attitude different from the teaching of the
church, because outside of the church he never imagines
himself in any direct relation with the divinity. He is in
this respect radically different from the Russian peasant.
Still there are cases in which a mystical attitude develops
during extraordinary religious meetings — revivals, pilgrim-
ages— when the usual environment and the usual interests
are for a while forgotten, and the individual is aroused from
his normal state by the example of the devotion of others
and by the influence of the mob of which he is a part. But
these occasional outbreaks of mysticism in determined social
conditions belong as much to the preceding religious system
as to the properly mystical one. The way upon which the
peasant can really pass into a new form of religious life leads
through the problem of death. When death ceases to be a
natural phenomenon preceding regeneration and becomes
a passage into a new supernatural world, brooding upon the
problem of death must lead to a certain detachment from
the practical problems and open the way to mysticism.
But this brooding upon death is possible only when the
individual ceases to look upon his own death or that of
his dear ones from the traditional social standpoint, from
which the isolated death of a member of the group is a more
or less normal event, particularly at a certain age ; he must
begin to view death only as a fact of individual life, for only
then it has extraordinary, abnormal importance which can
give birth to mystical reflections and attitudes. And this
requires again more individualization than the average
peasant shows, more realization of the uniqueness of the
individual. We find indeed mystical attitudes always
during calamities which threaten the existence of the whole
community — pest or war. But single individuals develop
288 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
such attitudes only when more or less isolated from their
communities (e.g., servants in large cities) or when exception-
ally cultivated.
THEORETIC AND AESTHETIC INTERESTS
In Volume IV we shall have the opportunity of studying
the peasant's theoretic and aesthetic interests in their full
development under the influence of the culture of the supe-
rior classes. As these interests were, however, apparently
never lacking, and are manifested in Volumes I and II, it
will be useful to determine their place within the tradi-
tional peasant life and their relation to the practical atti-
tudes. We shall then be able to understand how they have
sometimes succeeded in occupying within a single generation
the center of attention of individuals and of whole groups.
i. There are three primary forms in which theoretic
interests are manifested in the peasant — the schematism of
practical life, interest in new facts, and interest in religious
explanations of the world.
The first is completely original. It arises out of the
peasant's spontaneous reflection on his activity and its
conditions, on his human and natural environment. It
constitutes the peasant's "wisdom," and is very clearly
distinguished by public opinion from practical ability in
itself. A man may be very wise, have valuable generaliza-
tions concerning practice, and still be unpractical through
lack of energy, of presence of mind, etc. This distinction
assumes a satirical meaning in the tales having as their
subject three brothers, two wise and one stupid. The last
is always practically successful, while the first two, with all
their wisdom, behave like fools.
For a man accustomed to live in action the task of
reflection is not an easy one. We see how the peasant
prepares for it, tries to find free time and a solitary place,
INTRODUCTION 289
and then spends occasionally many hours in thinking.
Even when he wants to write a letter which requires reflec-
tion, he treats it as a difficult and long business. A proof
of the importance of reflection in his eyes is seen in the fact
that he remembers for many years every act of reflection
which he performed (cf. the case of Wladek in Volume III).
But precisely on that account the process of reflection,
artificially isolated from the process of activity, assumes a
somewhat independent interest; the peasant enjoys the
solution of a problem as such. The numerous riddles which
we find in the Polish folklore are also a proof of this.
The results of such individual acts of reflection, accu-
mulated through generations, constitute a rich stock of
popular wisdom. Apart of it is expressed in proverbs; but
with the growing complexity of economic and social life and
growing rapidity of change the new reflections have no time
to crystallize themselves into proverbs, but tend to formu-
late themselves in changing abstract schemes of life com-
municated gradually by the peasants to one another.
We may divide this practical philosophy into two classes
— schemes of things and schemes of people. The first
concerns agriculture, handicraft, trade, medicine, etc. It
is of course impossible to study here the whole content of the
respective beliefs ; we can only note certain of their general
characters. First, they proceed always from the particular
to the general, by induction, and their systematization, the
subordination of details to a general view, seems very slow.
We have already noticed this with regard to economic
concepts; the extension of the quantitative viewpoint to
farm goods comes very late. Another very general example
is the slowness of imitation. It may come from many other
reasons, but a frequent reason is also the lack of generaliza-
tion. The peasant who sees an estate-owner apply some
new technical invention with good results does not imitate
290 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
him, simply because he does not see the identity of their
respective positions as farmers. His usual argument is:
" It is all right for you, who are a rich and instructed man,
but not for a poor, stupid peasant like me." The difference
in social position as a whole hinders him from noticing that
in this particular respect he can do the same as his superior.
For the same reason the peasant brings relatively little
agricultural learning from season-emigration. In Germany
he usually finds an agricultural level even higher than that
on the estate of his neighbor, and the difference between his
own farming and that of the large German estates is so
great that he does not dare to generalize and to apply at
home what he learned abroad. On the other hand, we find
him making most hasty and superficial generalizations;
proverbs and sayings concerning farmwork and weather in
connection with the days of the year are based mostly upon
a few disconnected observations; a new object is often
classified upon the basis of a quite superficial analogy with
known objects. Both the slowness and the incidental
superficiality and hastiness of generalization result from the
way in which the process of reflection occurs. When the
peasant begins to think, the result depends upon the material
which at this moment is present in the sphere of his con-
sciousness. If the material happens to be well selected and
sufficient, the generalization is valid; if not, it is false. But
valid or false it will be accepted by the author himself and
often by others until a time of reflection again comes and
some new generalization is made in accordance with, or
contrary to, the first. Because reflection requires so much
effort its results are seldom verified hi experience, seldom
criticized. This explains the many evident absurdities and
contradictory statements current among the peasants; once
created they live, and they have even a useful function
because they help to equilibrate one-sided views of others.
INTRODUCTION 291
The peasant seldom uses dialectic in criticizing any view
and can hardly be persuaded by dialectic. He simply
opposes his opinion to another; and the more effort the
elaboration of this opinion has cost him, the less willing
is he to exchange it for another. He may even acknowledge
that the contrary opinion is right, but he holds that his own
is also right, and he feels no necessity of solving the apparent
contradiction unless the problem is important enough to
compel him to do some more thinking and to elaborate a
third, intermediary opinion. He is so accustomed to live
among partial and one-sided generalizations that he likes to
collect all the opinions on some important issue, listens with
seeming approval to every one, and finally either does what
he intended to do at first or sets about reflecting and elab-
orates his own view. If he selects the opinion of anybody
else, he is led, not by the intrinsic merit of the opinion, but
by his appreciation of the man. If only he has confidence
in the man's sincerity and intelligence, he supposes that the
man's advice was the result of a sufficient process of thinking
and considers it useless to repeat this thinking himself in
order to appreciate the advice on its merits.
His ideas about other people are equally schematic,
either appropriated from the traditional store or inde-
pendently elaborated at some moment of intense thinking
and afterward used without any new reflection. The
peasant's general prepossession about people is that every-
body is moved only either by his egotistic interest or by
solidarity with his group; if neither can be detected, then
evidently the man is clever enough to keep his motives
hidden. If, nevertheless, a person's activity, particularly
that of a stranger, is manifestly disinterested, the peasant
supposes first stupidity, and recurs to altruism only as the
last explanation. The only exception is the priest, who has
to be altruistic ex officio; here egotistic interest is usually
292 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
the last, more or less forced, explanation. The willingness
of the peasant to do business with a given person and
particularly to be persuaded by him depends upon the degree
to which he understands or thinks that he understands the
motives of this person. He will show confidence more
readily in a man whose motives he knows to be not only
interested but even dishonest than in one whom he does not
understand, because in the first case he can take the motives
into account, while in the second he does not know how to
limit the possibilities and does not know what to expect.
Accordingly he has a summary and egocentric classification
ready and applies it in any given case. Those of the first
class are the members of his family, whose behavior ought to
be determined by the familial relations themselves and from
whom solidarity can be expected. Then come the members
of the community, classified again according to their nearer
or more remote neighborhood, their fortune, character, etc.
Then come all the other, unknown peasants, whose interests
are supposed to be the same as those of the known ones.
The priest, the noble, the Jew, are people of different classes,
but still supposedly known. The priest's official character
has already been determined, and, of course, the peasant
understands the usual weaknesses of the country priest-
money, wine, and his housekeeper. Every noble is sup-
posed to desire in his heart the reintroduction of serfdom;
but besides this he is a farmer, a man who has innumerable
common traditions with the peasant. There may be hostil-
ity between him and his peasant neighbors, but there is
always more or less of reciprocal understanding. The Jew
is classed once and forever as a merchant and cheater, and
no other motive than money is ascribed to him; but this
makes his schematization relatively easy in spite of the fact
that the peasant knows little, if anything, about his familial
and religious life. In this connection, however, the Jew
INTRODUCTION
293
often cheats the peasant by putting forward a smaller or
pretended interest to fit the scheme and keeping the larger
and real interest in the background. Political agitators
sometimes do the same. There is also a scheme correspond-
ing to the lower officials in small towns and to the hand-
workers. But the peasant does not understand at all the
instructed city fellows. Those who came to the country
with idealistic purposes had no success at all for many years;
only lately, thanks to a few eminent men, a favorable sche-
matization has been formed of those who want to raise the
peasant intellectually and economically, and the peasant has
begun to understand this kind of interest.
If now it accidentally happens that one of these pre-
established schemes fails in a particular or general case, the
peasant loses his head. Every exception from the admitted
rule assumes in his eyes unlimited proportions. A mem-
ber of the family who shows no solidarity, a member of
the community who does not reciprocate a service, provokes
an astonishment which the peasant cannot forget for a long
time. A bad, "unworthy" priest or a noble who acts
against the traditions arouses the most profound indigna-
tion; and if, on the other hand, a noble (particularly a
woman) proves really well disposed and democratic, without
being too familiar, the peasant's attitude in the course of
time comes near to adoration. And when some of the
city men succeeded in breaking down the peasants' mistrust
and becoming political or social leaders, the confidence of
the peasants in them became unlimited, absurd. Finally,
when the peasant finds himself among strangers, as upon
emigration, and sees that none of his schemes can be applied
to the people around him, he is for a very long time abso-
lutely unable to control his social environment, because it
takes so long to elaborate a new scheme. In the beginning,
therefore, he simply must settle among people from his own
294 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
country in order to learn from them at least a few elementary
generalizations, unless, indeed, as seldom happens, he hi
some time free to observe and to reflect. The fault is here
again insufficient generalization ; the peasant has schemes of
particular classes of people, but not of man in general.
The interest in new facts is always strong, even if not
supported by practical motives. We are here very much
reminded of the curiosity of a child, without the child's
restlessness. The intensity of social life in an unorganized
community naturally depends upon this interest. Any-
thing that happens within the community attracts atten-
tion, even if only the most striking of these facts become
the center of attention of the whole community. Each
fact provokes some kind of a reaction, and, as we have seen
in a previous chapter, common attitudes are elaborated and
become factors of social unity. In this way the interest
in facts happening within the community has a social
importance. But the peasant is not conscious of the social
consequences of his curiosity; he just naively wants to
know. And he knows and remembers everything about
his environment. This is of course also useful to him per-
sonally, for it enables him to construct practical schemes;
this is a consequence, however, not a motive. He does not
try to know in order to build schemes, but he .builds schemes
when, among all the facts that he has learned, one strikes
him as practically important. Consequently the sphere of
his concrete knowledge is incomparably larger than the
sphere of his practical schemes, and one of the most impor-
tant sides of his latest intellectual development is the
learning of the practical significance of things with which he
was acquainted long ago.
This independence of curiosity from practical problems
enables the peasant to show a lively interest in things that
can have no practical importance for him. In older times
INTRODUCTION
295
the main bulk of such information was supplied by returning
soldiers, emigrants, pilgrims, travelers, beggars. Happen-
ings in the political and religious world, extraordinary social
events outside of the community, marvels of nature and
industry, the variety of human mores, were and are still the
main objects of interest. Fiction stories also are gladly
listened to, but the interest in them seems to be in general
much less lively. They are treated as history, as true, but
concerning facts that were past long ago, and are therefore
less interesting than those which are still real in themselves
or in their consequences. When the imagination is dis-
closed as such, even this interest is usually lost. The
peasant wants to know only about reality.
" When reading developed, the interest for facts got a
new food. As we shall see later, the popular newspapers
have to give many descriptions of concrete facts in order to
be read, and the promotion of practical and intellectual
progress must to a large extent take this concrete curiosity
into account. Even on a higher intellectual level this
character of theoretic interests is preserved. Descriptive
works on geography, ethnography, technology, zoology,
botany, etc., have the greatest popularity; historical books
are on the second plane; fiction comes last, unless its
subjects are taken from the life of other classes and other
nations or, in general, unless it informs about things that
the peasant did not know. As a result some of the popular
papers have dropped completely the old custom of publish-
ing novels and short stories.
The situation is quite different among city workers and
the lower middle class, where fiction-reading assumes enor-
mous proportions and a powerfully developed interest for
plot has favored the recent success of sensational litera-
ture. This difference of interest between the country and
city population is certainly due to a difference in social
296 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
conditions. The city inhabitants have not as keen an
interest hi new facts as we find hi the country because city
life gives them a superabundance of new facts and the
receptivity is deadened, and because the additional excite-
ment which the peasant gets by sharing the news with his
community is here almost lacking. The relatively unsettled
character of the life of a city inhabitant as compared with
that of the peasant, the uncertainty and the relatively
numerous possibilities of the future, give more food for
imagination, make it easier for the reader to put himself in
the place of the hero of the novel and thus enjoy the plot.
But, on the other hand, the numerous social and political
problems raised by modern industrial life find a more ready
reception among city workers than among peasants, and
open the way to the development of an intense and serious
intellectual life. Hence it may be said that with regard to
intellectual activities the lower city class can be divided
into fiction-readers without social interests and non-fiction
readers with social interests.
There is indeed one kind of fiction that always finds
a strong interest among the peasants; it is religious fiction —
legends, lives of saints, etc. This, however, is quite a
different kind of interest, based on the general theoretic
and practical value which the peasant ascribes to the
religious conceptions. The peculiarities of this attitude
compel us to notice it here as a distinct class of theoretic
interest. Here of course, the theoretic interest is not
primarily independent of other kinds of interests, but is
only a part of the general religious interest which contains
also practical and aesthetic elements. But while in the
whole complicated machinery of the cult these elements are
indissolubly connected, hi the myth the theoretic element
predominates and becomes frequently quite isolated from
the others. The relation to practice is then only mediate.
INTRODUCTION 297
It is useful, indeed, to know everything about nature, or
spirits, or magic, in order to control eventually the religious
reality; but this control is exerted by the peasant himself
to only a small extent, since there are specialists who not
only know more than the peasant does about the nature of
this world but have particular means and particular powers.
Except by prayer and a few simple ceremonies, the peasant
does not try to turn his knowledge directly into control, but
appeals to the specialist. As soon as the latter intrudes
between religious theory and religious practice the interest
in theory loses its relation to practical aims. Myth then
becomes for the layman chiefly a theoretic explanation,
but, on the other hand, the interest in mythology remains
for a long time the most popular form in which the peasant's
desire for explanations manifests itself. The reality of this
desire is shown by the fact that Christian mythology,
particularly its part concerning the origin of things and
of their qualities, has grown considerably, and many old
myths, such as those of Genesis, have been greatly changed,
systematized, and completed. Lately the explanatory sci-
ences— physics, chemistry, biology, geology — have begun
to take the place of religion.
To these three spheres of theoretic interest — schemes
built in view of practice, concrete facts, genetic explana-
tions— correspond three different types of specialists. We
find, first of all, the wise and experienced old peasant who
plays in the village or in the community the role of an adviser
in troubles and is the real intellectual leader at all the
meetings having some practical situation in view. He has
usually a good material position; his success is a guaranty
of his wisdom. He must be well known for his honesty,
otherwise people would not listen to him. He must have
traveled nlore or less and met many different people, for
this gives assurance that he will be able to grasp any new
298 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
situation. He is prudent, conservative, mistrusting. He
talks with deliberation, slowly, weighing carefully every
word. His arguments seldom fail to persuade, because they
express ideas which his listeners had more or less clearly
realized themselves. He usually selects only some of the
many ready schemes; his main function is their systematiza-
tion and adaptation to the given practical problem. These
"advisers," as we may call them, are frequently the greatest
obstacle to all the efforts to enlighten and organize the
peasants ; but if once such an intellectual leader is won, the
community follows him rapidly and easily. Such men are
often elected mayors of the commune. In extraordinary
epochs of rapid social change (as during the revolutionary
period of 1904-6) the old adviser may be provisionally
supplanted by a popular agitator whose influence is based,
not upon personal authority and not upon a selection of
arguments which the community implicitly approves, but
upon an ability to provoke favorable feelings. Then the
peasant himself finds among his various schemes the
necessary arguments.
The second type may be called the " narrator." He may
be old or young; formerly he should have traveled much,
now he may simply read much. He is the source of informa-
tion about facts. His importance is not even approximately
as great as that of the adviser. He is seldom if ever asked
for advice in important matters. He may have no social
position at all; he may be a daily worker, a hired servant, or
even a parasite. He has inherited the function of the
.ancient beggar or pilgrim. A solid social position is even
hardly compatible with this function if the latter is steadily
performed, for naturally much time is needed to learn new
facts. Insignificant in times of work and serious business,
the narrator becomes a personality at moments* free from
practical care, on winter evenings when the family and the
INTRODUCTION 299
neighbors gather in the big room of some rich peasant — men
smoking, women doing some light handiwork — and listen
to the narration. Lately, since reading has developed, the
narrator is being gradually supplanted by the reader.
The function of "explaining" was traditionally per-
formed by the "wise" man or woman, and by the priest,
often by the organist. Since religious explanations have
begun to give place to scientific explanations there is an
evident need for a new kind of specialist. Indeed, this is the
moment for the appearance of the "philosopher" in the
ancient Greek sense, for the modern scientist with his
specialization cannot satisfy the peasant's many-sided
desire for explanation. Hence this type also is beginning
to develop. It is the self-taught man, reading every book
he can get, always prepared to discuss any subject and eager
to explain everything. He writes elaborate letters to the
papers, wants to contribute to the solution of every scientific
problem about which he hears, is eager to correspond with
scientists whose fame reaches him, and is continually
thinking about abstract matters. As this type is recent
in the country his position in the peasant community is not
yet sufficiently determined. But since he is the natural
antagonist of the priest, it is probable that he will become
an intellectual leader of the anti-religious movement when
this movement develops in the country. Among the lower
classes of the town population he already plays a part in
this movement.
The social prestige attached to the functions of the
adviser, the narrator, and the philosopher, even if often mixed
in the beginning with a particular kind of condescension with
regard to the two latter types, is a strong factor in instruc-
tion. Reciprocally, when instruction develops, the prestige
of these functions grows. We shall see how the movement
of "enlightenment" uses this circumstance for its ends.
300 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
In general, the rapid intellectual progress of the peasant
during the last thirty years, as well as the progress of social
organization, are made possible only through certain pre-
existing features of the peasant's intellectual and social life.
The men who lead the peasants have succeeded in exploiting
those features for the sake of a higher cultural development,
and this is their merit.
2. The aesthetic interests of the peasant have two main
sources — religion and amusement.
We have already noticed the frequent analogy between
religious and aesthetic fantasy; both tend to individualize
their object, both find a particular meaning in the empirical
data which goes beyond the sensual content. However,
while in religion this super-sensual side of the world is
taken quite seriously as a perfect reality and referred to
practice, from the standpoint of the aesthetic interest its
existence is not believed and its role is only to give more
significance to the sensual world itself. Hence religious
beliefs whose seriousness is lost or whose real sense is
forgotten become aesthetic attitudes. We find innumerable
examples in the peasant life. Old tales in which naturalistic
religious beliefs are still plainly noticeable and many of the
spirit stories are now merely matters of entertainment; the
narrator often changes, shortens, develops, combines them,
giving free play to his imagination. Most of the patterns,
forms, and combinations of colors in popular architecture,
furniture, dress, and ornament had a magical value.1 The
magical significance is mainly forgotten, but the traditional
models still determine the taste. Old ceremonies whose
original religious meaning can be easily recognized even now
often remain only aesthetically valuable for the peasant,
1 Cf. M. Wawrzeniecki, Nowe naukowe stanawisko pojmowania i wyjatniania
niektdrych przejawdw w dziedzinie ludoznawstwa (Warsaw, 1910).
INTRODUCTION 301
who has a very keen sense for the picturesque, theatrical
side of ceremonial groups and collective or individual
performances. Often while the religious attitude is still
vital it is so mixed with the aesthetic feeling that it is
impossible to determine which is more important. Many
religious songs are sung at home for the sake of aesthetic
enjoyment, and it happens that a religious melody is used
with worldly words, or vice versa. Images of saints are
frequently treated simply as pictures. When the church
is adorned with flowers or when girls dressed in white throw
flowers before the priest during the Corpus Christi proces-
sion, the religious attitude is evidently dominant. But we
cannot say this with certainty when houses are adorned at
Pentecost with green and flowers or when the Christmas-
tree is dressed. In short, we not only see the results of the
degeneration of old religions into aesthetic attitudes, but
at every moment and in innumerable details we see the
process still going on.
From social amusements arise many of the aesthetic
interests of the peasant. Popular music and poetry hi
particular have their main source here. Most of the music
is developed from dance music, as the rhythm shows. All
the popular poems are songs. At present it is still the
custom in many localities when boys and girls meet, with or
without dancing, to sing alternately old songs and invent
new ones, either seriously or jokingly. Sometimes long
poems are composed and repeated in this way, one stanza
by a boy, another by a girl. Love is usually the more or
less serious subject of the poems sung in a mixed society,
while others sung by boys or girls alone have a great variety
of subjects, embracing the whole sphere of peasant life.
A type of poetry whose source is undetermined is cere-
monial songs and speeches in verse sung or recited at
weddings, funerals, christenings, the end of harvest, and at
302 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
other familial and social festivals. Many of them are very
old and in all probability originally had a religious sig-
nificance. Sometimes they are modified to suit the occasion.
Others are more recent, sometimes composed for the occa-
sion, and their aim is evidently social — to entertain the
persons present, to give advice and warning, to express
feelings of familial or communal solidarity, to ask for gifts,
to extend thanks for hospitality, etc.
More recently an intense aesthetic movement has mani-
fested itself among the peasants, particularly along literary
lines, and while this is developed upon the traditional
background it tends increasingly to come under the influence
of the models presented by the upper classes. There are
probably few, if any, among the half -educated peasants who
do not try to become poets. We shall examine this move-
ment in a later volume.
FORM AND FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT
LETTER
The Polish peasant, as the present collection shows,
writes many and long letters. This is particularly striking,
since the business of writing or even of reading letters is
at best very difficult for him. It requires a rather painful
effort of reflection and sacrifice of time. Letter-writing is
for him a social duty of a ceremonial character, and the
traditional, fixed form of peasant letters is a sign of their
social function.
All the peasant letters can be considered as variations of
one fundamental type, whose form results from its function
and remains always essentially the same, even if it eventually
degenerates. We call this type the "bowing letter."
The bowing letter is normally written by or to a member
of the family who is absent for a certain time. Its function
is to manifest the persistence of familial solidarity in spite
of the separation. Such an expression became necessary
only when members of the family began to leave their
native locality; as long as the family stayed in the same
community, the solidarity was implicitly and permanently
assumed. The whole group manifested its unity at period-
ical and extraordinary meetings, but no single member in
particular was obliged to manifest his own familial feelings
more than other members, unless on some extraordinary
occasions, e.g., at the time of his or her marriage. But the
individual who leaves his family finds himself in a distinctive
situation as compared with that of other members, and the
bowing letter is the product of this situation. There is
nothing corresponding to it in personal, immediate familial
relations.
304 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
In accordance with its function, the bowing letter has
an exactly determined composition. It begins with the
religious greeting: "Praised be Jesus Christus," to which
the reader is supposed to answer, "In centuries of centuries.
Amen." The greeting has both a magical and a moral
significance. Magically it averts evil, morally it shows that
the writer and the reader are members of the same religious
community, and from the standpoint of the moral-religious
system every community is religious. A common subordi-
nation to God may also be otherwise expressed throughout
the entire letter, but the greeting is the most indispen-
sable expression. There follows the information that the
writer, with God's help, is in good health and is succeeding,
and wishes the same for the reader and the rest of the family.
We know that health (struggle against death) and living
constitute the reason of natural and human solidarity
(only spiritual solidarity aims at power). Finally come
greetings, "bows," for all the members of the family, or
from all the members of the family if the letter is written
to the absent member. The enumeration should be com-
plete, embracing at least all the members who still live in
the same locality, if the family is already scattered, as
often happens today.
These elements remain in every letter, even when the
function of the letter becomes more complicated; every
letter, in other words, whatever else it may be, is a bowing
letter, a manifestation of solidarity. Various elements may
be schematized; the words "bows for the whole family"
may, for example, be substituted for the long enumeration,
but the principle remains unchanged in all the familial
letters.
The bowing letter is the only one which has an original
function. The functions of all the other types of familial
letters are vicarious; the letter merely takes the place of a
FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT LETTER 305
personal, immediate communication. It has to perform
these vicarious functions when the absence of the member
of the family becomes so long that it is impossible to wait
for his arrival.
According to the nature of these vicarious functions, we
can distinguish five types of family letters, each of which is
also and fundamentally a bowing letter.
1. Ceremonial letters. — These are sent on such familial
occurrences as normally require the presence of all the
members of the family — weddings, christenings, funerals,
name-days of older members of the group; Christmas,
New Year, Easter. These letters are substitutes for cere-
monial speeches. The absent member sends the speech
written instead of saying it himself. The function of such
a letter is the same as the function of meeting and speech,
namely, the revival of the familial feeling on a determined
occasion which concerns the whole group.
2. Informing letters. — The bowing letter leaves the
detailed narration of the life of the absent member or of
the family-group for a future personal meeting. But if the
meeting is not likely to occur soon, the letter has to perform
this function vicariously and provisionally. In this way
a community of interests is maintained in the family,
however long the separation may be.
3. Sentimental letters. — If the primitive, half -instinctive
familial solidarity weakens as a consequence of the separa-
tion, the sentimental letter has the task of reviving the
feelings in the individual, independently of any ceremonial
occasion.
4. Literary letters. — We have seen that during informal
meetings as well as during ceremonies the aesthetic interests
of the peasant find their most usual expression in the form
of music, songs, and recital of poems. The absent member
who cannot take a personal part in the entertainments
306 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of his group often sends a letter in verse instead, and is
sometimes answered in the same way. It is an amusement
which has an element of vanity in it, since the letter is
destined to be read in public. The literary letters certainly
play an important part in the evolution through which the
primitive aesthetic interests, manifested during the meetings
of the primary group, change into literary interests whose
satisfaction depends upon print.
5. Business letters. — The vicarious function of these is
quite plain. As far as possible the peasant does all his
business in person, and resorts to a business letter only when
the separation is long and the distance too great for a special
meeting.
Up to the present we have spoken of family letters, for
the original function of the letter was to keep members of a
family in touch with one another. Letters to strangers can
perform all the functions of a family letter, but the essential
one of maintaining solidarity exists only in so far as the
solidarity itself is assumed. Correspondence with a stranger
can also help to establish a connection which did not exist
before — a function which the family letter has only when
a new member is added to the family through marriage, i.e.,
when a stranger becomes assimilated.
We must mention also the question of the relation of
expression to thought in the peasant letters. The peasant
language, as can be noticed even in translation, has many
traditional current phrases used in determined circum-
stances for determined attitudes. They are not, like prov-
erbs, results of a general reflection about life, but merely
socially fixed ways of speaking or writing. The peasant
uses them, not only for traditional attitudes, but also
in some measure to express attitudes which already
diverge from the tradition, if this divergence is not felt
clearly to necessitate a new expression. And when he
FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT LETTER 307
gets outside of the usual form of expression and tries to
find new words and new phrases, then, of course, it is
difficult for him to keep the exact proportion, particularly
when he uses the literary language. He sometimes uses
great words to express trifles, or, more frequently, he
expresses profound and strong feelings in phrases which to
an intelligent reader seem weak and commonplace, but
which seem strong and adequate to the writer, who is less
familiar with them. But when the peasant, instead of
trying to imitate the literary language, finds for his new
attitudes words in his own philological stock, his style has
often a freshness and accuracy impossible to render in
translation.
Further, society always tends to ritualize social inter-
course to some extent, and every modification of a ritual
produces disturbances more profound than could reasonably
be anticipated. We have, for example, ritualized remarks
on the weather in connections where social intercourse is
limited to casual meetings and greetings, and if on these
occasions a man remarked habitually, "Fine trees," in the
place of "Fine weather," this would lead to speculations
on his sanity. With the peasant, as with the savage, the
whole of social intercourse, including language, is more
rigorously ritualized than with ourselves, and so long
as the peasant remains within the sphere of traditional
language the slightest shading of the expression is signifi-
cant. We notice in this connection that in our material
there is very little profanity or abuse between acquaint-
ances or family members in personal intercourse. For the
outsider and the absent person there are indeed adequate
forms of abuse, but between those nearly related the maxi-
mum effect can be produced by the minimum divergence
from the usual language norms. See Raczkowski series,
Nos. 404, 429.
308 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
SPECIMEN PEASANT LETTERS
The following letters, or portions of letters, are printed
here to illustrate the elements, as enumerated above, that
enter into a letter. It will be understood that these
specimens are intended to represent the more primitive
and elemental types, into which little of the informing
and business elements enters. Specimens of informing and
business letters are not reproduced at this point, as they are
the dominant type in the later series. See, for examples,
Wroblewski series and Kowalski series.
No. i below is an almost pure type of bowing letter.
No. 2 is of the same type, written to a priest who took
special interest in teaching peasants to write informing
letters — not very successfully in this case.
No. 3 is sentimental, designed to "warm the frozen
blood" of an absent brother.
No. 4 is the ceremonial-congratulatory portion of a
letter.
No. 5 is interesting as containing all the norms of a
peasant letter, and also as an example of how proper and
charming a letter may be within the traditional norms.
The letter was written on "Palmer House" paper, but the
writer was either a scrub-girl or a chambermaid. She is
barely literate, as shown by the orthography and the
absence of punctuation and capitalization. The girl to
whom the letter was addressed could not write at all.
No. 6 is from a girl in Poland to her brother-in-law in
America, and shows in its most na'ive form the character of
literary effort. It contains indications that the brother-
in-law also was attempting literary achievement.
No. 7 is the beginning of his reply to Magdusia.
No. 8 is the rhymed and versified portion of a ceremonial
letter to the writer of No. 7. As poetry it is very bad, and
toward the end the versification and rhyme break down.
FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT LETTER 309
Generally speaking, every literate peasant tries at some
time in his life to write poetry, but the tendency expresses
itself in profusion only when he begins to write for the
newspapers, and this situation we treat in Volume IV.
i PERTH AMBOY, N.Y., August n, 1911
In the first words of my letter, beloved parents, we address you
with these words of God: "Praised be Jesus Christus," and we hope
that you will answer, "For centuries of centuries. Amen."
And now I inform you about my health and success, that by the
favor of God we are well, and we wish you the same. We wish you
this, beloved parents, from our whole hearts. We inform you further
that we received your letter, which found us in good health, which we
wish to you. And now we ask how is the weather in the [old] country,
because we have such heat that the sun is no degrees warm and many
people fell dead from the sun during the summer of this year. Now,
beloved father and beloved mother, I kiss your hands and legs. I end
my conversation with you. Remain with God. Let God help you
with good health and [permit me] to meet with you, beloved parents.
So now I bow to you, beloved sister, and to you, beloved brother-
in-law, and I wish you happiness and health and good success — what
you yourselves wish from God this same I, with my husband, wish
you. So now I bow to Aunt Doruta, and to brother Aleksander, and
to Jozef , and to you, my grandmother, and I wish you health and good
success; what you yourself wish from God the same I wish to you,
beloved grandmother, and to you, beloved sister, together with you,
beloved brother. Now I bow to brother-in-law Moscenski and to
sister Adela, and we wish them all kinds of success; what they wish
from God the same we wish them. Now we send the lowest bow to
the Doborkoskis, to brother-in-law and to sister and to their children,
and we wish happiness, health, good success. What they wish from
God the same we wish to them. - Goodbye.
Now I, Stanislaw Pienczkowski, send a bow to my [wife's] parents,
and I inform you, beloved parents, about my health, and that by the
favor of God I am well, and the same I wish to you, beloved parents,
and I ask you, beloved parents, why you do not write a letter, because
I sent [a letter] to the Nowickis a week later, and they received it,
and I cannot wait long enough [cannot endure the waiting] to get a
letter. Therefore I ask you, beloved parents, to write me back a
letter quicker. [No signature]
310 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
2 GERIGSWALDE
I, Leon Wesoly, writing April 28, 1912. "Praised be Jesus
Christus." First of all, I lay down low bows to you, Canon Priest,
as to my shepherd, and I inform you, Ecclesiastical Father, about
our work and health. Thanks to God and the Holiest Mother, I am
well. The work that I have is to arrange the bricks for burning.
Also I inform you, Canon Priest, that there was a solar eclipse on the
ist of April from i to 2 o'clock, but it happened so indecently that
even shivers were catching a man. I do not have more to write, only
I lay down sincere low bows from everybody with whom I work and
live in this [despicable] Germany. Also I send a low bow to my wife,
Rozalja. I do not have more to write. May God grant it. Amen.
Praised be Jesus Christus. Address the same.
LEON WESOLY
3 WARSAW, April 29, 1914
"Praised be Jesus Christus."
DEAR BROTHER: [Greetings; health]. Although we write little
to each other, almost not at all, and I don't know why such coldness
prevails between us, still I write this letter from fraternal feeling, not
from principle. I was with our parents for the holidays of the
Resurrection of Our Lord. I read your letters, the one and the other.
Our parents grieve that we live only for our own selves, like egotists.
So it is my duty to take the pen into my hand and with God's help
to write you a few words. At first, I thank you, dear brother Jan, for
your kind memory of our parents — for not forgetting them. Don't
forget them in the future. Our father still looks sound and gay.
Mother has grown old already, but she does not look bad, either. I
have seen our whole brother-in-law [all of him]. I don't know whether
you are acquainted with him. Such an [ordinary] boy! Not even
ugly, only too small and with a white head. But our sister Marya
looks very sickly. I could not recognize her. Stefa is in good health,
but she "lacks the fifth stave" [is crazy]. And Franciszka is sick
of consumption. I don't know whether it will be possible to save her,
because she has been ill for the whole winter and looks like a shadow.
And she is our pride, endowed with knowledge and a clever mind.
What faculties she possesses for learning and for everything ! So, dear
brother, we ought to make the greatest efforts to keep alive a sister
whom we love exceedingly and who loves us. This is the result o
FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT LETTER 311
my inquiries in the parental home. I write today letters to our
parents also and to our aunt in Zambrow. Write to them also. I
send them my photograph. Send yours also. I send my photograph
also to you. Send me yours You know the address of our
aunt .... and I beg you, dear brother, [write to her]. She loves
us so much though she never sees us. Be so good and God will
reward you. This will be her whole comfort, because who can com-
fort her ? She prays God for our health and good success. Don't
forget her. I kiss you and shake your hand. Your loving brother
forever. STANISLAW NUCZKOWSKI
May this letter warm your frozen blood! Let us live in love and
concord, and God will help us.
4 POREBY WOLSKIE, January 30, 1910
"Praised be Jesus Christus."
DEAREST CHILDREN, AND PARTICULARLY YOU, DAUGHTER-IN-LAW:
We write you the third letter and we have no answer from you.
[Greetings; health; wishes.] We hope that this letter will come to
you for February 16, and on February 16 is the day of St. Julianna,
patron of our daughter-in-law. Well, we congratulate you, dear
daughter-in-law, because it is your name-day. We wish you health
and happiness and long life. May you never have any sorrow; may
you love one another and live in concord and love; may our Lord God
make you happy in human friendship; may you be happy and gay;
may our Lord God supply all your wants; may you lack nothing;
may our Lord God defend you against every evil accident and keep
you in his protection and grant you his gifts, the heavenly dew and the
earthly fat. May our Lord God give you every sweetness, make you
happy, and save you from evil. This your father and mother wish
you from their whole heart
JAN AND EWA STELMACH
5 28, 1912
I am beginning this letter with the words: "Praised be Jesus
Christus," and I hope that you will answer: "For centuries of
centuries. Amen."
DEAREST OLEJNICZKA: I greet you from my heart, and wish you
health and happiness. God grant that this little letter reaches you
312 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
well, and as happy as the birdies in May. This I wish you from my
heart, dear Olejniczka.
The rain is falling; it falls beneath my slipping feet.
I do not mind; the post-office is near.
When I write my little letter,
I will flit with it there,
And then, dearest Olejniczka,
My heart will be light [from giving you a pleasure].
In no grove do the birds sing so sweetly
As my heart, dearest Olejniczka, for you.
Go, little letter, across the broad sea, for I cannot come to you.
When I arose in the morning, I looked up to the heavens and thought
to myself that to you, dearest Olejniczka, a little letter I must send.
Dearest Olejniczka, I left papa, I left sister and brother and you,
to start out in the wide world, and today I am yearning and fading
away like the world without the sun. If I shall ever see you again,
then, like a little child, of great joy I shall cry. To your feet I shall
bow low, and your hands I shall kiss. Then you shall know how I
love you, dearest Olejniczka. I went up on a high hill and looked
in that far direction, but I see you not, but I see you not, and I hear
you not.
Dear Olejniczka, only a few words will I write. As many sand-
grains as there are in the field, as many drops of water in the sea, so
many sweet years of life I, Walercia, wish you for the Easter holidays-
I wish you all good, a hundred years of life, health, and happiness.
And loveliness I wish you. I greet you through the white lilies, I
think of you every night, dearest Olejniczka.
Are you not in Bielice any more, or what ? Answer, as I sent you
a letter and there is no answer. Is there no one to write for you ?
And now I write you how I am getting along. I am getting along
well, very well. I have worked in a factory and I am now working
in a hotel. I receive 18 (in our money 32) dollars a month, and that
is very good. If you would like it, we could bring Wladzio over some
day. We eat here every day what we get only for Easter in our
country. We are bringing over Helena and brother now. I had
$120 and I sent back $90.
I have no more to write, only we greet you from our heart, dearest
Olejniczka. And the Olejniks and their children; and Wladyslaw we
greet; and the Szases with their children; and the Zwolyneks with
FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT LETTER 313
their children; and the Grotas with their children, and the Gyrlas
with their children; and all our acquaintances we greet.
My address: North America [etc.]
Goodbye. For the present, sweet goodbye.
6 WOLKA SOKOLOWSKA, April 22
I sit down at a table
In a painted room.
My table shakes.
I write a letter to you, dear sister and
brother-in-law.
A lily blossomed
And it was the Virgin Mary.
I dreamed thus
That my heart was near yours.
First we shall greet each other,
But not with hands,
Only with those godly words,
The words "Praised be Jesus Christus."
I inform you now that it is cold here, hard to plant or to sow
anything. I beg you, don't be angry with me for not having answered
you [for] so long, but I had no time.
Now I am writing to you, dear brother-in-law, with a smile, for
when I read your letter, I laughed very much and I thought that you
must have been in a good school since you knew so [well] how to
compose that letter. But all this [that you write] is nothing [cannot
come to pass], for is there any boy quite ready to come [and to marry
me]?
Now, dear sister Ulis, I inform you that Jasiek went to you and
I remained at home, for we could not both go together. And then,
perhaps [sister] Hanka will get married, so there would be nobody to
work. Perhaps there will be a wedding [Hanka's] when everything
is planted. Now I beg you, dear brother-in-law, and you, Ulis, send
me a few cents, for when I am a best maid, I should like to treat my
.... [illegible word], and I have no money, for at home nothing can
be earned. And I think that you don't need much money yet, for
you have no children. Now I thank our Lord God that I have got
such a good and funny brother-in-law, that we know how to speak to
314 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
each other in such a funny way in our letters. When I am marrying
I will invite you to be my best man. Now there won't be any war.
Now there is nothing more interesting at home, only we are in good
health, all of us, and we wish you the same. Our cattle are healthy,
thanks to God. There is nothing more to write. When Hanusia is
married they will write for you [to come] and invite you
[Greetings.]
[MAGDUSIA]
Now, dear [cousin] Jagus, I write to you. When father was once
in your mother's house, your mother talked much against you, for
when Makar was coming back to our country Jozef [your husband]
wanted to give [send] trousers and a blouse, but you did not give
[them]. So your mother is angry with you.
7 April 6, 1914
Go, little letter, by railway
But don't go to the tavern, where people drink beer,
For if you went there, you would get drunk.
And you would never find the way to my sister,
Go, little letter, through fields and meadows
And when you reach Magdusia, kiss her hand.
And now "Praised be Jesus Christus" and Mary, his mother, for
shejs worthy of it
[JOZEF DYBIEC]
8 BRANNAU, December n, 1910
.... And now, beloved brother and dear brother-in-law,
On the solemn day of Christmas and New Year
I send wishes to your home,
And I beg you, beloved brother-in-law and sister and dear
brother,
Accept my wishes,
For I am of the same blood as you.
On this solemn day I am also rejoicing.
And if I live and come back, I shall wish you by words.
I think that I shall live to come back to you,
And I wish you to live until then,
And to congratulate together one another.
FUNCTION OF THE PEASANT LETTER 315
For the day of New Year I wish you everything;
May the Lord God bless you from His high heaven.
I wish you happiness and every good luck,
And, after death, in heaven a heavenly joy.
As many sands as there are in the sea, as many fishes in the
rivers,
Even so much health and money I wish you.
As many drops as fall into the sea,
Even so much happiness may God grant you.
And now I wish you happy holidays
And a happy "Hey, kolenda, kolenda!"1
And may you live until a gay and happy New Year.
And may God grant you health and strength for work,
And may you earn much money.
And I wish you a fine and merry amusement
On Christmas day at the supper.
I will not write you more in verses,
For I have to write in other words [i.e., in prose].
STANISLAW DYBIEC
1 Refrain of a Christmas song.
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MEMBERS OF
FAMILY-GROUPS
In addition to the exhibition of various attitudes these
letters show the primitive familial organization hi its relation
to the problems which confront the group hi the various
situations of life. These situations are conditioned either
by normal internal and external processes and events to
which the familial organization was originally adapted —
birth, growth, marriage, death of members of the group,
normal economic conditions, traditional social environment,
traditional religious life — or by new tendencies and new
external influences to which the familial organization was
not originally adapted, such as the increase of instruction
and the dissemination of new ideas, economic and social ad-
vance, change of occupation, change of social environment
through emigration to cities, to America, and to Germany,
and contact with neighboring nationalities, mainly the
Russian and German.
Materials of this character do not lend themselves to a
strictly systematic arrangement, but the letters are arranged
as far as possible with reference to the presentation of two
questions: the dominant situation hi which the group or
its member finds itself, and the progressive disintegration
of the family-group.
316
BOREK SERIES
We place first a short series of letters written by children.
The girl, Bronislawa, is about seventeen years old, the boy,
Jozef , thirteen or fourteen. The business part of the letters
is evidently written at the request of the parents. The
Polish of the letters is very interesting, typically peasant,
without the slightest influence of the literary language; even
many phonetic peculiarities find their expression in the
spelling. This proves that the writers, particularly the
girl, who is the principal author, are untouched by new
cultural influences. And indeed for a Polish reader Bronis-
lawa appears as a perfect type of a plain peasant girl in all
her attitudes and interests. And this is the more noticeable
because in the same village and vicinity live families who,
particularly in the younger generation, are to a great extent
outside and partly above the traditional peasant set of
attitudes. This proves how individualized and variable is
the influence of modern life upon the peasant milieu; we
meet wide variations even within a single family.
The particular freshness and vividness of interest toward
all the elementary problems of communal, familial, and
personal life shown in this series — typical for the peasant,
though in the case of Bronislawa due in part to the fact
that the girl is passing from childhood to womanhood —
may be compared both with the Markiewicz series (Nos.
142 ff.), where many interests have been developed under
the influence of instruction, and with the Kanikula series
where the lack of interest in the communal life results in
an intellectual dulness which hinders the persons from be-
coming interested in the variety of situations which even the
simplest life involves.
317
3i 8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Another point of special interest in this series is the early
fixation of attitudes in the peasant child. In a "primary"
group like the peasant community the schematization of
life in its main outlines is relatively fixed and simple, and
the attitudes and values involved are universally and
uncritically accepted. The child, as we may note in these
letters, participates freely in the interests of the family and
the community and acquires at a tender age the elements of
a very stubborn conservatism.
9-16, FROM BRONISLAWA AND JOZEF BOREK IN POLAND TO
THEIR BROTHER IN AMERICA
9 DOBRZYKOW, October 9, 1913, month loth
DEAR BROTHER: [Usual greetings and wishes; letters received
and sent.] As to this Alliance, you can inscribe yourself [become a
member], for you may be in danger of life.1 Moreover, you will
receive a paper, you will have something to read. In our whole
parish there is no news. The priest is building a barn and is calling
for money. The organist is already consecrated as priest. He was
here in Dobrzykow. In Gombin they are building the basement of
the church. In Dobrzykow they sing very beautifully [in the choir].
They want to build schools in the commune of Dobrzykow,2 but
people don't want to agree, because it would be very expensive for
every morg [taxes being paid in proportion to land]. Nothing good
happened here. It rains more than in any year. [Crops and farm-
work.] We should have harvested everything, but we had to work
back [pay back with work] for the horses which they [our neighbors]
lent us to plow. When we were digging [potatoes], an accident
happened. Our hog broke his leg. And, in general, times are sad, it
is autumn, it rains continually, and everything is very sad. My
1 The Polish National Alliance in America insures its members. But the plan
of life insurance is little known among the peasants, and in this case the girl seems
to assume that the insurance of life would protect from death.
2 The result of a new law permitting every commune to have as many schools
as it determined, and assuring certain governmental help. This led to an agitation
among the peasants by the intelligent classes for the development of public instruc-
tion. (See Vol. IV.)
BOREK SERIES 319
dear brother, I am also weary [with staying] at home. And now, we
beg you, send us as soon as possible any money which you can, for
we need it very much And now you have a new suit, so send
us your photograph, for I am curious to see Grodny's [daugh-
ter] Ewka is going to America, also to Chicago. She boasted that
she is going to a sweetheart. She told it only to me, but people are
also talking about it. Amen. [BRONISLAWA]
10 October 26, 1913
.... DEAR BROTHER: .... We received the money, 100
roubles, for which we thank you heartily With [sister] Micha-
lina it is as it was. She has no wish to marry this one, she waits for
another. And now we inform you what we did with this money.
We gave the Markiewiczs those 50 roubles back with interest, and
to the [commune] office a payement and interest. You asked for our
advice, dear brother, whether you ought to inscribe yourself in the
alliance. [Repeats the advice of the preceding letter.] When you send
money, now, it will be for Michalina [i.e., dowry]. We are very
satisfied that our Lord God helps you, so that people even envy you.
What are the wages for girls ? What could I earn ? Although you
work much, yet at least you earn well.
I [Jozef] have an accordeon, and I assist at the holy Mass.
Mother bought me a surplice. Bronislawa goes to the choir and sings.
Now it is sad here, because autumn came.
I, Bronislawa, and I, Jozef, beg you, dear brother, with our whole
heart, send us 10 roubles for a gramophone. Now I inform you, dear
brother, that I long very much for you, because I never see you. I
have tears in my eyes always whenever I remember you.1
[BRONISLAWA]
11 December 23, 1913, month i2th
.... DEAR BROTHER: .... We received your letter
We were very sad, particularly Broncia [Bronislawa] and I, Jozef,
that you did not write for so long a time We have now not so
much work We have holidays. It will be very merry for us,
1 Certainly the longing is sincere, but it is here naively used to make the
brother more favorable to the request. We see in it the germ of the policy of
Kozlowska. (Cf. that series.)
320 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
for now they [the season-workers] have come from Prussia, so there
are many people in our village. We have no horse, for we don't need
it any more. Our young cow will calve soon. After Christmas we
shall thresh the rest of the rye. We killed the pig for ourselves
There is no news now In carnival perhaps there will be more
news. [Marriages enumerated.]
There is a blacksmith who wants to buy the forge Do you
order us to sell it or not, for he is waiting We ask you, dear
brother, whether you write letters to Bugel's daughter, for Bugel
boasted to our father that she intends to wait for you. Wladyslawa
Jarosinska boasts also [that you write to her]. Bronka [Bronislawa]
is curious what work she will do in America and what weather is there
now. We thank you for this gift which you intend to send us.
When you send it, address it to Bronka's name, or else they [the
parents] will take it. Now I, Jozef, know already how to assist very
nicely at the Mass in Latin. And the singers [women] sing beautiful
Christmas songs. Our priest built a very nice barn. And in Gombin
they built a barn for people [to worship], because only the basement
of the church is ready. And Walenty Ostroski began to go [to the
church] and to sing, but he had no voice.
And I, Bronislawa, will probably visit you hi the spring, for we
don't know with certainty whether Michalina will get married or not.
I, Bronislawa, I could marry if I wanted to take the first man, but
I won't marry just anybody. Szymanski's son wants to marry me,
and perhaps it would be well for me, because he will take me to
Warsaw, to [set up] a shop or restaurant. But I don't want him, for
he is crippled. I have another who turns my head, but only when he
comes back from the army. If Michalina marries, I will also marry.
But I am not in a hurry to get married. Did I merit with God
nobody more than him [the cripple] ? Our Lord God will help me to
get somebody else. I hide myself from him, but he comes to me
nevertheless, and brings with him more boys from the mills. We ask
you whether Witkowski has children in America, or some additional
wife? .... Alina Krajeska brought a small Prussian for herself
[had an illegal child in Prussia]. We inform you, brother, what a
good father we have. He lives like a king, and we all — you know
how it was before ? Well, now it is still worse. It is hard, much to
complain of on all sides
I, BRONISLAWA and JOZEF BOREK
BOREK SERIES 321
%
12 February 10, 1914
.... I, Bronislawa, received 10 roubles and i copeck, for which
I thank you heartily, dear brother. Now we inform you that the
wedding [of Michalina] has been celebrated already on the day of
Our Lady of the Thunder-Candles,1 at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
Very few guests were in our house, only 60. There were 4 musicians.
The music was very beautiful. The musicians were strangers, from
Wykow. There were 8 best men and 8 best girls The
wedding was very merry, so that even grandmother and grandfather
danced. [Enumerates other weddings.] We were at the poprawiny
[supplementary dancing; literally, " repairing "; a festival to complete
a former one] in Trosin, in the house of the parents of our brother-in-
law. He is a great success for us. Their fortune is big enough
If you did not send those 100 roubles, don't send them now, only
together [with the next] in March, because we don't need them now. i
Don't be afraid, you can send this money, we won't waste it, we shall J
lend itat interest. We have nothing more to write, only we salute
you ~ T3ro ther-in-la w and Michalina salute you. And now we will
write you who was with us at the wedding. [Enumerates.] And others
also, but we won't express [name] any more. The family of our
brother-in-law is orderly and full of character and agreeable and good.
The brother-in-law's brother has an accordeon of one and a half
tunes [octaves?], worth 40 roubles. He plays and sings very nicely.
Michalina is greatly respected, all his brothers kiss her hand
[BRONISEAWA and JOZEF]
13 February 26, 1914
.... DEAR BROTHER: .... Our young cow calved on Febru-
ary 1 8. Grandfather and grandmother promise to will their land to
Michalina, from April i. They are to live in the grandparents'
house, to give them to eat and i rouble every week. Our young cow
calved, had a she-calf. We shall keep her. And you, Wladzio, don't
be afraid that we shall lose this money; we won't waste it, we won't
spend it on drinking; when you come back, you will have this money.
«... Michalina collected 25 roubles for her caul.
And I, Michalina Jasinska, thank you for the forge which you
gave me for my caul, and also for those 100 roubles which you intend
1 So called because of the ceremony of the consecration of candles supposed to
avert thunder-stroke.
322 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
to send me for the wedding, although you did not send them
We borrowed 100 roubles from Markiewicz, but this money we paid
back to K With the money which I collected for my caul I
bought for myself a feather-cover, 3 pillows, and I paid 2 roubles to
the cook. There were gaps enough which I had to stop. Only 10
roubles were left, and they want me to give even them, grandfather
for a horse, and father for flour. Well, I got married, it is true, but
I am neither upon water nor upon ice [not settled]
And now I write, Bronislawa B In our choir there are
few girls left, for the others got married. [Enumerates these.] On the
last day of carnival we were in Trosinek [with the parents of the
brother-in-law] — our brother-in-law, Michalina, grandfather and I.
His brothers respect me much. His brother played the accordeon, and
I played also. They were at our house on Sunday. People envy us
very much because of this luck. Now our brother-in-law is in our
house, and later perhaps he will be in grandfather's house, for grand-
father cannot work. And perhaps he will will him [his farm], for he
pleased grandfather much. And I, Bronka, shall be at home, for
you write, dear brother, that in America it is bad. Don't grieve, dear
brother, about me, I shall get married even in our country, since
Michalina is already married.1 But I will wait until you come from
America, for I desire either you, dear brother, to be at my wedding,
or myself to be at yours. Either I will be best girl at your wedding
or you shall be best man at mine.
We are very satisfied that Michalina got married, only we were
very sorry that you were not at the wedding. His brothers are so
agreeable that nobody could be ashamed of them. They greet us
while they are still far from us. The youngest of them is 20 years old.
From this money I, Bronka, bought myself stuff for a dress, and I,
Jozef, a suit, and we gave mother the rest. Michalina had a white
dress at her wedding. Three carriages went to the wedding. I greet
you, I, Bronislawa, and I, Jozef.
14 May 19, 1914
.... We thank you, dear brother, for your photograph, and
father asks you for money — to send some to us. If you cannot send
more, send at least 100 roubles for the Markiewiczs, and if you can
1 The younger daughter customarily waits for the marriage of the older, and
parents usually refuse to let the younger daughter be married first.
BOREK SERIES 323
send more, send more. We should lend it .... in a very sure
place Markiewicz [Stanislaw] from Zazdzierz came on May 15
[from America], and gave us money, 2 roubles I, Jozef, thank
you for these 2 roubles Our brother-in-law got acquainted
with Michalina as boys usually do with girls, as you did with Bug-
lowna. Dear Wladzio, Bugiel boasts that Staska is to wait for you.
But she is sick with consumption If our Lord God allows you
to come back, you could marry where Wiktor Markiewicz did. He
wishes you to marry there [his wife's sister]. And of those singers
none sings any more, because they quarrelled with the organist and
the priest, and now others are learning. I go to sing whenever I have
time, and later perhaps I shall go weeding I shall earn at
least enough to buy slippers. BRONISLAWA
15 June 5, 1914
DEAR BROTHER: .... We received money, 500 roubles, for
which we thank you heartily Michalina and our brother-in-
law are leaving us. They will rent a lodging, because the old ones
[grandparents] won't take her yet. Now we inform you what was.
the news at Pentecost: a merry-go-round, a theater, 12 crosses
[processions], many of them from far away. [TOZEF]
I, Bronislawa Borek, write to you a few words, dear brother.
About money I shall write later on, where we lend it, for now we don't
know yet. And so, my dear brother, our father cannot come to an
understanding with our brother-in-law. I am very ashamed and
pained, and I don't know how it will be further. I will write you
more, for I have nobody to whom to complain. I will go soon to
work, for 4 weeks Wladyslaw £abka writes me letters from
the army. He wants to marry me when he comes in autumn from
the army, but I don't want to. I should prefer some craftsman, and
I will wait until I get some craftsman ' [BRONISLAWA]
16 July 23, 1914
DEAR BROTHER: .... Your money is lent. Jan Golebiewski
borrowed 100 roubles and Jan Switkowski 300 roubles. We have
notes Now we inform you about our farm-stock. We have
1 Because she wants to go to the city.
324 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
2 cows and one she-calf from the young cow. Father bought a cow
for Michalina .... and they were to go and rent a lodging, but
they sold the cow and took the money and don't go anywhere
Michalina does not want to buy a cow for herself, but they began
to trade in pigs and orchards. For me, Jozef, they [the parents]
bought nice shoes, but only a cotton-suit, for there was not enough
left for a cloth-suit. Father hardly could calculate
[JOZEF]
And now I, Bronislawa, write you a few words, dear brother.
.... We inform you what father did with these 100 roubles. He
bought a cow for Michalina, a horse [for himself] and made the
payment in the [communal-bank] office. We gave Michalina a cow
once, but we won't give her one a second time. You have sent us
already 600 and 12 roubles. Dear brother, we thank you very much
for the money which you sent. People marvel much, that our Lord
God helps you so, and they envy. Don't grieve that a single grosz
will be lost. When you return, all this will be given back to you.
.... I intended to send you wishes for your name-day, but I was
not at home, I was working on the other side of the Vistula. I have
worked for 5 weeks. I earned enough to buy a nice velvet dress and
slippers, and I have also a watch. Perhaps later I will send you a
photograph of my person. I am not going to sing any more, for I have
no lime Although I am tired with work and burned with the
sun, at least I have something to dress myself in Michalina is
with us, but for the winter we want her to go away, because it is too
difficult to live all together x Dear brother, I would ask you,
I, Bronislawa, be so kind and add some money for a sewing-machine
for me I will now go to work, I will work for some weeks, and
if you offer me anything I could buy one But if you offer me
anything, send it to my name, because those 10 roubles our parents
took
[BRONISLAWA]
1 Michalina's grandfather was evidently expected to retire and will her the
farm, but he declined to do this and her father, counting on the grandfather's help,
had failed to provide her with a sufficient dowry. So the young people find them,
selves in a difficult situation. We see here, as elsewhere, that the retirement of the
old people is a necessary link in the familial organization.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES
The Wroblewskis live in the northeastern part of
ethnographical Poland, in a relatively poor province. The
family (whose real name we do not use) belongs to the
peasant nobility and is relatively well instructed. It has
lived in the same village since at least the fifteenth century.
Twelve neighboring villages are chiefly occupied by de-
scendants of the same ancestors, though their names have
been partly diversified. The community of origin has
probably been in a large measure forgotten.
The main figure of the series is Walery Wroblewski,
the author of most of the letters. His letters belong almost
exclusively to the informing and relating type; their
function is to keep up the familial connection between
Walery and his brothers by sustaining and developing a
common "universe of discourse" and a sphere of common
interests. Thanks to this, the letters become particularly
valuable for us. They give us, indeed, a full account of
the fundamental life-interests of Walery, who in this
respect represents very well the normal Polish peasant.
The essential interest is clearly that of work, particularly
of personal work. The salaried labor (as gardener at the
governmental railway-station) plays in Walery 's life a
purely additional part and is done merely for the sake of
money, while his life-business is farm-work. It is the same
with the average Polish peasant, with whom even the dif-
ference between farm-work and salaried work is frequently
expressed in a separation of economic aims: the farm has
to give living for the whole family (lodging, board, fuel),
better or worse according to its size, the value of the soil,
etc., while any cash needed for clothes, pleasures, ceremonies,
325
326 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
etc., has to be earned outside, by salaried work, either on
a neighboring estate or through season-emigration. A
peasant who does not need additional income from his own
or his children's paid labor is above the normal; a peasant
who needs additional income for living is on the edge
between the farmer-class and the country proletariat.1
But the curious point in the present case is that the
interest in work as such is already independent of its eco-
nomic purpose, and that this independent interest is shown
only with regard to the farm-work. Walery puts his whole
life into farming, house-building, etc., and does not care
much about his salaried work, in spite of the fact that the
farm is not his own, while the money which he earns is his
personal property. He complains continually about his
insecure situation, and still he works for the pleasure of
work. The interest is objectified. The same objectifica-
tion is shown in his eagerness to learn everything about the
farming of his brothers in America.
The second fundamental set of interests is that of the
family. It happens that we find here most of the possible
familial situations:
i. Walery 's relation to his father and brothers on the
ground of the problem of inheritance. In this relation
Walery, the oldest brother, as against the father and partly
against Feliks, represents the old principles of familial
solidarity — according to which the family should act
harmoniously as a whole, and the father should pursue the
interests of this whole, not his own egotistic ends — and of
justice — according to which the economic problems should
be settled upon a moral as against a merely legal basis.
This relation is expanded and complicated by the new
marriage of the father. The stepmother is not an isolated
individual, but the member of another family, and the
1 Cf. Introduction: "Economic Attitudes."
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 327
antagonism of interests prevents absolutely her assimila-
tion to her husband's family. On the contrary, as no
harmonious coexistence of the two families is possible, it is
the husband, Walery's father, who loses all connection with
his own family and becomes assimilated to his wife's
family.
2. Purely sentimental and intellectual relation between
Walery and Antoni.
3. Walery's relation to his first wife through her sickness
and death. (See notes.)
4. Walery's relation to his stepdaughter Olcia — an eco-
nomic and sentimental problem. (See notes.)
5. Walery's relation to his children, and the evolution
which goes on under the influence of changes in the economic
situation and of the progressive manifestation of the char-
acter of the children. He continues to work on the farm
for their sake and out of interest in work; but his feelings
change. As long as his first wife lives his paternal attitude
is perfectly normal; he is the head and representative of
the family. After her death he becomes merely a guardian,
and his security and authority are shaken. But the children
are small, and they may be as poor as he, for half of the
farm belongs to Olcia, and thus a feeling of pity keeps his
paternal attitude definite and strong. After the death of
Olcia his children are the only rightful proprietors of the
farm. But as they become older his personal situation
isolates itself in his mind from that of his children, and a
slight antagonism appears between himself and the oldest
son, though he still hopes that the latter will eventually take
the farm and care for him in his old age. Finally he marries
again, new children appear, it becomes evident that his son
cannot be expected to take him and his new wife and
children, and his interests become almost completely dis-
sociated from those of the children of his first wife. The
328 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
sentimental connection is the only one left and even this
seems weakened in the last letters.
6. Walery's relation to his second wife. (See notes.)
7. Walery's relation to his sister-in-law, Feliks' wife.
This is only sketched, but in very distinct lines. There is a
marked mutual hostility whose immediate cause is certainly
economic antagonism, but it is prepared by the total
estrangement resulting from the long separation and the
quite different conditions in which Feliks and his family
have lived. These facts illustrate two very general phenom-
ena: (i) As we see in many letters, even a normal relation
through marriage (to say nothing of an abnormal one like
that resulting from the third marriage of Walery's father)
is ceasing more and more to produce a connection between
the persons thus allied; acquaintance and friendship, if not
community of interest, are necessary to consolidate the
relation. In other words, the assimilation of a new member
has become more difficult and longer since the old type of
peasant family began to disintegrate. (2) The estrange-
ment brought by emigration to Russia is much more pro-
found than that resulting from emigration to America.
This difference, it seems, is due to the fact that emigration
to America has become a more normal and ordinary course,
always with the expectation of return, and that the emigrant
is more or less identified in America with strong and nu-
merous Polish communities. At any rate, the Russian
life, with its weaker familial organization, exerts a more
disorganizing influence on the emigrant. Another good
example of this is found hi the Raczkowski series, letters of
Ludwik Wolski.
With regard to the religious interests, Walery's attitude
is also the typical attitude of the modern peasant. His
religious life; while very strong, has mainly a social form.
The individual relation to the Divinity, as expressed in
WRCBLEWSKI SERIES 329
prayer, vision, ecstacy, feeling of subordination, etc., is
quite secondary as compared with the social side of religious
reality — meetings, public service, church-building, priest-
hood, etc. We find the former attitude only once clearly
expressed (No. 37). There are but slight traces of the old
naturalistic religious system and little interest in the magical
system.
The social interests of Walery are limited practically to his
relations with neighbors and acquaintances. He does not
seem to play any active part in the political organization and
activity of his commune — the only political group in which a
peasant can be active. But he is interested as an observer
in general social and political phenomena, upon which he
can exert not the slightest influence. The form of this inter-
est is also typical for the peasant of the present time; it
marks the transition from a total lack of such interests to
the effort to influence practically the political and social
organization, as we already find it among the city workers
and to some extent among the peasants, and expressed
in socialistic, nationalistic, and economic associations.
The interest in plays and amusements is not strong in
Walery, and is never so in peasants of his age, burdened by
the heavy task of life. Social entertainments are, in fact,
the only form of recreation which a peasant knows — besides
drinking and card-playing, which may be regarded also as
forms of social entertainment, and in this character (not
as independent amusements) are morally permitted. The
variety of amusements is much greater among city workers.
Nevertheless in the case of Walery we find a relatively new
amusement — photography.
Walery's purely theoretic interests are turned toward
natural, particularly cosmic, facts. It may be noted that
in general popular books on natural sciences are the favorite
reading of the peasants.
330 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
We notice an absolute lack of one interest which prevails
in many other series — the one which we may term the
"climbing" tendency. Walery does not try to get into a
higher class, although the fact that he is a skilled workman
(gardener) and the relative degree of his instruction would
enable him to do this more easily than could many others.
The lack of this tendency may be explained by the
exceptional social conservatism prevailing among the
peasant nobility of this province. Living for centuries in
analogous conditions, with very few opportunities to rise
to the level of the middle nobility, particularly since a
political career was closed after Poland's partition, and
economic advance hindered by overpopulation, poor soil,
and lack of industry in this province, lacking the incentive
to advance which was given to the peasants proper by
liberation and later by endowment with land, the peasant
nobility is more stabilized in its class-isolation than any
other of the old classes. And there is little to achieve
within the community by climbing. Walery tries perhaps
to be the first of his village, but rather by personal qualities
than by social or economic influence.
He has some pride in his work, in his house, and his
garden-products, but no vanity. And in general, the
problem of social hierarchy seems hardly to exist for him.
No determined attitude toward the higher classes is ever
expressed.
The only other type more or less definitely outlined in
these letters is that of the father. His fundamental feature,
by which his whole behavior is explained, is the powerful
desire to live a personal life up to the end, in spite of the
tradition which requires the father to be the bearer of the
familial idea and to resign his claims on the control of
economic and general familial matters when he is partly
invalided by age and unable to manage those matters for
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 331
the greatest benefit of the family.1 In his struggle against
this tradition, the old Wroblewski finally has no course other
than to resign completely his place in his own family. In
fact he becomes a stranger, and can thus live an unimpeded
personal life. By marriage he gets, it is true, into another
family, but the latter has no claims upon him.
The other characters, as far as determined in the material,
seem perfectly clear.
THE FAMILY WROBLEWSKI
Wr6blewski, a farmer
His second wife
"Klimusia," his third wife
Walery, his son
J6zef, his son
Antoni (Antos), his son (lives in America)
Konstanty (Kostus), his son (lives in America)
Feliks, his son (lives in Russia)
Walery's first wife
Anna P., Walery's second wife
Feliks' wife
J6zef's wife
Olcia (Aleksandra), daughter of Walery's first wife
Edward
Waclaw Walery's children by his first wife
J6zia
Michal
17-57, FROM WALERY AND JOZEF WROBLEWSKI IN POLAND,
TO THEIR BROTHERS IN AMERICA: 17-54, FROM WALERY;
55-57, FROM JOZEF.
17 LAPY, January 2, 1906
.... DEAR BROTHERS: [Usual greetings and generalities about
health.] Your letter of October 29 I received on December 30. It
traveled for about 2 months, and perhaps it lay in the post-offices,
1 In this regard there is a striking likeness between himself and Franciszka
Kozlowska (cf. that series), with this difference, that Kozlowska, as a woman, was
never called upon to be the representative of the familial idea.
332 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
because there has been a strike. All the trains stopped for more than
a week, and afterward in the post and telegraph service there was a
strike for 3 weeks. "Strike" means in our language "bezrobocie"
and in Russian "zabastowka" ["stopping of work"]. It happens
now very often among us, particularly in factories. Workmen put
forward their demands. They want higher pay and a shorter working-
day; they refuse to work more than 8 hours a day. Now everything
has become terribly dear, particularly with shoemakers and tailors.
.... Even now there is no order in the country, the whole time
tumults about liberty are going on, because on October 30 the Highest
Manifesto was proclaimed concerning personal inviolability, liberty
of the press, etc. In a word, by favor of the monarch we have more
liberty, because we are citizens of the country, not as formerly, when
we were only subjects; now we are all equal in the country. Papers
are published without censure, so they now write more truth, only
all this is not yet fixed. The liberty of speech has also been given by
the Highest Manifesto, and for this reason different songs are sung,
as "Boze, cos Polske ' In short, thanks to God, conditions
would not be bad, but still much trouble can happen, because there
is no peace in the land, and even terrible things happen, as in Moscow
and many other towns I
1 The revolution of 1905-6 contributed greatly to the development of social
consciousness and interest in political problems among the peasants. Up to this
time those interests in Russian Poland were developed artificially, by patriotic
agitation from the intelligent classes. Indeed, the relative simplicity and isolation
of peasant life, together with the bureaucratic organization of the Russian state
made it hardly possible for the peasant to understand that there was any relation
between the real interests of his life and the more general political problems. The
communal self-government allowed, within certain limits, the settlement of most
of the problems of everyday life, but outside of the commune the peasant had no
influence upon social and political life, and thus all the phenomena whose source
lay in the state and in the economic organization — law, military service, taxes,
school-organization, official language, means of communication, prices of natural
and manufactured products — appeared to him as regulated once and forever by a
superior and undetermined force. His attitude toward them was more or less like
his attitude toward the weather — fundamentally passive resignation, with some-
times an attempt to influence with prayer or gift the powers in their treatment of the
individual's own sphere of interests. (Cf. Introduction: "Social Environment".)
The revolution of 1905-6 showed the peasant that this assumed order is modifiable
and may be influenced directly and in its organization by human will; it showed at
the same tune unknown and unsuspected relations between many apparently
abstract problems and the facts of everyday life.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 333
At last I received your letter which I awaited so impatiently.
. .... It is not right not to write for so long a time; for more than
half a year we had no news from you. We don't ask you to send us
money, because we still live as we can, but we request you to send
letters more often; other people send them every month or even more
often. Although they don't know how to write themselves, still
they give news and ask for information about what is going on at
home. I believe that you are interested to know, particularly now.
.... Jozef was somewhat offended by your letter. It was impos-
sible to avoid it. I had to give him the letter to read; if I had not, he } ?
would have said that we have a secret, and this ought not to be I '
among us.1 As to your coming, do as you wish, only reflect about iti i
and write us positively this or that, because the farm cannot remain
as it is now. If you don't intend to come, Feliks will agree to return,
but I believe that he is too weak for farm-work. Nevertheless there
seems to be no other way, because it will be difficult to repair the
losses. I intend also to leave my position soon and to stay at home,
because it is very difficult [to be employed and to farm together].
It will be worse at home for some years, I know it surely, but later
on perhaps it will get better, if our Lord God helps, because " It is
better to be in a sheep-skin with God than in a fur-cloak without
God," and "As Kuba behaves toward God, so God behaves toward
Kuba."2 I sold the oxen in the fall and I bought one cow. I intend
to buy one more in order to have 4. I intend to sell one horse and to
buy another, because this one is bad for plowing, and I intend to
plow with horses. I will keep two cows for myself and sell the milk
of the two others. I bought also 7 geese; I don't know how they will
breed. I intend also to carry out my plan of building a house.
1 This is the last, reasoned explanation of the original and unreasoned fact
that the letter is not individual but familial property. In this fact is to be
found the fundamental function of the peasant letter hi general — retaining or re-
establishing the connection of the individual with the family-group when this con-
nection has been weakened by separation.
2 The confidence in God as shown in the belief that God will interfere practi-
cally in human business is naturally more developed in isolated communities with
little practical energy and a slow rate of life, and decreases near the industrial
centers and in active and evolving communities. It is of interest that Walery,
himself a very active person, still retains the attitude of religious fatalism perfectly
adapted to the low intensity of the practical life of his environment but unadapted
to his own character.
334 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Edward is going this year to school in Lapy ; I pay now for his learning
50 copecks monthly, but when I leave my position [as gardner of the
governmental railway-station] probably they will demand more.
Both my horses had the strangles, and now they look bad. The
winter up to Christmas was light. Now, since New Year, the
weather is colder; it is already possible to go on sledges I
don't remember whether I have written about building a church in
Lapy. They intend to build first a chapel, and later on, when they
have money, a church In our mill we grind corn, father for
himself and I for myself, when the one or the other has time. Now I
send you a salutation from us, and the children salute you — Alek-
sandra, Waclawa, Edward, Jozefa and MichaL We wish you every
good. May God grant it.
W. WROBLEWSKI
1 8 February 8, 1906
DEAR BROTHERS ANTOS AND Kosxus: .... Now I inform you,
that I will probably remain at my post, although I am not very glad
because I don't know when I shall be able to do something for myself
[build the house]. Every year I hope to do it and I cannot. Now also
I was sure that I should remain at home, and a week ago I thanked
for [resigned] my place. They gave me one day for reflection, and
after this they were to say something to me. One day, then another,
then a week passed and they said nothing. I was sure that they
were trying to find somebody else. I was sure because last year it
seemed as if they intended to change me, although when I thanked
them they said that they were satisfied with me. After more than a
week, when I went to the office for a ticket to go to Warsaw, the chief
asked me whether I intended to remain or not. I said that I could
remain on different conditions, but I did not hope to obtain them.
I asked for some improvements in the service, and moreover for fuel.
The chief said that he was willing to grant it. If so, I will remain, but
I am not sure, because meanwhile it is only a promise; if they don't
fulfil it, I will not serve.
Everything else is unchanged. Father still provides for himself
at home. He has threshed all his grain, but he has not yet brought
the hay from the riverside, and now it is impossible to get through
to the riverside, and I don't know how it will be, because now we have
successively two days of frost and three days of rain. But when
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 335
summer comes I don't know how we shall do. I don't know whether
Feliks will come or not, arid father probably won't be able to keep
the farm alone. If Feliks does not come, I don't know what will
result, because father does not promise to work any longer on the farm.
Perhaps he will finally sell it, although he could take somebody to help
him, because he has money enough, but he does not intend to do it.
.... On my farm there is also nobody to work. I thought that I
should do it myself, but now nothing is certain; on the other hand,
I want very much this little money which I can earn Now the
church in Plonka has been robbed The thief stole into the
church in the evening, was shut in there, took the money and fled
through the window We have no weddings here, although
it is carnival
W. WROBLEWSKI
19 April 2, 1906
DEAR BROTHERS: .... We will divide with you hi thought
at least the consecrated food [swi§cone]. It is a pity that you will
probably have no swiecone, because you are surely far away from the
church. Well, it cannot be helped; you will probably only remember
our country and nothing more.1 But perhaps our Lord God will
allow you to return happily; then we shall rejoice
As to the money, when I receive it I will do as you wrote; I will
give 10 roubles to father and will keep by me the remaining 240, or I
will put it somewhere until you come back. Meanwhile my children
thank their uncle for the remembrance and the promise. Spring
approaches, but although it is already April, weather is bad, it snows
every day. Some people have seen storks already; they must be
wretched, walking upon white [snow].2 As I wrote, I have sold the
oxen and bought a cow; I wanted also to buy another, but there has
been no opportunity, because cows are bad and very dear. I have
sold also the horse which you bought, for 62 roubles, and I have
'The Easter wishes, dividing the "Swiecone" with the thought of absent
relatives, are evidently means of preserving the family connection in spite of
separation, and in the particular form which this connection assumes in group-
festivals.
1 An example of the sympathy of the peasant with animals. The peasant
stories show that this sympathy developed to a very high degree. Spontaneous to
some degree, it is also a vestige of the naturalistic religious system.
336 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
bought another for 64 roubles. He is 4 years old, of the same color
as the other; it would even be difficult to distinguish them,
because the movement is also the same, only the other had white
fetlocks on his hind legs, and this one is a little longer. I intend
to plow with him and the two-year-old. Adam Drop from Plusniaki
promises to plow. I bought this horse in Skwarki in the neighbor-
hood where Frania Perkoska, the daughter of Wojciech, is now
with her husband. I don't know whether I have written you, she
married Kleofas Golaszewski. When you go from us to Sokoly, you
have to turn near their barn, at the left, on the corner ' The
wedding was in the last days of carnival and we were there at dinner.
During the dinner I played on the phonograph of Jozik; he lent me it
for that time. He bought it in Warsaw and he has a score of different
songs and marches.
Now I don't know whether I have written you about the mis-
fortune from which only our Lord God kept our father. At the end
of the carnival thieves came to steal horses, and father slept in the
barn near the granary. He heard something tapping and got up and
stepped out of the door. He saw something black under the wall
and called, "Who is there?" The man shot with a revolver, but
happily he missed. They ran. There were two of them. On the
next day people found the bullet in the door. Father made a noise,
and came to us and awoke us and other people, but they were not
to be found. They went to Plonka, stole a horse and a wagon of
gram and disappeared. So the misfortune ended. At present there
are terrible thefts and robberies in our country. Highwaymen
attack people on the roads and rob them, and in towns robbers come
to houses, kill or threaten with revolvers, take whatever they can and
usually disappear without any trace. And all this goes on since the
strikes of the last year. Many factories stopped, workmen were
turned out, and that is the cause of the present robberies.8
1 This kind of detailed information reminding the absent member of the family
of the environment in which the family lives has evidently the function of keeping
up the old common "universe of discourse" and thus maintaining the familial
connection.
2 The real cause was evidently different. Although lack of work may have
played a certain r61e in recruiting the bands of robbers, the fundamental reason
was the disorganization of social and moral life brought by the new ideals, which
for the mass of the people were not equivalent to the traditional social constraint
in organizing practical life. (Cf. notes to Jasinski series, Nos. 757 ff .)
WR6BLEWSKI SERIES 337
After the holidays brother Feliks is coming to the farm, but
mainly because he has no church there and nowhere to teach the
children. But I believe that it will be too difficult for him to work
on a farm. Well, but he cannot remain there either, because of what
I have said.
Now I inform you that in our holy Roman Catholic faith a new
sect, heresy or falling-off has arisen, and the priests themselves produce
it. The papers write that there are 50 to 70 such priests who call
themselves "Maryawitas," and the people have nicknamed them
"Mankietniks." They regard some girl, a "tertiary," as a saint,
She dictates to them her different visions, and they believe her; they
won't listen to their bishops, and they proclaim a doctrine about her —
that she was immaculately conceived. They have drawn some
parishes to their side; people believe their erroneous teaching. This
happens in the neighborhood of Plock, on the other .side of Warsaw
from us. Those priests say three masses every day. The bishop
sent priests to close and seal these churches, but the Maryawitas
beat the true priests and did not allow them to close [the churches].
All this is going on at present. It is a she-devil, as a bishop writes, a
certain Felicia Kozlowska, seamstress of priest-clothes, and therefore
it is clear that young priests favor her. It is a horror to read in
papers what is going on there; perhaps the end of the world is not far
away.1
1 wrote you what I could about our country, although in short,
for if I wanted to write in detail, I should need many sheets of paper.
Now, please, write us about the mines. How are the passages to
them made under the earth ? Are there any props ? What happens
when coal is dug out — whether they [the passages] fall in or stand ? In
short, whatever may be new for us 2
W. WROBLEWSKI
'The sect of the "Maryawitas" represented the first heresy in which the
peasants had taken part for centuries. We shall have more details of this in
Vol. IV. The "end of the world" is assumed whenever any great and general
demoralization is noticed. It is of course dependent upon the eschatological
Christian ideas.
2 Here, as in many other similar questions, it seems as if the interest of the
writer were purely objective, i.e., not determined by the fact that the conditions
about which he asks are those in which his relatives live. But the effect is evidently
the constitution of a new common field of intellectual life and thus the main-
tenance of the group-connection, whether this was the conscious aim or not.
338 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
20 April 25, 1906
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I have remained in service. Here we
have full spring; people sow in the field oats, peas and potatoes, trees
blossom, storks, swallows and other birds have come back. I am
waiting now for brother Feliks. He has already thanked for [resigned]
his place and is waiting only for his pay and tickets for the journey.
They will come very soon. Father looks for help every day. Now
I send you some photographs made [by myself] at Easter. [Descrip-
tion of the photographs.] We know from the papers that a terrible
misfortune has happened in California, in the city San Francisco.
May God keep us and you from this! [Salutations.]
W. WROBLEWSKI
21 May 12, 1906
DEAR BROTHER: .... I don't wonder that you wrote so [being
ill], but I don't know why Kostus .... presented me to you in
such a manner, as if I had done some mischief to him. He ought to
understand that you, being sick, could not bear all this; in other
conditions [you would look upon it] as a trifle. But in human life
the road is not always strewn with flowers; there are many different
thorns upon it.1
Now you know, probably, that I remain at home on my farm.
Work is going on in the field, we are planting potatoes, and when we
finish planting, we will set to building the house. I cannot buy that
field from Tomasz Pal. After a long reflection he said finally, that
he would sell it, but only if I gave him 150 roubles for the field near
the garden. I offered him 80 roubles, but he does not agree. Later
I heard from his servant that he would part with it for 100 roubles, but
I am not in a hurry, because it would be too expensive. I could pay
so much only if I had as much money as he has.
Now I inform you that Jan Gluchy came back from America and
intends to build his house in the garden near Stas. Before he came
back, his wife wanted to build some sort of shack, but Filus did not
want to give her a lot. He proposed the lot near my garden
but it was too small for her. She was set on having father sell her an
[adjacent] bed, but I did not wish to have such a neighbor so near and
1 Allusion to some incidents which we cannot determine, as we have only the
letters written to Antoni, not those to KostuS.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 339
I asked father not to sell; I was ready to pay it myself. But father
has planted it himself. Later Filus proposed to give her the lot near
the pond, but this was also too small for her, because there also she
would be my neighbor. At last, after much begging, he gave them
the lot near Stas Laba, and there they will build their house. Now,
as people say, they hang dogs upon me [abuse me], especially Filus,
because Jan got the best of it in getting that lot.1
Now as to the marriage of Jozef, our brother. I went with Olcia
to the wedding, and after dinner I returned home. It was a week
before the end of the carnival. Now, as I wrote already, he lives
with his wife in the house of Stas Gembiak, and our father took a
small boy from Kozly and is still farming himself. Jozef is planting
potatoes for himself upon a part of father's land. I have now a
dispute with Feliks Gembiak ; he crawled into my garden behind my
house and plowed the part of the garden up to the fence. I will
write you later how this ends.
Spring is late this year, trees blossom only now, and last year they
blossomed at St. Wojciech [St. Adalbert's day]. Now I have nothing
more of interest to write, only I inform you, that our Michalek began
to walk on the first day of Easter, and he says that Little God ordered
him to walk, because He rose from the dead. Now he walks well
enough, and he would like to walk the whole day in the yard
W. WROBLEWSKI
June 30, 1906
.... DEAR BROTHERS: .... First I inform you, that here in
Plonka the basement for the new church has been made already;
in a week, on Sunday, the consecration of the headstone will be
celebrated. Now everybody is bringing offerings, whatever he can.
If it is not very difficult for you, I beg you to send a little money. The
priest proclaims every Sunday who gave and what the offering was.2
In Lapy divine service is celebrated in the chapel as in every church.
They will also build a church.
1 Most of the quarrels of neighbors are the result of the system according to
which all the old villages are built, and which makes any increase of the area
occupied by the single farm-yard impossible except by buying from a neighbor an
adjacent lot behind the yard. (Cf. Nos. 26, 39, 40.)
2 It is a question of family pride. By sending an offering the brothers in America
would prove that they still consider themselves members of the family and com-
munity and at the same time that they are in good circumstances.
340 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Now, on Corpus Christi day in Bialystok there was a pogrom of
the Jews. Two processions walked around the city, one ours, the
other [Greek] orthodox. Some persons began to fire from a house
with revolvers on the orthodox procession.1 Panic arose among the
people, but it is said that nobody was killed by these shots. The
army was called and fired at the windows; whoever looked at
the street [was shot at]. Other robbers rushed to Jewish shops; they
broke and stole whatever they could and killed Jews. About 600
Jews were killed and many wounded. Along some streets all the
shops were ruined. Next day in Lapy local vagabonds destroyed
a few shops, but they are sitting now in prison. The Jews fled
wherever they could, and so it ended. Now we have a state of war;
the army is stationed everywhere.
Yesterday we had a storm with lightning; rain poured down, and
the hay is upon marshes. People began to mow grass although water
stood upon the meadows, but now the hay will float. In the river
water is also high, and it is impossible to mow. Probably there will
be no hay this year, but in the fields everything is growing beautifully.
In a week, if we have fine weather, people will begin to harvest rye.
This year the spring has been warm, and the harvest will be early.
I intend to go to Cz^stochowa [on a pilgrimage] with my wife and
Edward about this time, but I don't know how soon the tickets will
come
Now I inform you how farming is going on at home. Well, it
turns out that Feliks cannot get along with the old people. Although
he does work, he plows and carts manure, in short, he does everything
necessary in farming, yet under the management of the old man it is
impossible to work. He must dress himself and his children, and
live, but the old man does not give any money; he keeps everything
himself. He does not even give possible food. He wants to drive
them away in this way the soonest possible, and that will probably
happen very soon, and the old man will again sell [parts of his land]
and gratify himself and the old woman. It will be enough for them
both [the land will last as long as they last]. And now the quarreling
is incessant. " Why did they come ? " But he wanted them to come,
because he said, "I sell the ground because there is nobody to work."
1 It is known that these shots were a provocation from Russian hooligans,
preparatory to the pogrom. They were directed at the Russian procession in
order to assure the sympathy or at least the passivity of the Russian
authorities.
WR6BLEWSKI SERIES 341
And now, "Do as you please and get your living where you please!"
So Feliks will be obliged to seek a job, and father will farm on in the
old way, until there will not be a single lot of land left. If he lives
long, then finally a bag and a stick only will remain from this farming,
and that will be our only inheritance, because there is no possibility of
getting along with father
W. WROBLEWSKI
23 July 5, 1906
DEAR BROTHER: .... I mentioned about brother Feliks, how
they are farming at home. Now I will write you still more. As I
wrote already, father gave him the farm to manage, but this lasted
perhaps for two days; then father took it again into his hands. And
then began the misery and quarreling. Feliks complains that he
was wronged, that he lost his employment, and now father gives him
nothing. He was angry with me, because I wrote him that father
intended to give him [the management of the farm] and now he does
not give it, or rather he gave it, but took it away. I began also to
claim for their sake, that father was acting badly — first so, then
otherwise. Then father said, "If it is my fault, I will will them
Kopciowizna [some part of the farm]. Let them work and help me
to the end, then they will have this as a reward." I did not oppose
this strongly, only I said that I could not decide alone, but that I must
write to you and ask what you say, and meanwhile wait. So I wrote,
but I have no answer yet, and they did not wait. At home they
quarrel continually; Feliks complains about his misery, that he has
enough work but not enough to eat — that father gives them nothing
to eat. Feliksowa [wife of Feliks] comes to me several times a day,
and every time with a new complaint. Things went so far that
Feliks and father took knives and axes. And she runs frequently to
me, saying once that father wants to beat them, then again that he
wants to drive them away from his home with hunger. Evidently, I
did not praise father for all this. But whatever I said against father,
Feliksowa reported it so to father that I [seem to] incite her against
him, and she complained to father against me. At last all their
knavery and meanness appeared clearly When brother
Jozef came, he told me that when they quarreled with father, father
gave the whole secret up and confessed it himself. He said, "I
wronged the other [children] and willed you Kopciowizna, and this is
342 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
your gratitude ?"x Up to this time all was done secretly; we did not
know anything about it, neither I nor Jozef. Then I understood the
whole thing in a different way, and I told Feliks everything about their
meanness. I brought their anger upon me; they were provoked
with me for telling them, "You have robbed us all, because you have
done it secretly."2 He said that father had forbidden them to tell.
They circumvented father in some way during the fair in Sokoly, and
father willed [the land] to them in such a way, that now he will own
this up to his death, and after his death it will be theirs, as a gift from
father, the remainder of the farm to be divided equally. After that
they quit boarding with father and yesterday they moved over to
Jozef Pilat, and live there. What happens later I will inform you
in due time. I hear that they plan a law-suit against father and me
for indemnity for their pretended wrongs. They will try to prove by
my letter that I wrote them to come, that father intended to give
them the farm to manage, and now he refuses, that he gave it, but
took it away, etc., and so they are wronged. But I wrote him, "If
you have to corne, reflect well about it." He answered, " I must move
to my country because of my children." Well, and he came, making
a good move ! I told him that he can now lie lazy for two years, since
he has already [in the bequest] earned his full wages; he need not
search for an employment Please write us your opinion about
this affair. Perhaps this letter will find itself among the documents
of Feliks? [Perhaps you will concert with Feliks against me and
send him this letter.] But I don't believe it.
I remain respectfully yours, but writing always the truth
W. WROBLEWSKI
24 July 27, 1906
DEAR BROTHER: .... On July 23 — a day which will remain
forever memorable for us — I was with my wife and Edward in Czesto-
chowa. It is worth seeing. I don't know whether I shall have such
1 This act of the old man was evidently done with the intention of assuring
himself of the alliance of at least one son against the others and of getting rid of
his control without making him an enemy. It proves that the old man did not
feel his position very strong morally, although he had legally full right to do as
he pleased with his farm.
3 The secrecy is particularly bad, because to the economic wrong is added a
social wrong — destruction of the familial solidarity.
WR6BLEWSKI SERIES 343
an opportunity again; it was the first time, and probably also the
last, for it is far enough from us. But it would be worth seeing
once more. Well, it will be as it pleases our Lord God, whether He
will grant us the opportunity to be in a locality so renowned by its
miracles, or not. Thanks be to God that we visited it at least once
in our life.
Now I inform you about Jan Ghichy. He is in New York and
sends money for his wife. Not long ago he sent to my address 210
roubles; I received it for her. Smaller sums he sends directly to her,
and wants to send everything through me, but I don't wish to have
trouble about other people's money r Now I send you one
photograph, although a bad one, of the church of Plonka, taken on the
day of the consecration of the basement On the same day a
new cemetery was consecrated. [Description of the cemetery.] Now
I inform you that we have already harvested the rye. The weather
now is good, dry, even too dry. Only now we have begun to mow
summer grain and hay The crops are mediocre, the potatoes
won't be so good as last year
Now I inform you about home and the conflict with Feliks. If you
received my letter, you know already how it was about the willing
of Kopciowizna — how they did it secretly with father, then how they
quarreled with father, how he moved to the house of Jozef Pilat.
Now she remains here with her children, and he went to the old place
in search of employment. He does not write me anything, because
we are angry with each other. I told him that such things ought not
to be done by cunning, but that he could have done all this so that
everybody might know. He excuses himself, on the ground that
father forbade him to mention anything to us about his having willed
[the land] to them. But even now I don't know whether there is in
this will any mention about the mill; probably not, and then I must
move it away from that lot. Father is farming as he did formerly; he
hires harvesters and drives the crops from the field, but I don't know
how long this will last. When the old man goes to bed I don't know
how he will do the farming. Feliks has received his part already, and
if the old man does not change it, he will still receive an equal part
with us. What ought we to do ? I ask you beforehand, how are we
1 duchy evidently distrusts the ability of his wife to manage the money.
In such cases the man in America attempts to exert a control over the wife through
the medium of relatives and friends.
344 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
to act ? In my opinion he ought to have only this lot and nothing
more, and father ought to divide the remainder among us. Judge
yourself. .... w w
25 August 27, 1906
DEAR BROTHER: .... Jozef told me that he also received a
letter from you. Whether he answered I don't know, but he says
that he is unwilling to go to America, because he has it here well
enough. Now you ask me for advice, whether you ought to remain
in the mines, or to return home, or to search for other work in America.
Well I leave the decision with you, but in my opinion it would be
dangerous to throw your work away just now, but rather [I advise
you] to search first for other work in America and then to come back
about spring, or to remain where you are meanwhile and then to come
back. But don't take my advice. Whatever you do will be well,
because I fear it may be as with Felus, though I don't believe that
you could be so mean as he.1 He curses me now ceaselessly for his
own meanness. I wrote to him also: " If you are to come, first think
it over thoroughly lest you regret it later." (And he [answered]:
"I must move to my country for my children's sake.") And what
has resulted ? He robbed us all, and he continually slanders me and
father. The old man is somewhat guilty in not having given him
what he promised; but he rewarded him, even more than is right, hi
the will. And what does he want from me ? I have heard that he
abuses me also in the letters which he writes to her [his wife], saying
that he suffers misery by my fault. And why does he abuse me?
Because I said the truth openly, that it is unfair to act in such a
thievish manner; everybody ought to know what you intend to do.
This pricked him, my telling him his fault to his eyes. But even if
father gave him the whole fortune, still he would not get on so well
as he did there. But whose fault is it ? Did he not know farm-work ?
He ought to have known what work there is on a farm and what a
life, and if he risked it he ought not to slander others now without any
1 The responsibility of an adviser for the consequences of his advice is particu-
larly great when the personal influence of the adviser is great, because, as we have
pointed out (Introduction: "Theoretic and Esthetic Interests"), the peasant gives
to the advice a consideration proportionate to the prestige of the adviser rather
than the intrinsic value of the advice. In the present case the advice of Walery
is the more weighty because he is the oldest brother.
WRCBLEWSKI SERIES 345
cause. I loved him like all my brothers, but now I hate him for his
action, for such meanness; even a stranger would not do this, and he
is a brother. Well, enough of this, let him bark what he pleases.
But now, dear brother, I am even afraid to write my opinion. It
seems to me that it would be the best to do as I wrote you above,
because it seems to me that even if you had much money, but if the
earth were to cover you, you would rather prefer to look once more
upon your native country, even without a penny. And if you had
some money in your pocket it would be still better.
Now I inform you that summer has been dry this year. I walk
with Edward through the marsh in shoes, to fetch horses from the
pasture; the water has dried up everywhere. Edward rides also on
the young horse; he drives him home. Now he will soon begin to go
to school again in Lapy. I send you herewith their photograph.
As you see they have all grown pretty well, only Michalek, your
foster-son, is not there. He does not walk; he is somewhat ill; but
perhaps he will get better.
The crops are mediocre this year; on the Transfiguration of Our
Lord there was no more summer-grain in the fields; everything had
been harvested, because the weather was favorable. We are already
digging potatoes. They are not so bad for such a dry season. In
some places they even grew big. Yesterday Waclawa with Edward
dug a whole wagon-load from the small ravine near father's enclosure.
Waclawa tended geese during the summer, but there were not many
of them. The 6 geese brought 23 young ones, for which we got 23
roubles, and besides some worse ones walk about, which did not grow
big enough. It would be well to make a road now to the pasture
fields, because it is dry ; but in our village people don't unite. Nobody
went to make it. I worked alone for some mornings, making the
beginning, but I was the only one so stupid; all the others are so
clever, and nobody goes to work, although it is difficult to get a better
time. Why, laziness, stupidity and darkness will never make any-
thing good!
Now, since the Japanese war, there is much news in the country,
but I won't relate it here, because whole newspapers would be neces-
sary to describe all that is going on here. If you read papers, surely
you know. You ought to subscribe at least to Gazeta Swi^teczna, for
now all the papers write more truth, because they are published
without censure.
346 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Up to the present father is farming alone, and I don't hear him
complain that it is hard to work. He plows, he carts manure, and
the work goes on. But how long will this last ?
Last Sunday in Sokoly the basement of the new church was
consecrated and I was there with my children. On the same day I
photographed them in my house, or rather before my house
W. WROBLEWSKI
26 October 29, 1906
DEAR BROTHER: .... I received your second letter also, from
which I learned about your misfortune, the bruising of your arms.
Now I inform you first, that I intend to remain at home this year,
unless any unforeseen circumstances happen. I do nothing but plan
about my house. I bought this year more than 5 kop [5X60] flower-
pots for my garden. As to the field from Tomaszek, I have not
bought it yet. Although I am somewhat short of money, the thing
could be done in some way or other, if he wanted to sell it. But what
can I do ? Last year I went often expressly to him, asking him to sell
it, but he declined under some pretext or other. He is willing to
exchange, but I have nowhere [to give him a corresponding lot]. If
I could only buy somewhere for him; but nobody wants to sell.
And it would be very useful to me [to have this lot] near the garden,
because Lapy is growing continuously. Now we have a chapel in
Lapy, I send you its photograph. They are building now a small
tower upon it. It is very convenient now with the churches. One
can go where one wishes, either to Lapy or to Plonka; it is near in
both directions. When returning from my work I enter the chapel to
say the rosary, because now in the evening rosary-service is cele-
brated by candle-light, and this looks very pretty.
Now I inform you that Roch came home some weeks ago. I have
not spoken with him yet, but people say that he was captured when
crossing the frontier and was sent home by etapes [with criminals].
Now, as to the horse, father sold it in the summer for 60 roubles, and
today perhaps he will buy something in Suraz, if horses are not too
expensive, because there is a small fair today. Feliksowa has left
again and went there to him [Feliks], having sold her things to Jozef
Pilat. She sold the cow also which father gave them, because she
lived in Pilat's house. She went like a swine, because she called
neither on me nor on father before leaving for those forests. That is
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 347
just where she ought to live, with bears, not with men. She was
something of an ape before, and there she became altogether an ape.
No honest person would have done as they did. Whose fault is it ?
And how much they have cursed me, and father! May God not
punish them for it. They think only about a fortune and money and
don't want anything else; they don't regard church-going and fasting,
if only they can live comfortably in this world.1
Now, as to Michalek, he is already better and begins to walk by
himself. Edward has been sick recently with small-pox. Now he is
getting better slowly We had a dry summer, and the autumn
is also dry. There is lack of water in the wells, and the cold is not
far away. If it goes on like this we shall have no water in the winter.
Now in our country disorders still go on, sometimes robberies,
sometimes killing with bombs or revolvers. Not long ago there was
a pogrom in Siedlce, where the army even fired with guns for 3 days,
as the papers write. Now we have a state of war; the general
governor of Warsaw proclaimed that whoever does not come at the
call to military service, his parents will be condemned for 3 months to
prison or 300 roubles fine, and the head-minister added that in
localities where the state of war exists whoever does not come is
subject to court-martial. And what a court-martial is you know
probably, and I won't describe it
It would be well if Kostus thought sometimes about his native
country and wrote something, at least about his health and success.
Roch brought the news that he is married. Perhaps on that account
ic has changed and does not write.2 r.TT ,,, ,
[W. WROBLEWSKI]
February 24, 1907
. . . DEAR BROTHER: I learned about the misfortune which
happened to you This news dismayed us all very much, and
we are very sad that such a misfortune happened to you. I got also a
letter from Kostus today .... and I learned that you are somewhat
1 Typical expression of the peasant's idealism, which is always latent in all
the practical attitudes. There is a marked difference in this respect between a
peasant like Walery and a handworker like Wladek. For the character of the
latter, see Vol. III.
2 There is a proverb, "Whoever gets married gets changed," which is justified
in the sense that the individual is determined to a large extent by his family-group,
and by marrying he comes under the influence of an additional group.
348 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
better, and I learned also from him that a little miner came to him;
only, please, let him send us a photograph of his family. I received
also your other letter of February 4, in which you tell about your
misfortune and write that I caused you a great displeasure by my
letter — that I gave you the last blow.1 Believe me, if I had known
that it would reach you when you were in such a condition, I would
have chosen not to mention anything, but who could have expected
anything like this ? .... If I made some reproaches, your own letter
induced me to do it. You wrote that you keep company in which you
cannot get along for a single day without beer or whisky. Then I
wanted to draw you back from it, and therefore I made some remarks
— that this money would be useful here, and for whom [it would be
useful].2 I had also had no idea, that you had any difficulties in
sending money. I know only this, that if somebody has money and
wants to send it, and has anybody to whom he may send it, he does
send it, and does not write that it is difficult, unless he has none.
But what happened between us is quite ridiculous. Well, never
mind, let it be as you do it. Today, in your present condition, I don't
want anything from you. But you were wrong in writing that you
did not take any property with you.3 I have none either, and it is
possible that nobody among us will have any. I don't get any benefit
out of it. If I want a bushel of corn, and if I take it from father, I pay
him like any other neighbor. And what can yet happen with father's
farm, nobody knows. As I said, it is possible that no one among us
will get anything We might perhaps be able to prevent it,
but we should think about it all together, because it is high time.
.... I cannot prevent it alone, and perhaps you would not like it;
so it is necessary to deliberate as soon as we can about father and the
farm.
Now, as to Jozef, he got married during last carnival. He does
not want to live with father, but he rented a lodging in the new house
of Stas Gembiak, where he moved with his wife. He is serving as
before. I have left my employment already, and since the first day
of Lent I am home and will think about building my house
W. WROBLEWSKI
1 The letter referred to is lacking.
' Walery probably asked for the payment of some money which Antoni owed
him. Cf. No. 29.
3 Wrong because it looked like a hint that Walery was profiting from the
common family property.
WR6BLEWSKI SERIES 349
28 August 15, 1907
.... DEAR BROTHER: [Greetings. News about crops.] Now
I inform you ..... that there is news. On August 7, after the
Transfiguration of Our Lord, grandmother, or rather our stepmother,
died. She had put aside some money, but had given it to the priests
for the building of the church,1 and different rags [dresses, etc.] which
remained were stolen by her family even before her death, so that
when she died there was not a single rag left; everything was empty.
Even a hen disappeared during the funeral. Father asked a priest to
come to lead the burial-procession, but without a speech, and so it was
decided. But Mrs. Malinowska [some relative of the dead] did not
like it and she requested the priest to thank [the dead] before the grave.
Evidently she had some reasons to thank; the dead must have been
good to her. Now we don't know how father will act; perhaps he
will get married even for the third time. It would be very undesirable
for us, perhaps even a great calamity. But what can be done, since
father does not say anything about the future. He could very well
live with me and Jozef , or divide the farm between us, and we would
give him his living. We don't know how it will be. But if he gets
married once more, we are totally lost. I ask your advice, how to
prevent it ?
Now, as to the building of my house, probably this year only the
basement will be ready, I have no time to carry the building further,
because I have enough to do alone on my farm. I lacked stones and
I paid 8 roubles for half a cube which they brought me. There will
not be enough lime, and other material will be needed. Meanwhile
my money is almost out and my geese have died, and my pigs also. In
short, it is going on very badly. Moreover, I have been already 3
times in Markowszczyzna to fetch bricks for the church, and that is not
the end of it. And I have still other work to do. Now, some boys
from Kozly, who are in America, sent 1 10 roubles for the building of
the church. The priest announced their names. Some lady from
1 Walery is evidently provoked that she gave her money to the church and her
clothes to her own family, so that nothing was left for her husband's family. The
money was given by her to the church hi order to assure her soul's salvation. In
this respect the peasant women show the most profound and reckless egotism.
We have met a woman who has about 2,000 roubles and is still earning as a cook.
She has a widowed daughter with small children, but never helps her and says
openly that all her money will eventually go to the church to secure masses for her
soul.
350 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Bialystok sent also 100 roubles. In a word, offerings flow, but the
parishioners are not in a hurry about bringing bricks, otherwise the
church could be covered before winter.
Now I ask you, dear brother, how about your leg ? Is there any
hope that you will recover? How do you live there? Why does
Kostus never mention himself or us ? Does he care no more for our
father and for our country ? He could perhaps remember once that
he has a father and brothers w WR6BLEWSKI
29 October 7, 1907
.... Now, as to that debt, please don't make yourself any
trouble about it. Although it would now be useful to me, it is true,
yet since you are in such a situation, you need it also. In the last
necessity I can ask father to give me at least the interest, either in
food-stuffs or hi a field to sow, since he sells now and then piece after
piece to strange people. But as yet I defend myself against poverty
as best I can. Now as to my building, the work advances only since
St. Michael. It would be very well to do it now, because the weather
is favorable, but I must often stop and go to other work. Jozef has
helped me also more than once by preparing mortar. If the weather
were good and the walls dried rapidly, the work would progress; and
if there were somebody preparing mortar
Now, I learned in Lapy that brother Feliks came here for some
weeks, but he evidently does not want to show his eyes among us
any more, because he went directly from Lapy by the Narew railway
to Sokoly and thence to Jablonowo. Somebody asked him there why
he did not go to Ziencinki. He said there was nothing to go for.
And he came for a church-festival with his whole family [to Jablo-
nowo]. That is nice, what he is doing! It is human to sin, but it is
devilish not to repent and not to amend his faults. Because it is
said, " If you want to offer a gift to God and you remember that your
brother has anything against you, put your offering down near the
altar and go and make peace with your brother," or in general with
whomever it may be. But he forgot this for he does not want to .see,
not only his brother, but even his father. Perhaps he will yet change
his mind, but I doubt it, because in his letters to Jablonowo he wrote
only curses against father and against me.
Now as to our father, you wrote that Kostus advises him to come
to America, where he could quietly spend the rest of his age with him.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 351
This won't be. Although I have not spoken with father about it, I
know that he would not go. And why should he ? If he did not want
to work himself on his farm, we could give him support but how can
he part with his farm, leave the barn, etc. P1 And Kostus deserves
praise for having taken care of you, but he might work himself hi as
dangerous a place, and if — God forbid! — any accident happened to
him, with father in America, what then ? It would be very unwise.
And we could then give no effective help, because if we sent 10 roubles,
you would receive there only 5, and moreover it is so difficult to get
money here, while from America, when you send 5, we receive here 10,
and that is a different thing „, TTT ,
W. WROBLEWSKI
30 N6vember 10, 1907
.... DEAR BROTHERS: .... Now I inform you about my
building. I have raised it up to the windows and I end here my work
for this year, because winter is near, and there is yet plowing in the
field to be done before winter, and some arrangements to be made
around the house for winter. The autumn is clear and dry
Now I pass to the news. I inform you that our dear father
[ironical] got married for the third time. He took for wife that
Klimusia, or rather Franciszkowa [widow of Franciszek] Pilat, that
bitch, so to speak, because she came in order to rob us. Her children
did not drive her away from their home, but she wants to profit out
of our fortune. When father gave [money] for the banns, he did not
mention anything to us, but did it secretly. When we heard the
banns of our father, we went directly to him with Jozef , and we tried to
persuade him in different ways not to marry. But he refused to
listen, he wanted only to marry. We tried also to persuade her not
to marry our father. About this time somebody broke her windows
on All Saints' Day, and she throws the suspicion upon me; she had
the policeman come and drew up a verbal process, and there will be a
law-suit. I will write you how this ends; but she has no witnesses to
testify who broke her windows.3 I also begged our priest to dissuade
father from marrying her, but even this did not help, because the old
man stubbornly stood upon marrying her. On Wednesday, Novem-
ber 6, the wedding was performed. We did not know anything about
1 Ironical, meaning that he is too avaricious and egotistic to leave his property.
3 Certainly the writer or his children did it.
352 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
it, but I saw the old man coming back from the church, and I guessed
it. On the very next day we went with Jozef to say good morning to
the new couple and we greeted them so that it went to their heels
[proverbial : They felt it deeply.]. The old man saw that he could not
evade and promised to give us the small lots to cultivate, and to leave
for himself the riverside and Uskowizna. So he got rid of us for this
time, but "Promise is a child's toy"; we won't be satisfied with it, we
will insist as strongly as we can that he do it black upon white [in
writing], for us and for you also. We care not only about ourselves,
but also about you, lest Klimusia get it. She is a cunning [avaricious]
old woman, since she dared to go to marriage almost in the face of
violence. I will tell you everything that happens. We want father
to will us all, everything, and to keep to it, but we don't know how it
will turn out. Of course, we except Feliks, because he has his part
already. I wrote you that he was in Jablonowo with his family and
did not show his eyes among .us. He was there for 4 days and went
back, although I know that he had leave for 2 weeks. That is also a
meanness. What is the matter with our family, that they keep
things secret from one another, like thieves ? . . . .x
W. WROBLEWSKI
31 March 25, 1908
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I did not write, as I was waiting for the
news which I expected from our father. We have called upon him
more than once, with Jozef, asking him to make some division of the
farm, but he got stubborn and refuses to do anything for us; only to
his Klimusia he refuses nothing. We called upon him with the priest,
then alone, then with people; nothing helps.2 Once he took an ax
to us and tried to frighten us; he jumped around wildly, like a mad-
man. He gives us in words the field in Szalajdy to sow, but Jozef
refuses to take it without a [written] will. I intend myself to harvest
what I have sown, but I don't know how it will be later. Jozef
'Expression of the feeling that the family is disintegrating. "Keeping
things secret" is clearly a proof that there is no real solidarity. In the primitive
peasant family no member can have any secret from other members; there are no
purely personal matters.
2 Calling with the priest and with people proves that in the general opinion
the father is morally wrong in his behavior, that he ought to occupy the familial,
not the personal standpoint.
WR6BLEWSKI SERIES 353
advises me not to do even this, but it seems to me that would be bad,
for father will justify himself afterwards saying that he gave, but we
would not take, and he will sell more readily. We also drove the
Trusie [the stepmother's family] away from father's house, for they
had settled their whole family already. Now at least they only call
often. There would be much to write, whole newspapers would be
necessary; in this letter the rest cannot be described. I spit upon all
this, so to speak; if he is determined to waste all this, let him waste it;
if his own children are not dear to him, only strange children, for
everything there is free to strangers.
At the end of the carnival Jozef Laba got his daughter married to
the son of Fortus from Lynki. We were not at the wedding, but
father with his Klimusia was there, and he got so drunk that he lay
under the hedge. The next day he invited perhaps half the people
from Gozdziki, but we were left out. Although I never overlooked
father [in my invitations], he always keeps away from us, as from
enemies. Well, I end it, because I loathe all this.
[News about weather.] Now, a terrible thing happened. On
March 23 in the village Somachy a score of robbers came in the evening
to the Porowskis. "They found the whole family at home. They
attacked Porowski and killed him with a blow on the head and
revolver-shots, they wounded and bound the other members of the
family, they took all the money they could find and fled, nobody
knows where. This terrible incident frightened everybody. The
next day I drove lumber from the forest of Kruszewo .... and I
saw [mourning] banners on the house of Porowski, and I learned about
this accident after coming to Matyski
I made window frames during the whiter, and in the spring, if
God grants health, we will set to work in the field and near the house.
The walls of the house have been spoiled a little by the cold. Work
approaches, and there is nobody to help. Although Michalek [3
years old] promises to help, still I don't believe in the efficiency of his
help. I will tell you something more about him. Mother laid upon
him the duty of helping the poor. He asked why she let him give a
grosz to a beggar. She answered, "In order that he may pray our
Lord God to let your foster-father in America recover."1 Now he
1 The beggar is a religious personality, and giving of alms a religious act. In
tales most of the beggars are either personifications of God or of the saints, or good
magicians — bearers of a beneficent divine power — or at least instruments of the
354 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
asks very often, "Has my foster-father recovered yet?" He is in
good health, himself and Jozefa as well. The latter can read a book
pretty well already. Edward goes to school in Lapy
W. WROBLEWSKI
32 May 8, 1908
.... DEAR BROTHERS: As always, I inform you also today
first about our health, that we are all in good health, thanks to our
Lord God the Highest, and we wish you the same. Only my wife is
in rather bad health; for more than a year she has not been able to
work much. She cannot eat much either; therefore she has no
strength to work. She coughs incessantly and no medicine can help
her much, neither doctor nor home-medicine. Probably it will end
badly. [Remarks about letters received and sent.]
We have spring already. All the birds are here — larks, lapwings,
storks, swallows, cuckoos, nightingales — in short, all of them. But
divinity. The function of the beggar is to pray, and not only his prayer, but also
almsgiving has a magical importance, compels the divinity. This religious char-
acter of beggary is shown also by the fact that beggars in towns stay around
churches, that hi the country the parish festivals are the meeting-dates and -places
of beggars, that "miraculous" places like Cz^stochowa are the main centers of
beggary. This may be accounted for partly by the fact that hi these places and
on these dates the largest crowds gather, but this does not explain it completely.
The peasant gives alms more frequently to the beggar before the church than to
the beggar upon the street; more frequently during a parish festival than on an
ordinary day, more frequently in a miraculous locality than in an ordinary church.
This is evidently because the religious character of the beggar, the value of his
prayers and of his mediation before God and the saints, increase in proportion
to the sacredness of the time and the place. The principle is exactly the same as
that which determines the value of a mass. A mass said on Sunday is more valu-
able than one on a week day, during a parish festival more valuable than on an
ordinary Sunday, in a miraculous locality more valuable than in an ordinary
locality. Further, the religious character of the beggar is proved by the conditions
required for the acknowledgment of his occupation. Only the old man or the
cripple can be a proper beggar, not because of any consideration of social utility,
but because more or less consciously these features are considered the marks by
which God destined them to this function. The proof that no utilitarian reflections
play here any r61e is, that women, though less able to work, do not enjoy so full an
acknowledgment of their begging function as the men. The woman, indeed, can
be a member of the congregation or a divinity (saint), but not a priest, an inter-
mediary between both. The women beggars are, on the contrary, often the
bearers of a mischievous, magical character — witches. The religious character
of the beggar is perfectly expressed in the popular stories. (Cf. No. 261, note.)
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 355
the spring does not progress favorably. We have St. Stanislaus [day]
today, and the trees are still black and don't think of blossoming.
Some years ago the orchards had blossomed already at St. Wojciech.
Cold wind blows from all sides. I wasted all the food from my barns
in feeding my stock; everything is empty. There was no hay.
Moreover water flooded the potatoes in early spring .... and
afterward they froze in the barns. Everything goes on unfavorably.
Now my fields are already sown and I expect soon to begin building
.... but my capital is exhausted, I must now ask father [for the
debt], because .... otherwise I can do nothing. If God helps me
to move to the new house perhaps it will go on better, for now I can
change nothing, because so many things are commenced. I could
return even today to my old employment, but I cannot because of this
building; .... and if I could keep a garden at home, I should have
a good bargain; people come themselves from Lapy, if I only had
something to sell. These few hot-beds — what do they amount to ?
As to our father — our fortune runs out in different ways; one feels
oppressed inside at seeing how the care of us all [what we have worked
for] is wasted in vain. But what can be done, since there is nobody
among us to look after this, strange people benefit now
W. WROBLEWSKI
33 June 29>
DEAR BROTHERS: .... My wife is unwell all the time, and I
don't know whether she will recover. Although much money has
been spent, no improvement can be seen
Now I inform you that I got from father the money which I
needed so much, but after much bargaining. When I mentioned it,
he talked without end ; he told me to bring a law-suit. At last he saw
that he could not extricate himself by shifts and he paid it back.
But what happened then? Instead of the 100 roubles he sold the
riverside near Bociany to Roszkowski, from Ziencinki, for 300 roubles,
because Marcinek [Roszkowski's son] came from America and brought
money. That is the way it goes on with us. And he could have paid
the debt without selling anything, for not long ago he got 100 roubles
from Stas Laba which the latter had borrowed from him. But this
money surely fell into the claws of Klimusia. Finally, he could have
borrowed, if he had no money, or by giving a mortgage on the meadow,
356 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
he would also have got 100 roubles; or he could have sold somewhere
a lot for 100 roubles, but not so big a one for 300. Everybody says
that the riverside is worth about 400. In this way our dear father
gets rid of land and rids us of it at the same time. Jozef went to
remonstrate with father, for wasting the fortune so. They almost
fought. Father jumped upon Jozef with a yoke [for carrying buckets]
and Jozef took a pole. The old man brandished his yoke so that he
broke the pole. At last Jozef sprang forward and wrested the wood
from him, and so they separated. I was not there at that time, but
Jozef came back and told how it was. The old man said that we are
bad. "Why did I ask for the too roubles?" Does he think I am
going to give him my work for the benefit of my enemies, that they
may have more and live better? He does not give us his fortune,
which justly belongs to us after him, and he wants us not to claim this
[our own money] until he wastes everything and there is nothing left
from which to recover [the debt]. He said that you had sent money
as if for a joke [so little]. But I told him that it was lucky, for now
our dear father would not care even if you were dying there from
hunger. Why do other people not act in this way ? What shall we
do now ? Perhaps it would be best to help him to finish it the soonest
possible! Let there be no more of this grief and this sorrow! One
cannot bear it, seeing how strange people profit from us and grow
rich from the fruit of our labor. [Sends a photograph of the house
which he is building and of his family; describes the photograph.]
W. WROBLEWSKI and A. A. W. E. J. M.,
[initials of other members of the family] also Wroblewskis
34 November 22, 1908
DEAR BROTHERS: .... First I inform you about the building
of my house, that it is covered already with a roof, but inside there
is still much to do; nothing yet is finished. [News about weather.]
In the spring I intend to move the granary The worst is that
I have spent all my money; but if God grants us health, with some
pains everything will be done. People praise my house; many have
said already, that I have adorned all Ziencinki with it The
granary and barn must be moved, because it will be very inconvenient
H they remain. There will be much work in moving them. Now
I know how much work it costs to build a house and to do everything
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 357
with one's own hands, but perhaps our Lord God will yet help me to
do this also [transfer the barn]. Now I don't know what to do with
that unlucky mill. I cannot take it down alone without breaking it.
I pay about 4 roubles taxes yearly for it, and I drive my grain to grind
to strange mills, because it is not worth grinding in it — only loss of
time and repairs. Father drew out long ago; he refuses to help in
paying the tax and in repairing. If I found an amateur [one who
wanted it] I would sell it, and if not, I must demolish it the best I can
for it is impossible to pay so much and to have no benefit. At least
there will be some fuel. It cost money enough, and there is no use
from it. [Description of the last summer and autumn.] Now I
inform you that Felus Laba is dead .... and his son has got
married Brother Jozef received your letter about the accor-
deon, and certainly he will attend to it when he has money. ....
My wife is always the same, she cannot work at all. She does
not lie down continually, but there is no help from her. It is a great
damage for me. The girls do everything alone. Edward goes to
school in Lapy. After this year he will have still two years to learn
in order to finish the school. Jozefa is learning already to read
Russian. Michalek is at least in good health; he calls for bread as
soon as he wakes
W. WROBLEWSKI
35 December 22, 1908
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I inform you that last Friday I received
from the post-office in Lapy 80 roubles through a money-order in which
there is no mention from whom it comes Surely it is from you,
and surely for the purchase about which you wrote in the previous
letter I will wait for word from you.
Now I inform you that my wife is already very ill; when you read
this letter, dear brother, probably she will be no more among the
living in this world, and if God grants you to come again to our
country, dear brother, you will see your sister-in-law no more. We
are sad, and we shall have sad Christmas holidays, although they will
come in a few days. But nobody knows what will happen. Not
long ago we brought the priest to her. There was no hope of her
living up to the present. Like this candle which is burned almost to
the end and is already going out, so is her life; it will soon go out, and
we shall remain in deep sorrow.
358 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
As I wrote you already, I am now in a very bad situation. I
have spent all my money and shall be obliged to borrow about 100
roubles when the funeral and the moving of the barns come.1 So, dear
brothers, perhaps you could do it for me, and lend me [this money].
I beg you, if you can. But probably it is difficult for you now. In
that case I shall be obliged to ask for a loan in the communal bank.
I should not like to let people know that I lack money, though I hope
soon to get rid of this debt. But I must borrow somewhere now,
because the moving of the barns cannot wait until I have cash
W. WROBLEWSKI
36 February 2, 1909
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I received the letter in which you
wrote how to use those 80 roubles and we acted according to it.
Jozef had a suit made for which he paid 32 roubles, but it will prob-
ably be somewhat difficult to send it. Probably somebody going to
America will take it and send it to you. We gave for the holy mass
which was celebrated on January 18 at which we were — I, Olcia and
Jozef. Now I thank you very much for that money which you sent
to buy gifts for my children .... because it was very useful to us
at that time. If God permits, we shall be able perhaps to prove our
gratitude in some way. Meanwhile we remain indebted to you and
we all thank you once more.
Now I inform you that my wife is still alive, although before
Christmas we did not expect her to live through the holidays. And
we don't know how long it will last; but she will never more have
health. If we could only move from here to the new house [before
she dies].
1 This anticipation of the funeral expenses while his wife is still alive, and in
general the calm foresight in speaking of her imminent death are not a proof of any
coarseness of feeling. It is the normal, traditional attitude of the peasant toward
death. Death is a perfectly normal phenomenon for the peasant, normal not only
in the naturalistic, but hi the sentimental sense. It has a perfectly established and
predetermined social and religious meaning, so that the individual reaction toward
it has a very narrow field of unexpected possibilities open within the range of the
traditional attitudes. And the practical anticipation of death belongs precisely to
the sphere of these traditional attitudes. Moreover, the practical side of life has
nothing base hi the peasant's eyes which would make a connection of death and
money-affairs unsuitable. (Cf. Introduction: "Religious Attitudes," and note to
Osinski series, No. 69.)
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 359
Spring will come, and during spring I have a great task to accom-
plish. I want to clear everything out of this place before the sowing-
season, in order that nothing except the ground may be left here.
I want to move the barns, to sell the house to somebody who will take
it away, to transplant different shrubs which are good and to destroy
these which are not good, and all this will require much work. The
new house is not ready either; there are neither ceilings nor floors, and
the middle-walls are also not quite ready. But if I can. prepare at
least one room for summer, we can move, and then before winter we
shall finish the rest And I have still threshing enough up to
the end of the carnival There will be much work and many
expenses from now on. But if God allows us to win, then perhaps we
shall be able to arrange everything better about the home, being rid
at last of this detestable neighborhood, with this street and [adjacent]
barns and everything, that I cannot enumerate here, but of which I
have had enough The winter is steady, cold and good sledge-
road, but there are neither weddings nor visits, and probably there
will be none, because the end of the carnival is approaching. And
even if there were some, we could not amuse ourselves. [Meaning
not clear: "It would not be suitable," or, "We should not be
able."]
W. W.
37 March 21, 1909
DEAR BROTHERS : . . . . First I inform you, dear brother Kostus,
that I received both your sad letters, for which I thank you. I went
on Sunday to the post-office for the paper and I received the two
letters at once and I knew by the writing that they were from you,
and I had at once a bad foreboding I was not mistaken for
.... I found such terrible news about the breaking of the legs of
Antos. What misfortunes came one after the other! Evidently
God is putting us to the test. For, as it is said, "Whom God loves,
He gives him crosses, and who bears them meekly, becomes happy."
And perhaps God punishes us for our sins or for the sins of other
people? Still we must submit to the will of God, because it is said:
"Oh Lord, here cut me, here burn me, but in eternity pardon me."
And you know that our Lord God inflicted upon St. Job such a terrible
calamity, that being rich he became a lazar, and yet he said: "The
Lord gave, the Lord took away, blessed be His name." For what
360 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
have we of our own ? Nothing. Fortune and health, everything is
from our Lord God.1 And the worst misery for man is if God takes
the latter [health] away from him.
I have still another great sorrow besides our brother's misfortune.
Hardly did our brother get out of one misery when another, one
worse still, befell him. In the same way it goes on in my home. My
wife has been ill for two years, and now since autumn she has not
risen from her bed. She has dried up like a skeleton, and we look
only for the time when she will close her eyes. Twice already we
brought the priest with our Lord God, and we thought that she would
be in the tomb long ago. But now there remains only a short time
to live, we think a few days perhaps. Therefore I am very sad, and
now from two sides. But what can I do ? I owe money already to
brother Antoni, and now I must contract a still greater debt for my
needs, and if it is necessary, I must try to send him [money]. Write
about this, for .... I am very badly off for money now, with this
building and the sickness of my wife. Surely I shall have to bury
her soon
I am planning now to move the barns to where the new house
stands. It will require work and workmen, because I cannot do it
alone. And this makes me sorrowful, for I build everything as if
upon ice, as people say, because what do I own here ? Everything is
my children's property. But it is difficult to do nothing. Perhaps
[my reward will be] that I shall live my last years I don't know how
and where [my children will perhaps drive me away], but I cannot
leave them now and go somewhere else. [News about weather.]
W. WROBLEWSKI
38 March 31, 1909
"Praised be Jesus Christus!"
DEAR BROTHERS: "The world will rejoice, and you will weep,"
so said Christ our Lord to his disciples. And so it happened with
me, because everything in the world rejoices at the coming of
spring, and I remain in a heavy sorrow after the death of a person
so dear to me.
1 This is the only clear example in this series of a mystical subordination to
the will of God. There are a few examples in other series, e.g., Cugowski series,
No. 314.
WR6BLEWSKI SERIES 361
On March 31 died Anna Wroblewska, born Gonsowska, having
lived 46 years, after a long illness, provided with the holy sacraments.1
I send you today the sad news of the leaving of this world by my
wife. I am still more grieved about the misfortune which befell you,
brother.2 God puts us indeed to a heavy test, but let us be true to
him unto our death, and He will give us the crown of eternal life.
Dear brother Kostus, write me as you can, what is the condition
of Antoni, how is his health, whether there is a hope that he will live.
And when he gets out of this misery, let him not grieve about his
further life. Perhaps our Lord God will grant us that if we are in
good health he will find some support with us. It is true that I am
now left as if upon ice, .... because everything there is belongs to
the children, but with the children I can live in some way, and if God
grants them not to be bad, we could perhaps keep our brother also.
Now, although we are in such a difficult situation, I begin the work
of moving the barns. I will now end with my children what was
before intended with my wife.3 When we do this, with God's help,
it will be perhaps somewhat better. We shall be able to do something
with the garden and this will give us a better possibility of living.
Now I refer to our father, how well disposed he is toward us all.
When my wife was sick neither he nor his Klimusia showed them-
selves, although the priest passed by twice with our Lord God. All
the people from the village called upon us, but they did not call.
And they did not come either for funeral and burial, although I asked
[him]. That is a good father! He has disowned us, but he has
renounced God also, because he would not come to honor Him in the
1 The form of this announcement is evidently imitated. The first part reminds
us of the beginning of a funeral speech, the second part is a typical official death
notice. The man keeps in his whole correspondence about his wife's death within
the strict limits of the socially sanctioned attitude, with sometimes a slight individ-
ual sentiment. (Cf. No. 35, note.)
3 With the strong familial feeling of the Polish peasant, an attachment to
brother or sister greater than that to husband or wife is not an exception. It
would probably be much more frequent, were it not for the fact that marriage
creates an active community of interests which strengthens the mere sentimental
and sexual attachment. This explains the fact that whenever the husband or wife
comes to live with the family of the other, i.e., when no separate household is
constituted, his or her position is very difficult, because the old familial connection
of the other remains stronger than the new marriage connection.
3 This hint of a personal sentiment and one in No. 43 are the only ones made
by Walery with reference to his wife.
362
PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
most Holy Sacrament. He said that he did not know. But who can
believe it ? The whole village knew, he alone did not know. I told
him that perhaps he saw at least the [mourning] banner when the
wind waved it for almost two days. He muttered something, and
so it ended *
I cannot even send you wishes for the approaching merry holidays
of our Lord's Resurrection, because I know that they will not be
merry for either you or me
W. WROBLEWSKI
39
May 16, 1909
In the Green Holidays [Pentecost] we
DEAR BROTHERS: . .
intend to move to the new house .... because here the house
stands alone and on a bare place; everything is cleared away, the
barns moved there; we live here still only until the chimney and
stoves are built in the new house Although there are no
ceilings and floors we shall move, .... and finish the rest before
winter. My farm buildings look very good now; I put both barns
on the side of the road and between them I made a gate-way
The sties are on the edge of the field If I have the opportunity
to make a photograph of the house, I will send it to you My
brothers-in-law helped me for some days, only brother Jozef could not
make up his mind to come and help; .... he did not refuse, but
before he came we had done everything. Now we shall have a
dispute with Kazimierz Plaksa. He has here now too much and too
little room at once, for he will have no way to drive behind the barns
if I make a fence from the road-side. He bought a strip near us from
Piotr Pilat for 70 roubles, in the hope that we shall cross it and then
he will have the whole road, his own and ours, but I don't know
whether I will cross it .... at any rate not at once
W. WROBLEWSKI
40 June 13, 1909
DEAR BROTHERS: .... Now I inform you that I had some
luck also. Before Pentecost I was invited by the priest in Plonka t
plant flowers in his garden. I did not refuse, although I had enouj
1 This is a proof that the father hi fact no longer considers himself a mem
of the family. For a relative not to assist at a funeral is unheard of.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 363
work of my own. When I had finished the work the priest's coach-
man was going to Lapy to bring the priest's sister, and he took me
home. Suddenly the mare ran away and .... overturned us with
the carriage. I got a terrible blow upon my leg. Three weeks have
passed .... and I cannot walk without pain. May God grant
me to recover before the hay-harvest, or else it will be bad
We are living in the new house Upon the old place there is
nothing more, no trace left I sold the house for 56 roubles
and I gave them directly back, because I had borrowed exactly as
much from brother-in-law Feliks for the funeral and for the moving
of the buildings. Well, after long bargaining, I exchanged with
Kazimierz Plaksa some land for the road. Though he barked enough
he had to give what I wanted. He had said that the road would be his
without anything, because it is common. Well, for this "common"
road he had to give me the hillside opposite the old gate .... and
I gave him my road up to his house He had bought from
Piotr Pilat a bed near my garden with the idea that I would cross it
[with the road] and then he would have the road. He had paid 70
roubles for it — rather expensive. But I did not want it, because there
are minors who have a part [in Pilat's property; therefore, the
proposed combination was not to be considered quite secure]; let
him rather keep what he bought. It looks ridiculous; he had bought
it for me and I did not want it. I shall now have much to do still
before I have everything in proper order, but people are already
praising me and saying that I live as in a small manor. The house
does not look bad and the barns look good also. The fruit trees have
grown well enough; they blossomed this year; a few bee-hives — all
this together looks pretty good. I send you a photograph of my
house, although a very bad one. It is the front- wall, 3 windows in it;
a fourth and fifth in the side- wall, near the door; before the door a
sort of a veranda; upon the roof two vanes turned by the wind, in the
other side-wall two windows and in the rear also two windows. Alto-
gether 7 ordinary windows and 2 big ones near the door [News
about weather.]
W. W.
[Two letters, dated May 16, and June 13, relate the moving into the
new house, the transfer of the barns, an exchange of land with Plaksa,
minute description of new house, etc.]
364 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
41 September 29, 1909
DEAR BROTHERS :....! received from you the letter for which
I had waited so long, and I learned the curious news that brother
Kostus has bought such a big farm. This pleased me very much.
I am almost carried away. Could I have such a fortune, or even the
half of it! There are probably about 60 morgs, and I have 7, and
these are in more than 40 places; and even with these 7 morgs I don't
know how it will be, because Olcia can take half of them. People are
already instigating her. If it happens so, I don't know what I shall
do with the other children. And surely she won't be long with us,
because people want to extort this small bit of land as soon as possible.
Envy does not sleep. My late wife foresaw it and told me before her
death that when I built the new house and everything looked better
there would be terrible envy. And so it is. If she had lived, it
would be only half a misery [not so bad], but now I don't know how
it will be. To remain alone with the children would be bad. To go
anywhere into the world would also be impossible. How could I
leave these little ones alone ? There will be nothing to farm upon ;
if it were at least as it is now, one could live along, though not without
difficulty. (People have often talked of my marrying Olcia, that it
is possible. I asked the priest about it. He told me that there have
been such situations and people have asked for permission, but that
it is not possible in any way. Although different difficulties about
property have been exposed, it has been refused.) Here I stop
[writing] about this.
Now I want to ask about this farm which Kostus bought, in what
country it lies, whether there is a town near it, whether there can be
a good sale of agricultural products ? Still I believe that if he found
his way before and could gather money enough to buy such a farm,
he surely will know how to manage further and pay the rest. And
if the garden is in a good state and the town is not far away, it can
give a good income. And also it is necessary to cultivate those plants
which can be sold most easily.1
W. WROBLEWSKI
1 The fact that Kostus has bought a farm creates between the brothers a new
community of interests and strengthens the familial connection. All the following
letters are full of agricultural details, advice, information, experiments (mainly
omitted here). In spite of the passage of time, the correspondence remains as
animated as it was at the beginning of their separation.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 365
[Two letters, November 14, 1909, and January i, 1910, contain advice
about farming and gardening. Writes that his house has been reproduced
in Gazeta Swiqteczna. Complains that he cannot get along alone with the
children.]
42 February 22, 1910
DEAR BROTHERS: [Weather, early spring, larks and bees have
appeared, farm-work.] Thanks to God, we have not so much trouble
as last year. This has been a very hard year for us after the loss of a
wife and mother
Now you asked me, dear brother, to write about our father. ' I
can say that, although we don't live far from each other, I don't know
anything about him, for he never comes to us and we never go to him.
Why should we go, since he has disowned us. He said that he did not
want our tutorship, that he will get on pretty well. It is true that
he gets on pretty well, because from time to time we hear that he has
sold some gully or patch. He keeps Klimusia and her children; they
are all there continually, so we have no reason to go there. It is sad.
But what can be done ? I am happy only when I don't remember
him; then my heart does not pain me. But whenever I recall it all
I am very sad. If he were a father loving his own children and not
those of others surely we should all be better off now. It is all right
when strange brats ["bachory," contemptful word for "children"]
creep upon him from all sides like vermin, but he refused to live with
his own children. I am not of his age today [it is natural for old
people to live dependent on their children] but I live with my children
upon their fortune, and still I don't weep. I commend myself to
God's care and I live along. For me in my actual situation it is very
bad that he did so, but may God's will be done. [Asks about the
exact place of the brothers' farm upon the map, about the corn,
vegetables, trees which grow there.] In our village and neighborhood
a great deal is changed, it would seem strange to you now. And as to
Feliks, I don't know for certain his address, because he does not write
to us at all W. W.
43 March 8, 1910
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I thank you for your letter; I learned
much from it about what grows there and how things are paid. I
understood everything. Now I describe to you my farm-stock. I
366 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
have two horses, one 6 and the other 3 years old, two cows, both have
calved now; for the milk which I send to Lapy I get 6 roubles monthly,
.... for 2 calves I got 7! roubles, .... I have 2 old sheep and
3 young ones, 2 pigs, 4 hens, a dog and a pair of turtle-doves, and that
is all my farm-stock. [Describes prices, probable crops, farm-work,
weather, new churches in Lapy and Plonka.]
Now there are many changes in our village; Jozef Laba built a
new house, Boleslaw a new one, Stas Gembiak a new one, Roch a new
one, Jan Gluchy a new one. Gluchy has gone now for the third time
to America, and Roch is in America again. I moved to the new place.
Where it was there is nothing, and where there was nothing, there it is.
Now I have it nice and comfortable, everybody says that it looks like
a manor, only it is a pity that mine [my wife] is not there and that I
still have a few roubles of debt. But the latter would be a trifle
if she lived. Now there can be a bad misfortune for me with the
children, especially with such a difference of age. Now all of them
would like to learn, but there is nobody to work for them
[Advises them to keep bees; sends wishes for Easter.]
W. WROBLEWSKI
44 April 23, 1910
.... DEAR BROTHERS: .... I received your letter with the
picture-patterns for [Easter] eggs, for which we thank you; we have
no such yet. America is always the first to invent anything.
[Weather, farm- work, crops.] The seeds called "pop-corn" which
you sent me sprang up, but the cotton has not yet come up, though it
was sown long ago.
Now I inform you more about my condition. In the introduction
I wrote that we are in good health, but not all of us, for Olcia coughs
too much since carnival.1 She does different things but all this does
not help. I went with her to a doctor, he gave a medicine and advises
her to work in the fresh air. He said to me, "May it not be with
her as with her mother!" He says that her left lung is weak. Now
there is almost no work from her, she stops to rest every moment.
At home lack and disorder are growing. I don't know what will come
of it. There is work enough for women at home, and there is nobody
1 An instance of the purely formal nature of the introductory news about
health, prosperity, etc.
WR6BLEWSKI SERIES 367
to work; everything is torn and worn, and there is nobody to make
anything. I hope I may be not obliged to look for some woman [as
wife], for I am not very willing to do it.1 As long as this one was in
good health, we were going on more or less, although with difficulty;
but now it is indeed a misery; there is nobody either to govern or to
work at home. I give directions and leave the house; when I come
back, nothing is done. The one cannot, the other [the boy] is too
lazy. They are quarreling continually. [Sends vegetable seeds to
be tried in America.] TT7 ,T7 ,
W. WROBLEWSKI
45 May i, 1910
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I thank you for your letter. Now it is
somewhat clearer to me about America. I learned much from your
letters, what grows there, what are the prices, and in what locality you
are settled. [Weather, crops, prices, farm-work.] We have this year
enough to eat and work enough, but too little money. Thanks to God,
at least I am gradually getting rid of my debts. It is bad that at
home there is nobody to keep the house. Too much trouble for me.
1 It would be interesting to know why he does not wish to remarry. He is
certainly not deterred by the remembrance of his first wife, as such sentiments are
absolutely strange to the peasant's traditional attitude. There are only two pos-
sible reasons — his attachment to Olcia, or his unwillingness to Introduce an Incal-
culable element of change into his life. -But the latter supposition is less probable,
because he does not hesitate to marry after Olcia's death, and because, as far as
we see, there is no example of any fear of remarriage among peasants. His attach-
ment to Olcia does not express itself openly, because of the unlawfulness of such a
feeling. Still, it can be inferred. He mentions that Olcia sometimes accom-
panied him to entertainments, ceremonies, fairs, etc., and he had the idea of marry-
ing her. Even if this idea was mainly determined by economic considerations, the
sentimental and sexual elements were hardly absolutely lacking; these are almost
always present hi peasant marriages, even in men of a rather low level of intellectual
and moral development, while Walery is certainly a peasant a little above the
average. Finally, even if the love-element was originally absent, this idea of
marrying Olcia made the man look upon her in a new way, as upon a woman, and
some degree of love must have developed, particularly if we remember what an
influence the conscious idea and its expression in words have upon the feelings of
the peasant.
Some indications can be found also in letter 48. Walery writes there of Olcia's
death in a much more informal personal way than that of the death of his wife.
He mentions also that Olcia wished to will to him her part of the inheritance, but
this may have been caused only by the usual familial attachment. At any rate, it
is probable that his feeling for Olcia was only half-conscious.
368 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
But what else can be done ? If mine [my wife] were living everything
would be well, and so even all this rejoices me not much, although the
farm is in a better order and the buildings nice
Now I mention what you wrote about the comet of Halley.
Among us people also know it, and different wicked speculators spread
various rumors. There is nothing true in it. Our editor of Gazeta
Swia.teczna explains, that there is nothing to be feared from it, because
the moon moves 50,000 miles from the earth and the one does no harm
to the other; what damage then can the one bring to the other when
the comet of Halley moves 3,000,000 miles away from the earth?
I don't know where it is now; in March after sunset we saw it above
the western sky, but now we don't see it any more. Perhaps you see
it in America? .... Now what you wrote about the sun, if we
live next year I will do so here at the appointed time, and so we shall
learn who of us is nearer the equator. You had a very good idea,
but now it cannot be done, for during this tune the sun has turned
much off from the earth, or rather the earth from the sun, and a second
trial ought to be made.1
Now as to the machines which you bought and which are so
expensive — don't they know scythes and sickles there ? With these
tools you can do much during the summer. But you ought not to
lose hope, even if one year disappoints you; perhaps the next year
will be better. One always works more willingly upon his own [land]
and has more pleasure in everything and particularly it makes a
difference hi old age; you can live more easily to the end on your own
IlandJ W. WROBLEWSKI
[Letter of June 19, entirely filled with questions of agriculture at home
and in America; one of August 5, with news of the visit of bishop, con-
firmation of Edward and J6zefa, arrest and imprisonment of brother Jozef,
by mistake; one of December i, filled again with news and advice about
farming and gardening.]
46 January 8, 1911
DEAR BROTHERS: [Usual beginning.] The holidays passed, we
decorated the [Christmas] pine-tree and the children had great joy.
[Difficult to bring in the hay.] Now I answer your questions. The
1 Their idea is probably to measure the length of a shadow. It does not occur
to them to consult a map, because of the total lack of any tradition about the use
of books of reference. When information was needed it was always sought either
by asking someone or, whenever possible, by observation and experiment.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 369
village-elder is Kazimierz Plaksa; he is ending his third year. The
shop in Lapy under the name ''Consumers Association in Lapy"
exists, but the income scarcely covers the expenses. It would prosper
pretty well, if it were not for our darkness [lack of instruction].
What can be done, if people prefer to go to the Jews? They are
afraid of making the Jews angry. Perkowski Roman opened a shop
in his house also .... and it is not going badly. In the autumn
I gave him a pumpkin for his shop which weighed more than 2 poods,
and upon which was written: "Village-gardener W. W. "
Now as to the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland, it will
probably be no sooner than pears grow upon a willow [Proverb].
[News about farm-work, crops, prices.] If it were always so [as this
year], it would be only half a misery, but I don't know how it will be
in the future with this farm. Perhaps it will soon fall into pieces,
and then neither here nor elsewhere. I like to work, but only if there
is something to work upon. I think that for you it is also agreeable
to work upon a farm, and the more so upon such a farm. If our Lord
God helps you to pay [the mortgage], it is the most sure piece of bread.
.... If I had so much of my own land I believe that I should feel
fine, but I commend myself to the will of God I am in a bad
situation. Even if it came to paying [the stepdaughter's part of
inheritance hi cash, instead of giving her land, in the case of her
marriage], it would be difficult to find a loan, because I don't know
myself what and upon what I am [what is my position, as the father
of the heirs]. The worst is that my hands are tied, so that I cannot
manage the affairs freely. Even now I do much, for I don't know
what another man would do in my situation [probably less]. Now I
think it a pity that I did not go earlier to America; at present it is too
difficult WALERY WROBLEWSKI
The stork's nest fell down last summer; it was rotten with rains.
Now there is none.
47 March 15,
DEAR BROTHERS: [More than half the letter filled with farm and
weather news.] Now as to the fast in our country, the Holy Father,
or the Pope, gave an exemption for 7 years. On all the days of the
whole year except the eve of the day of God's Mother, December 8,
and Good Friday, we can eat milk. On all Saturdays of the year, if it
370 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
does not happen to be the eve of some holiday or quarterly fast-day,
we can eat meat. On all the Sundays during Lent, we can eat meat,
even more than once. On all the Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays in
Lent, except Good Thursdays, we can eat meat once a day. The
Holy Father gave an exemption for the Kingdom of Poland for 7
years, commuting the fast for other good deeds. He did it last year,
in April. The papers published it at once. The priests did not
publish it; only when the whole people learned it and it was impossible
to keep it secret they proclaimed it. Nevertheless we keep the old
habit about meat, only in Lent we eat milk on Sundays, Mondays,
Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on the other days we fast x
W. WROBLEWSKI
48 March 16, 1912
"Praised be Jesus Christus!"
DEAR BROTHERS: I announce to you today sad and painful
news. Today, March 16, at 4 o'clock hi the morning, our Olcia ended
her temporal life, and moved to eternity, toward which we also are
going. It is sad and sorrowful news. For the second time I bear
such a painful blow. What is left to me ? Even this one who has
been instead of a mother to these younger ones bade us farewell, not
for a day, not for a week, but for eternity. She went often to church,
but she came back, and now she will never come back. Oh, how sad
it is to think of it! And the house is empty without her.
The spring comes, and there will be much work. Who will do
this ? Now I can do almost nothing at home, I must do my work,
because, thanks to it, we can more easily drive poverty away, the
more so as this funeral will cost more than 60 roubles And
moreover, there are rumors that the Stalugis from Barwiki and Feliks
.... Laba intend to claim the inheritance after her, but I believe
that they will receive from us as much as the Stalugis formerly received
from my late wife [nothing] Olcia wanted to bequeath it to
me, but it was not possible, because she was not full 21 years old.
'The persistence of old customs among peasants is very well shown in the
matter of fasting. The example of Wr6blewski, who fasts in spite of the exemp-
tion, is typical. The whole modern evolution in the church's attitude toward
fasting remained without any influence upon the isolated peasant communities.
This shows also the relative independence of religion as custom from the sanction
of the church.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 371
But as far as I have asked, her part belongs by the right of inheritance
to the younger half-brothers and half-sisters
W. W.
49 May 14, 1912
DEAR BROTHERS: .... Now I inform you that I have already
a new housewife at home. I took her from Plonka. She is Miss
Anna Perkowska, from the house where Horko formerly lived. She
is the daughter of Horko's son-in-law, and 30 years old. Moreover,
she is a good seamstress, because others learn from her. Although
she does not look pretty, for me it is more than enough, for I am no
longer the same as I was long ago. Now I have two sewing-machines;
one can even be sold. Her stock of clothing is substantial enough —
no need to buy her new dresses soon. And the order at home is
becoming different, and I am glad of it, because up to the present
there has been a terrible confusion in the house. Now, if only good
harmony prevails at home, it will be better, I hope I have
nothing more of interest to write. I mention only that our marriage
was performed on May 7, on the eve of St. Stanislaw, and there was
a good enough, although not a big wedding-feast x
W. WROBLEWSKI
50 August 2, 1912
DEAR BROTHERS: [Weather, farm- work, crops.] Now I have
had no letter from you for a long time. I wrote in May that a change
had happened with me, that I had taken a new wife Now at
least the order at home is somewhat better, because up to this time
it has been very bad; and a little money is more easily found when
necessary, since I took my position again. Although my occupations
are more numerous, at least there is some result. Now it will be more
easily possible to go somewhere and to see something. It would not
be bad, only Edward is somewhat lazy. Perhaps he will improve
when he grows up
W. WROBLEWSKI
1 Less ceremonial and less social importance are always attached to second
marriages, but the lack of any touch of romance and of any wedding announce-
ments marks this as an unusually matter-of-fact arrangement.
372 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
51 October 21, 1912
DEAR BROTHERS: [Weather, crops, prices; news about acquaint-
ances.] Now in Plonka we have a new church .... it will be
consecrated next year. Our village gathered 150 roubles for one
window of the new church; other villages give money also, but we
have shown ourselves munificent as compared with the others, for
which we have been praised more than once from the chancel by the
priest. Now, at home it does not go badly. My present housekeeper,
or rather wife, keeps good order at home and also with the children;
they are all cleaner than before, and my Jozia says that she never had
such a chemise as she has now Well, the service is not bad;
I get 30 [roubles] every month. She earns for herself by sewing
.... and I do not have to pay for the weeding, harvesting, digging,
etc [More farm-news.]
W. WROBLEWSKI
52 March 7, 1913
.... DEAR BROTHERS: .... We live still in the old way, but
perhaps soon there will be something new [war]. Everything here is
as you wrote. We expected bad times very soon. Now it seems that
for the present there will be peace, but it seems that, as the papers
write, this misery is unavoidable sooner or later. Where shall we go
then? We shall all perish probably hi some awful way, if we live
long enough to see it come Although even now we don't
enjoy any delights, then a terrible misery awaits us, and we shall be
separated from you, not singly, but all together, and we shall give
no news about ourselves and get none from you
These 30 roubles which I earn monthly are still not enough for
such expenses. And as my son is moreover a lazy boy, the farming
is bad at home. Even now I have been obliged to kill a cow; she
could neither rise nor calve. Only two are left. And then everybody
must be clothed and shod, and I must count well hi order to get our
living. I got entangled in this misery so that there is no way out of it.
I became the slave of my own family. If I saw that my son would be
a farmer and that, if God allowed me to live until old age, I could
spend it with him, then it would be possible to bear it. But I don't
see it, for he is lazy in every line, careless. Wherever he goes, he
will have hard times. Now when I am not at home he becomes still
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 373
more idle. I cannot decide about this property, and he will be no
farmer, as it seems. So if I live so long that I am unable to work
myself — what then? [Weather; Easter- wishes.]
WALERY WROBLEWSKI
53 October 10, 1913
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I am always very interested in how you
live there in the foreign country. It is a pity that you have worse
luck this year, but this happens always and everywhere. Do you
hope at least to keep this farm ? Will there be no failure ? Now I
inform you that there is a change with me. My chief went away
and a new one came. I don't know whether it will be possible to
serve under him; it seems that he will be very particular. I should
be glad to remain at least for the winter
Now I inform you that we shall surely have colonies [commassa-
tion of land], because all the villages of the commune Lapy agree;
and not a great agreement is needed, because it is enough if more than
half of the village wants it; then the others must agree
Everybody will sit upon a single spot, the pasture will be common,
and the fields and meadows will be measured anew. I am very
curious what will come of it.1
Now, on August 24 was the consecration of the new church in
Plonka. Now we are already going to the new church. It is a
pleasure to see, how beautiful it is Michal is now going to
school, and the youngest boy Waclaw [son of the new wife] is growing
very well
W. WROBLEWSKI
54 April 4, 1914
DEAR BROTHERS: .... Now I remain in the same employ-
ment. My chief will go away again and a new one will come. It
is not very good to have to get accustomed to a new one so often.
There is now work enough for me .... and there is always some-
thing for the work [some money], but there is one misfortune. My
1 Under the old system the peasant had his land in small pieces (Wr6blewski,
as he says, had his seven morgs — nine and one-half acres — in forty spots), and with
as many neighbors as he had plots of land the peasant was in constant disputes
over questions of trespass and the like. The new system has resulted in incom-
parably fewer quarrels and lawsuits.
374 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Edward every year sees the stork for the first time standing or lying,
and I, on the contrary, see him always flying. Yesterday also I saw
the first stork this year flying; surely he will bring something this
year. Such is my luck.1
My youngest Waclaw is a strong boy and keeps well. Perhaps
he will have more energy, because these older ones have been bad
and miserable since childhood, and even now there is little energy in
them; and there is work enough, if not at home, then elsewhere, if
one is not a lazy fellow 2
W. WROBLEWSKI
55 Tuesday, December 10, 1907
DEAR BROTHER: .... I thank you for your letter, which pleased
and grieved me at the same time. It pleased me because I learned
something about you from your own hand, and grieved me because
you described truly your situation. I knew about it long ago, it is
true, but up to the last moment I could not believe that the danger
was so imminent. How can I help you? I may only say that if
you are unhappy (in this life), think that perhaps there are others,
a hundred times more unhappy than you; and even those who at
first sight seem to succeed well enough, if we looked nearer, and if we
could discover the mysteries of their life, we should know that the
life of every one of them is one series of sufferings. And if a man
could see all his sufferings at once, he would certainly try to shorten
them voluntarily.
But let us not talk about other people, only about ourselves. Let
us begin with the oldest. Is Walery happy ? Is everything with him
going on as he wishes? At first it would seem we could say yes.
It is but enough to look at the health of his wife and his children,
particularly hi their first years, in order to have an idea of his success.
1 We have here an instance of a very general belief that the good or bad omen
is a real factor causing the foretold phenomenon to appear. This belief is the
background of the magical hygiene of the peasants. There is a whole code of
prescriptions — as to what and how omens are to be avoided.
3 The laziness of which he complains is certainly a result of heredity. The
children have inherited a weak organism from their consumptive mother. But
this interpretation is never very clearly realized by a peasant. The attitude
toward hereditary physical weakness is usually one of moral condemnation, unless
there is a definite defect which puts the given person a priori outside of any social
competition.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 375
Further, was Marysia, in the flower of her age, happy? Certainly
not. About Feliks I don't know much. But if somebody ordered
me to be in his skin, a scapegoat, then I should be glad if there were
ten Americas. You think probably that I make suppositions — true
or not — about his wife. Then come you, I and Konstanty. We know
about you. As to me, we can shrug our shoulders. To live alone
seemed to me no business. I considered marriage a difficult duty,
but nobody who has not experienced it can have any idea about it.
It is not because I have made a bad choice, but because with marriage
are connected the most painful and irritating questions. I don't
say that my condition is the worst, but it is far from being good,
and the skies, instead of brightening, get clouded. Let us mention
only one, the least important question. Every beast has its lair,
the dog has his kennel, while we must wander about strange
corners and depend upon the landlord's caprice, and we cannot
even dream about our own kennel. And it is useless to speak about
the rest. There remains Konstanty. I don't know how he succeeds.
You write that he does very well, but I cannot believe that a man
condemned to live far away from his native country could feel really
happy.1
I was astonished in reading in your last letter the question,
whether I had not forgotten you. In my opinion to forget for a
long time one's brothers and sisters would be equal to forgetting for a
long time to eat. Particularly now, when our father has disowned us,
when our own father tries to harm us in every possible way — as you
know probably from our brother's letters — we ought to be, all of us,
near one another, "one for all and all for one." And if we cannot
unify ourselves materially, then at least let us be united spiritually
as closely as possible, and then it will be easier to bear the burden of
life, and our Lord God will help us.2
[JOZEF WROBLEWSKI]
1 The letter is full of meaning as showing the nature of the peasant's pessimism.
Whenever theoretical reflection takes the place of action the practical optimism of
the peasant changes into a theoretical pessimism; the less of active energy we
find in an individual or a group, the more pessimism prevails. (Cf. Osinski series*
No. 78, note.) But religion, where the practical rather than the theoretical atti-
tudes are expressed, is optimistic, as far as uninfluenced by the Christian terrors
of God's wrath.
* A good expression of the peasant's own conception of familial solidarity.
376 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
56 [No date, probably 1908]
DEAR BROTHERS: I wrote in my preceding letter that I would
write another soon, and I am doing it now. It does not cost me much,
and to you it is probably the same, for if you pay for a box yearly
a smaller or larger number of letters makes no difference. I promise
my wife that if I go to America, I shall write her letters regularly
every week, but I don't know myself whether it will be true, for
sometimes something may change or some impediment may come.
Is it not true ? . . . .
Jan Laba, from our village, is going to America for the second time.
He says it is the best to go there for winter, because it is not hot and
is easier to work. Last Wednesday we had the autumnal odpust
[parish-festival]1 in Plonka, on St. Michael's day. During the day
the weather was nice, but in the morning it rained and therefore
people from farther districts did not come. I, Franciszek and Ignacy
came together — for now we seldom come together — and we talked of
course about "old times." Franciszek related how, about 12 years
ago, he came back from the same parish-festival when the people
were driving the cattle into the fields. Evidently, there can be no
question of that now, for his dear wife would arrange for him upon
earth, or even simply in their home, a "Dante's hell," and he would
merit it in fact.2 And thus having talked and complained about bad
luck, after the end of the divine service we went back at once, each
his own way.
In general now it is sad in Plonka, for nobody comes there from
Lapy, because they have then* own chapel and soon they will begin
to build a church. But we shall have time enough to talk about it
when I come to you. And now I renew my request to Kostus. If
he can and if both of you believe that it is worth while, let him send
1 "Odpust" means literally "indulgence," that is, partial or total remission
of punishment for sins to be suffered on earth or in purgatory. During the parish
festival full indulgence is granted to those who confess and commune and perform
certain good deeds. Hence the identification of "indulgence" and "festival."
3 The peasant conscience excludes conjugal infidelity absolutely. (Cf. the
last letters of Stasia in the Piotrowski series.) Besides murder and wronging of
the helpless, it is the only sin which he never excuses. Even in the tales, hi which
almost all sins occasionally find pardon, there is no remission of infidelity. In this
respect the conscience of townspeople, particularly of handworkers, is much more
lax. The relation of the master's wife with the journeyman is not always con-
demned.
WROBLEWSKI SERIES 377
me a ship-ticket, for here people say that if one goes without a ship-
ticket, he must have 200 roubles, for if he does not show 50 roubles
when leaving the ship he will be sent back. And if it is true, I could
hardly gather 200 roubles, unless by selling all my household effects
at auction, and I should not like that at all. And then, I should
leave a few roubles for my wife and my son. But first I ask you for
advice, whether it is worth going, for if I don't earn $1$ a day, it
would not be worth thinking about America It is a pity that
Kostus is no longer in the mines, for I should like to have piece-work,
for work is never too hard
JOZEF WROBLEWSKI
57 December 13, 1909
DEAR BROTHERS : The man was not stupid who made the proverb :
"Man shoots and aims, but the Lord God directs the bullets." The
same proved true with me. At the moment when I had a real inten-
tion of going to you, and when I received your letter, then a "some-
thing," as we call it usually, got me, but such a "something" that
while I could still think of America it was only of the America from
which nobody ever comes back. I was not actually laid up, but worse
still, for with a man who is lying in bed things are soon decided in one
way or another. As to me, I am sick in my lungs, coughing, catarrh,
sore throat, headache. In a word, like a broken pot Now
I am better than in the beginning, but far from being fully recovered.
.... I don't know now myself when I shall be able to visit you,
and whether I shall be able at all, for to feel something bad about
one's self and to go beyond the sea in search of bread would be very
silly To tell the truth, day-work does not attract me much,
for during 10 years I have become unaccustomed to anybody's
controlling my work. Even if I worked the best possible, I should
always have the impression that the boss considered it insufficient.
Piece-work is quite another matter. I want it still and always.
Perhaps I could find it.1
As to the news, there is a sad piece. Wincenty K. (from whom
our father bought the mill-wheel), became half-insane because of
money troubles and a few days ago cut his throat with a razor. He
walked after this about a verst, and died under a fence near his home.
1 On piece-work see Introduction: "Economic Attitudes."
378
PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
And it is a pity, for he was such an honest man. There is also gay
news. Stefka G. married a boy from Szolajdy The wedding
was on the last Sunday before Advent. But God pity us! What
marriage-festivals there are now! It began at 10 o'clock in the
morning, and at 10 in the evening there was not a strange soul left,
except of course the groom, who was not so stupid as to leave his
beloved. Thus the whole festival did not last even 12 hours.1 There
were only 5 bottles of brandy for 60 persons. To tell the truth, it
would be better in general if there had been none. There was more
beer, but people got sick, for even without beer it was cold enough.
JOZEF WROBLEWSKI
1 We find in many letters the statement that the marriage-festivals are becom-
ing shorter and less ceremonial. It is an immediate sign that marriage is losing
more and more its social character; mediately it shows the progressive individuali-
zation of peasant life in general.
STELMACH SERIES
Jan Stelmach, the old man who writes these letters, is a
perfect type of Galician peasant farmer, with some instruc-
tion, indeed, but without any climbing tendencies and with
a definite class-consciousness. Except for the usual troubles
of country life, he seems to be perfectly satisfied with his
position. In this respect the Galician peasant differs from
the peasants in Russian and German Poland. Perhaps
owing to greater national freedom and because of the
relatively insignificant industrial progress of Galicia, the
peasant there developed a particular pride and a strong
class-feeling. Even when he gets a higher instruction, be-
comes a priest, a teacher, an official, he is seldom ashamed
of his origin, remains and wants to remain a peasant. From
the advice which old Stelmach gives to his son and daughter-
in-law it is evident that he considers, consciously and after
reflection, the peasant form of life the most normal and
sound, physically and morally.
There is also an interesting variety of the family problem.
We see that the Stelmach family, except for some slight
misunderstandings, remains harmonious — much more so
than the Wroblewskis or even the Osinskis. But this does
not mean that the old solidarity and community are pre-
served. On the contrary, there is already a far-going
individualization, as shown, for example, in the question of
marriage and in economic matters (real division of the
property; independence of the son in America). But the
individualization goes on without any struggle. The old
man, for instance, voluntarily resigns any active control
of his son, and limits himself to giving advice. He welcomes
with joy his unknown daughter-in-law, although the way
379
380 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
in which the marriage was performed was contrary to all
the traditions. He never asks his son for money, although
he knows that the latter is well off; he has a sufficient under-
standing of the desire of the other children to get better
individual positions hi America, and not only does not
protest against their plan of emigration, but asks the oldest
son to help them. In short, hi this matter there seems to be
also a more rational and self-conscious attitude in the
Stelmach family than in many others. Instead of a stub-
born holding to tradition, we find an acknowledgment of the
inevitable limitation of its power. Perhaps familiarity
with the phenomena of emigration (of which we find a proof
in Stelmach 's knowledge of the American conditions) has
helped to develop this attitude.
THE FAMILY STELMACH
Jan Stelmach, a farmer
Ewa, his wife
J6zef
Jedrzej
Michal }• his sons*
Piotr
Wojtek (Wojciech)
Kaska 1 , . , , .
_ . . > his daughters
Jadwiga J
Sobek, the husband of Kaska
Julianna (Julcia, Julka, Ulis), the wife of J6zef
Julianna's parents
Makar, Julianna's brother
Magdusia
/ Julianna's sisters
Hanka
Krzysztof Zak, uncle of Ewa Stelmach
Rozia Stefanska
Jagusia Sasielska (Wojtkowa) | his daughters
Zoska (Zosia)
STELMACH SERIES 381
58 POREBY WOLSKIE, March i, 1909
Praised be Jesus Christus and the Holiest Virgin Mary, His
Mother!
DEAREST CHILDREN: .... I wanted to send wishes for the
name-day of Julianna, and I saw in the yearly almanac that St.
Julianna is on March 20, so I intended to send my wishes to you both.
But I did not succeed, because I ascertained finally that St. Julianna
is on February 16, and so I have erred through this yearly almanac.
So now I will send my wishes only to you, dear son. To you, dear
daughter-in-law, I will send wishes for your name-day next year, if
I live so long, because now I know already that the day of your
patron is February 16.
Well, dear son, a year has passed away, and the day of March 19,
your name-day, approaches. Your mother and I want to offer you
various wishes, dear child. We wish you health, happiness, good
success, an honored name, every good luck, indissoluble love in your
marriage. May you love each other and never know any sorrow,
may you never know misery, may you have bread and money enough!
May our Lord God illuminate you with his mercy, that you may
always know what to do and what to avoid. May our Lord God send
you happiness and blessing, that you may have everything, want
nothing, live happily and praise God. May our Lord God grant
you every sweet thing! This wish you your father and mother.
Vivat our son Jozef! May he live a hundred years, may our Lord
God weave health and happiness, health and fortune into his life!!1
Now I describe to you our condition. Your aunt wrote to us
and sent us a dollar in the letter. We received the letter but the
dollar was not there, because somebody had stolen it. I wrote to
the aunt never to send money again in a letter, not even in a registered
one, because many dollars have already been lost from letters. Poor
aunt, she has so little herself and she wants to help us! May our
Lord God give her whatever is the best, because she wants to help us
as she can, but some wicked man has swallowed $6 already
And don't you send money in a letter either, because a letter can be
opened easily. You have only to moisten it with spittle where it is
1 The whole paragraph (half in verse) is a typical speech, such as would be said
during a family festival. The function of ceremonial wishes is here made as plain
as possible. (See Forms and Functions of the Peasant Letter.)
382 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
glued and put it under your arm. When it becomes warm, the glue
loosens up and it is easy to open it with a needle, to read it, then to
moisten and to glue it up, adjusting carefully the borders of the seal.
If it won't hold, you need only rub it with a potato and it will stick up,
and nobody will know it So don't dare to send it in a letter,
because it is nowhere difficult to find a thief.1
We are all in good health, but our condition is meanwhile a little
sad because, as you know, when there is one thing another thing is
lacking. So we lacked milk during the carnival, and our cow was to
calve at the end of February, and we were watching whether she
would not calve. On the night of February 26 to 27 I went to the
stable to see whether the cow was not calving, and I found the cow
strangled The other young cow had torn herself loose and had
pushed her with her horns. The cow had pulled the chain, but the
chain was strong and could not be broken, and the cow was strangled.
So we had a sorrow in those days, but God gave it, God took it away,
may He have honor and glory; he afflicted us, but he will also comfort
us a
Aunt Walkowa Stelmaszka [wife of the paternal uncle, Walek
Stelmach] intends to send her daughter Agnieszka to America to
Borek [probably her brother]. You write that Borek did not answer
you. It was because many fellow-countrymen tumbled upon him
there, and he was afraid that you had no work and he thought that
if you came to him, he would be obliged to support you.3 But if you
1 The old man has evidently used this means of opening and reading letters,
but it must be remembered that there is no strong feeling of privacy about letters
among peasants. The letter is always at least family-property, and all the members
of the family have the right to read it independently of the will of the person by
whom it is written or to whom addressed. To some, often to a very large, extent
the whole village claims the right to read a private letter, particularly if there are
greetings for many neighbors, or if the news interests the community. This was
e.g., the case with letters from Brazil during the craze for emigration to that region.
The refusal to give a letter to read is considered almost an offense. The more
isolated the community from the external world, the rarer the news, the less the
feeling of privacy is developed.
2 ThP fftnr»"l" '« f^prrty th^ar^f aftpr ihp dpatji Q^a_rhilH
3 According to the principle of solidarity Borek should have received his
relative. But there are too many claims, and the situation is abnormal. Nor-
mally the relation of solidarity exists first of all between the individual and the
group, and only secondarily among individual members of the group. The
individual has duties toward the group as a whole and the group as a whole has
duties toward every individual; but an individual has duties toward another
STELMACH SERIES 383
don't wish to go to a farm you don't need to write to him. We won't
write you more, only we greet you very warmly. May our Lord God
make you happy and bless you, our dear children!
i
Your parents,
JAN and EWA STELMACH
And we also, your brothers and sisters, greet you, brother and
sister-in-law, very warmly.
I, your aunt Wojtkowa [wife of Wojtek] Sasielska, greet you, my
nephew Jozwa [Joseph] and my niece Julka [Julianna]. As I hap-
pened to be here when your letter came and as they answer you while
I am here, so I greet you and wish you health and happiness for your
new household.
59 September 27, 1909
.... DEAR SON: We wrote before to you and to your aunt, and
now we write again to you and to your aunt. We wrote before to
your aunt that her sisters are to pay her 50 crowns each, and now I
have written her that the sisters calculate that either Rozia will give
them [this money], or it will be lost [to her], because she won't come
here to our country for these 100 crowns. And I wrote to your aunt
that if she wants to collect these 100 crowns herself, let her do it, but
if she were to give [this money] to them, let her not give it to them, but
let her rather give it to us, i.e., to your mother. If your aunt gives
it to us, let her send us a power of attorney certified by the consul.
But the consul won't certify it without money, so we beg you very
nicely, beg your aunt in our name to do it, and pay whatever it costs.
If your aunt will collect [this money] for herself, let her collect it, but
instead of giving it to her sisters and your aunts, let her rather give
it to us. So when you receive the letter, do your best, because we
individual only because and as far as both are members of the same group, not
because they are immediately connected with each other. Therefore, when the
individuals are isolated from their groups, as happens on emigration, their reciprocal
duties cease to be real, just in the measure in which they are cut off from the
common basis. A personal, variable, voluntary, relation takes the place of the
social norm. Claims on help are, as a matter of fact, much less exacting at home
than abroad. At home a single individual who needs help finds many who can
help him, each one a little; abroad a single individual who is able to help has often
to bear the burden of supporting many who are in a difficult condition. (Cf.
Raczkowski series, the situation of Adam after his marriage.)
384 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
send a letter to you and another to your aunt. We beg you, do your
best, that your aunt may give this money to us, and not to Jagusia
and Zosia x
[JAN and EWA STELMACH]
60 November 5, 1909
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... We gathered from the field
what our Lord God gave us. He did not take it away in our village,
but on other sides of the country hail has beaten [the crops]. Wola
was left free from [God's] punishment, but we have gathered less than
last year 2
We are very glad that you are hi good health and that you speak
to us. May God make you happy and bless you and save you from
any evil. Here Urbanowa [wife of Urban] Chudzicka, our relative, is
dead and Urban married at once in the house of Lukaszek Maruta
[the daughter of L. M.], that Rozia who worked hi Wola, and now
he has a young wife. Krzysztof Zak is also dead. Aunt Stefanska
wrote to us asking who will pay her part of the inheritance [who is the
main heir, taking the land and paying the other heirs in cash]. But
I did not answer her directly, because the government ordered this
money of the heirs to be put in the bank, and I thought that they
would put it there. But the other aunts won't put it, because your
grandfather had at first left the field near the forest to Rozia [Stefan-
ska], but finally he willed it to Jagusia and Zoska [other sisters], and
they are to pay to Rozia 25 gulden each. They will give together
50 gulden, i.e., 100 crowns. They would be glad if Stefanska gave
them these 100 crowns as a gift, and your mother intended also to
write Rozia asking her to give these 100 crowns to your mother, but
she did not dare, because Aunt Rozia received too small a part of the
1 The grandfather evidently thought that Aunt R6zia, being in America,
needed no money. He wanted, in fact, to relieve the heirs who took the land from
a heavy payment. A hundred crowns is a trifle hi comparison with the probable
value of the land, and leaving the sum to her at all was certainly nothing but a
formality; the grandfather did not wish to omit her completely hi the will, as this
would mean a disavowal of the daughter. That it was a formality is proved by the
request of the sisters to give this money to them. And this explains old Stel-
mach's similar request. He would hardly have asked his sister-in-law to cede her
rights to his wife if her inheritance were real, e.g., a piece of land.
2 The aleatory element hi economic life. For the consequences of this element,
see Introduction: "Economic Life"; "Religious and Magical Attitudes."
STELMACH SERIES 385
inheritance.1 You will ask perhaps what she will do, whether she
will let them [the two other aunts] send her these 100 crowns, or will
give them to one of them. But they .... [illegible word; perhaps
"have slandered" or "have wronged"] the aunt, so she ought not give
this money to them.
Michal [son] wrote to us that you had answered him. If you
think it good, you could let him come there, but not until spring.
.... You say that [workmen] are striking ; well, that is funny !
Not long ago they had no work, and now already they don't want to
work, but require a higher pay! We have now repaired the stable;
we made two stables, one for the horses, another for the cows. People
say that in that town where you are there is a big stench, the whole
town is covered with smoke as with clouds
JAN and EWA STELMACH
[The first paragraph of the following letter is of the ceremonial type
(similar to the first part of No. 58) and is printed as No. 4 among the speci-
mens of peasant letters.]
6 1 January 30, 1910
.... In the last letter I asked you to advise me whether I should
send Michal and Wojtek to Prussia or to America. You did not even
answer me. If you think that it is good there and if you have a little
money, you may send a ship-ticket at least to one of them, so at least
one shall go. You never say to them any word of praise, that it is
well there, so they are afraid to go to America, and here at home you
know yourself how it has been. They quarrel with each other.
Sometimes one succeeds in Prussia and sometimes not, and then the
summer is passed in vain. If he came there to you he could work back
for the ship-ticket, in the same way as you worked back for the ticket
which your aunt sent you. It would be well if you sent [tickets] for
both of them So now you understand it to be better, on that
side praise it [praise, in writing to them, the course which you consider
the best], because people think it strange, that you don't take either
1 The situation has an additional interest from the fact, that Jagusia and
Zosia are the own sisters of Aunt R6zia, while the writer's wife Ewa is only her
cousin. The Stelmachs' claim is therefore based not upon family-relationship, but
upon the nearness of personal relations.
386 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
of them.1 If you had taken Kaska also, it would have been easier
for us, and perhaps better for her, because we contracted debts for
her sake and she does not get on well. The sister and brother of
Sobek [son-in-law, husband of Kaska] require the debt to be paid, and
if not, then interest to be paid, and the interest on twelve hundred is
72 gulden. Think how it is necessary to work in our country hi order
to live and to put 72 gulden aside. This makes her sad. But you
never wrote her "Sister, come here, you will earn, and you will get
on well." But this is past. Now you can only advise your brothers
so that everything may be well. [Greetings from the whole family.]
JAN and EWA STELMACH
Gud Baj [goodbye; probably imitates the son who adds this in
his letters].
62 November 31, 1910
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... We wrote to you in August but
you did not answer, and so now we risk writing to you, because we
think that you have moved somewhere and our letter did not reach
you Our condition is not pleasant, because winter tumbled
upon us, snows have been falling since November 22, and it is difficult
to go out anywhere. The boys did not come from Prussia, they
wrote that they will come only for Christmas. The cold annoys
them, because they must rise at dawn to work and labor long in the
evening. Dear children, we send you consecrated wafers. Although
there are also wafers [there], yet you are entered in the registers of
this parish, so we send you them from here, because you are
Christians.2 Many people forget there that they are Christians, but
1 It is explicitly stated here that the sending of ship-tickets to one's relatives is
not a mere act of kindness, but a familial duty — more so than the sending of money
home, for that question is never raised hi this series. A certain individualization
of familial relations seems to be manifested by this distinction. Indeed, by sending
money home the emigrant helps his family immediately as a whole, while by taking
one family-member to America he evidently helps this member immediately and
the rest of the family only mediately.
2 This connection between religious valuation and local patriotism is very
frequent. Not only the wafer from one's own parish has more value than one from
anywhere else, but the same is true of any other object of religious or magical
significance. A particular importance in this respect was attached to earth. It
was an old custom of emigrants and wanderers to carry a little earth of their
STELMACH SERIES 387
don't you forget that you are Christians and that you believe in one
God. As long as you speak to your parents, it is evident that you
believe in our Lord God, but when you disown your parents, it is
evident from this that you don't believe in our Lord God.1 I asked
you to answer us and to give the address of the Stefanskis .... and
your mother wanted you absolutely to answer at once and to write
why you wanted to go to the mines, whether you had no work where
you are. People say that there in Pittsburgh it would need a dragon
to hold out. They say that even in fine weather no sun is to be seen.
.... If it is true, move rather to another city
JAN and EWA STELMACH
63 March 28, 1911
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... When you did not write for so
long a time we thought different things about you. I asked a peasant
from Wolka how Wojciech Maksyn was getting on. He said that he
[Maksyn] was selling his horse and asked me how I knew about him.
I said that my son married his daughter. And this peasant said,
"One son-in-law ran away from his daughter." Then I thought that
you had run away and therefore don't write to us, and I intended to
write to Maksyn in Wolka [to learn] which of his sons-in-law had run
ancestors' land with them which played the r61e of a talisman and was to be put
under their heads in the grave in case they died and were buried far from their
native village.
1 The very real psychological unity of the traditional set of attitudes is here
evidently exaggerated, since various attitudes may be dropped or changed
separately. But this exaggeration itself is significant, for it must exert a real
influence upon the evolution of the subject himself and upon the attitude of the
environment toward him. A man who has dropped one traditional attitude will
drop the others more easily, because in his own conscious reasoning they seem more
connected than they are in reality. This will happen particularly if, as is often the
case, intellectual factors in general tend to influence strongly individual life while
the level of instruction is rather low. Thus, among the socialists of the lower classes
many traditions are rejected without any real necessity and against the man's own
feeling, simply because they are believed connected with others which were logically
rejected as incompatible with the socialistic ideals. On the other hand, the
behavior of the social environment toward an individual who has dropped some
traditions is usually determined by the prepossession that he must have dropped all
traditional attitudes — precisely as Stelmach explicitly states here. Sometimes a
very trifling change is sufficient to arouse this prepossession, e.g., a change of dress,
of the old way of farming, the dropping of magical beliefs, etc.
388 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
away and from which of his daughters. But now you have written
to us and we already know that it is not you who left your wife. We
pity you very much that you have no health there now, and I wrote
you already to move away from that Pittsburgh I would
advise you to move with your wife to Trenton, N.J. There hi
Trenton are people from our neighborhood, and they are in good health
and they earn well enough. Kuba Chudzik from Brzyski is now there
and intends to come home. If he does not leave before this letter
reaches you, you could write to him; so you might succeed him in
his work when he comes home. He works in an iron-factory and has
good wages. [Gives addresses of other people in Trenton.] But you
must try to get information, so as not to lose the work which you have
.... before you find anything in Trenton Even if you
wanted to come back to our country there is no goodness here, because,
as you know, those who were with you returned to our country and
then went to America again, because it is strait here.
And you, Julka, don't grieve, for you are sick from grief; you will
get a nervous illness, when you are so you are neither healthy nor
sick, and no doctor can help against a nervous illness. So don't
worry. Commend yourself to the will of God and work as much as
you can; then you will have no time to grieve. And don't lace too
tightly, for there the women lace their corsets so much that they look
squeezed up like wasps, and when they bind themselves up so tightly,
the blood is checked and the body is ill. And don't grieve either that
your little son is dead. The Lord gave, the Lord took away, praised
be His name
There in Pittsburgh, people say, the dear sun never shines brightly,
the air is saturated with stench and gas. The most healthy life is on
farms, but if you have no intention of going on a farm, then at least
move where the air is better
JAN and EWA STELMACH
64 [May, 1911]
.... DEAR CHILDREN: [Thanks for the wishes which were sent
for his name-day.] We had a little sorrow because hi one week three
lay sick with measles, Jadwisia, Marcin and Wojtek Wojtek
was to go to Prussia, but he remained, and therefore he was more sick
than the smaller ones, and so the summer will pass. But he could
STELMACH SERIES 389
be useful even at home, because our stable is ruined and it is necessary
to repair it and to build another for the horse We had another
sorrow, because a mare of Kaska died. She was worth 100 gulden.
This has pained us also, because, dear children, if anything pains you,
it pains us also, because we love you all as ourselves. If you write
that you are getting on well and your little wife, our daughter-in-law,
also, then we are glad, even if misery oppresses ourselves, because
we see that although we have misery, yet at least our children have
good success.
This year seems not to be bad here, but from the past one every-
body is thin, because the winter was big. The cattle are standing at
home up to the middle of May, and we were obliged to mix the chopped
straw with flour and potatoes, and now men are lacking food. The
prices are as high as in America
You write that you have a small lodging. Have you then nobody
to live with you and to help you pay the rent ? Julka does not go to
work now, so if she has no occupation whatever in her hands she is
tired. If you had people boarding, she would have distraction and
she would even be more healthy, because when a man works, he is
healthy, but when he loafs around in vain he gets weaker and weaker.
It is said that therefore many people have no good health in America.
As long as a girl goes to work she is healthy, but when she gets married
she does not go to work and she stretches herself [lies idle] so that
blood cannot run hi her veins, fresh air does not reach her because
she sits continually in her lodgings. Even if she goes out into the
world petticoats drag behind her and air does not reach her [because
she is too heavily dressed], and she has no health. And she goes to
her country, and then from her country again to America, and so
they lose money on ship-tickets. Let them dress as easily as at home.
Don't sit in vain [idle] don't eat much meat, and thus you will all be
healthy
JAN and EWA STELMACH
You write that Michal wrote to you that he wanted to go to
America, but he is too weak for America. He got thin in serving,
particularly with Pelka. You were there and you saw how it was.
Wojtek is younger, but stronger than Michal. Je.drzej would find
his way in America, but he is afraid of America, he cannot be per-
suaded. ,
390 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
65 February 23, 1913
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... We are very glad that you keep
so much poultry and a pig; it is as if you had a farm. When you
learn to keep poultry and pigs, and when your children grow up, then
you will go to a farm J
I thought that only in our country people talk about war, but
I see that even hi America they write about war and insurrection.
But there they speak about war lightly, and here among us they
are so afraid of war that they weep. The reservists called in
autumn have been kept up to the present. In the beginning of
March there is to be a military call; 206,065 soldiers are to be
taken to the army. The Sokols are waiting for war even in our
country, but the people in villages are so afraid that they tremble
from fear.2
From your aunt Stefanska also we received a letter and a photo-
graph of her two daughters. She wrote that formerly you called
upon them often but now you do not come to them, and her children
ask, " When will Jozef come to us ? " She said that she sends her two
boys to work, and she said that they are getting on well. You write
that [it would be well] if one [of your brothers] went to America.
Well, I want absolutely to send one of them, or later even two; then
you would not be homesick. Here it may be better perhaps only after
the war. But who knows who will be left after the war ? .... If I
were stronger and if my leg did not pain me so much I would go to
Wolka to your brother-in-law, and I would send you as a gift at
least a few cheeses through him. But who knows whether he will
go, and I cannot walk far. I asked about Julcia's father. I was
told that he is getting on pretty well and has one daughter
[married] rich, and the dowry cost him little. One man told me
that he farms at home with his son, another said that he farms
1 The people at home like to have their relatives in America become farmers.
It is perhaps because of the analogy of interests. And this in spite of the fact that
an emigrant who becomes a fanner in America will never return. (Cf. in this
respect Wr6blewski series.)
3 The fear of war, so general among the peasants, is based upon old, only half-
reasoned tradition rather than upon experience. Particularly the Galician peasants
had had no experience of war since 1866, and then not a trying one. War is
enumerated among the calamities which the peasants pray God every Sunday to
avert, and there is an undetermined but on that account more awe-inspiring
tradition of the horrors of war.
STELMACH SERIES
391
alone, and that he intends to have one daughter come from America,
but he did not know which one
[JAN and EWA STELMACH]
[Letter of May 3, 1913, regrets that his sons in America do not make
greater efforts to meet in America certain relatives and acquaintances from
Poland. Describes efforts to build new church.]
66 April i, 1914
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... I received the papers from you
four copies, I shall have an amusement for the holidays. Piotr and
Wojtek went to [season-work in] Prussia on March 19; I wrote it to
you, but I don't know whether you received my letter. I wrote you
to send a ship- ticket for Piotr, but in leaving he said that he won't go
from Prussia [to America], but later on from home. His address is:
.... Write to them, don't begrudge the five cents, and they would
answer you, and you would speak with one another, like brothers. I
wrote you to send me "z*mijecznik," a medicine which is called
"imijecznik," if anybody from Wolka or from Turza comes home
.... because your mother has no good health, now as before.1 I
lave been healthy, but now my leg aches, and people say that it
won't be healed, and if it is healed, they say that I shall be sick.
. .2 [Weather.]
Dear son, your mother would be glad to see you before she dies,
but it is difficult, because here in our country it gets worse and worse.
Tow many people get separated, although they have land. Many
lusbands leave their wives and go in search of work, some of them go
to America, others to Prussia. The wife of Wawrzek Sidor fled to
'russia, and many others did so, because misery creeps into the housesf
id drives people away into the world.3 [Complains about cost o
1 "Zmijecznik" is a magical remedy.
1 It is a very frequent belief that if some particular disease, painful but not
dangerous, is healed, the patient will become seriously sick, or will die within a
ertain tune. The background of this belief is evidently magical. If the "evil
arinciple" manifests itself through one of those diseases, it means that it has taken
jssession of the patient and that it cannot be driven out of him. If hindered in
aing the smaller harm it will express itself in a greater harm.
3 This is the only case in our materials where we find bad economic conditions
expressly stated as the cause of a wife's running away from home. Other cases
vhave been recorded by the Emigrants' Protective Association in Warsaw, but it
392 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
living.] Dear children, work and economize as much as you can, that
you may have some help for the black hour [for any misfortune],
because man is imperfect in this world and always lacks something.
If man insisted on always having what he needs to be satisfied he
would waste millions. It is best to live modestly, in order that it may
suffice, because even counts have wasted their manors when they
wanted to satisfy all their wishes. So live as you can. May our
Lord God grant you health and happiness, the best possible
JAN and EWA STELMACH
67
[Beginning lacking.] You ask whether J^drzej married in the
house of that Ludwik who had the [son] Kuba who called upon Dawik
[visited the Dawik girls]. Yes, he married in the house of that Lud-
wik, but both the Ludwiks died, and Kuba married that Jadwiga
who is the ablest among all the girls of Dawik. The others are like
grandmothers. That Zoska who was in America got married to
[a man from] Korowiska, and she is always sick. She has two children,
but she did nothing more than bear them; she does not nurse them,
only she had to buy a kind of a bottle and milks a cow and with this
she feeds her children. The man who married her got little comfort
from her. Dawik gave her only the money which she earned in
America, and keeps until his death the field which she had after her
mother ; only when he dies, Zoska will have the field.
When Jfdrzej got married, we had to make a will. We had to
make a will because I am so as if I were ill, and your mother has also
weak health. So your mother willed him that field near Pelka's
[farm], and this one where we sit, and two morgs in Zra.bki, and these
small buildings [contemptuously], and he is to keep us to the end and
pay 1,000 crowns to you, 1,000 crowns to Piotr and 1,000 crowns to
MichaL To Jadwiga we willed the field behind Urban's [farm], to
Wojtek 3 morgs in Zra.bki. If we are not well [do not get along well]
remaining with J§drzej, then we have the right to harvest f of the
field and to have a place in the buildings. There are still 600 crowns
of debt, so we are to work together and to pay this debt. Perhaps you
always proved that the husband was a drunkard or a good-for-nothing. If external
conditions are the cause of hard times husbands and wives may separate provision-
ally but in good understanding.
STELMACH SERIES 393
think, the sum which is to be paid to you is too small; but he [J?drzej]
even complained that he won't be able to pay so much. So, dear son,
don't be angry with us, because what can we do, when it is difficult to
throw the misery away; very seldom food is on hand, always we must
buy more The prices are as high here as in America, or
perhaps even worse, because meat is brought from South America to
our country, i.e., from Argentine. You write that you have killed the
pig for yourself, and we did not kill, but we buy bacon for seasoning
food.1 [Enumerates prices.] So, dear children, work and economize
as much as you can for your old age, because old people suffer misery.
May our Lord God make you happy and bless you with your children;
and don't forget us, but speak to us as long as we are alive.2 Even so
Walek Maryla and his wife envy us, because they have two sons in
America, and they don't know whether they are even alive ; they never
write to them I won't write you more until the next time,
because here nothing is changed, nobody among the family died,
everybody is alive but got older [Greetings from the whole
family.]
JAN and EWA STELMACH
1 This complaint of high prices from a relatively rich peasant, the fact of
buying food and the division of land, are signs of the growing difficulty of con-
tinuing the old forms of economic life, particularly in Galicia. Until industrial
development restores the equilibrium emigration seems a necessity.
1 This phrase and the whole form of the letter disclose the profound importance
which giving up the farm to the children has for the old peasants. The phrase
could be used by one entering a cloister; it expresses a feeling of having broken
all the real connections with other people, so that nothing but a sentimental
connection remains. The old man ceases to be an active member of the real
family-group, and becomes an individual whose only relations with the family are
sentimental and blood relations. The obligations toward him, as well as his obliga-
tions toward the rest of the family, cease to be social, and become only moral.
OSINSKI SERIES
In the present series we find a very full and typical image
of the life of an average modern peasant family — one
neither above nor below the normal level, and whose sphere
of interests contains nothing particular. The life of the
peasant woman is particularly well represented because
most of the letters are written or dictated by women. The
letters of the men are not without interest, but less complete.
Of course this is not a primitive peasant family, and we
should not expect to find the old forms of familial and com-
munal life untouched by modern life. The family lives
near the German frontier, some thirty or forty miles from
Thorn, in a locality in which season-emigration to Germany
and emigration to America have existed for many years,
and, naturally the disintegrating and modifying influence
of this is strongly felt. But this is precisely the normal
situation. Communities, families, and individuals pre-
serving perfectly the old forms of life today are exceptions.
Where emigration has not reached, the influence of Polish
industrial and cultural centers is manifest, and, taking
everything into account, this influence is incomparably more
powerful and profound than that of emigration.
The most important personality is the mother Wiktorya
Osinska. The first forty letters are dictated by her, in her
own and her husband's name. She is the real proprietor
of the farm, which was probably left to her by her parents,
who died when she was four years old. But, of course,
under the system of familial community, this question is
never raised; probably her present husband brought also
some land or money, but in any case the property is now
simply common. Wiktorya married first Baranowski and,
394
OSltfSKI SERIES 395
after his death, her present husband, Osiriski. She is
a woman of the old type, very laborious, very religious, with
a strong affection for her children — stronger probably than
for her husband. Her son from the first marriage seems
to be the one preferred, though this preference does not
hinder her from occupying the standpoint of general familial
solidarity and from agreeing with her husband hi economic
matters. She mediates between her sons, her daughter,
her husband, trying to avoid any quarrels and to keep
harmony within the family (see particularly No. 103).
She has not been taught how to write, but she is interested
in intellectual matters and appreciates instruction highly.
Her husband Antoni seems to be just an average peasant,
with a strong familial, rather patriarchal, attitude; with a
tendency to despotism but without sufficient power of will
to be really despotic; much less egotistic than his sons or
than some other fathers (cf. for example, Markiewicz
series).
His two sons show egotism in a very high degree. Per-
haps it is a result of the partial dissolution of the traditional
solidarity. Michal is really interested in nothing except
his personal life; he is an egotist in a passive way; he does
not claim much (cf . Wiktorya's letter, No. 103) but neither
does he give much; he barely writes home. He has real
friendship for Jan, but no familial feelings. He has departed
further from the traditional peasant attitudes than anyone
else in the family — probably under the influence of his early
life as groom in a manor house, and his early emigration.
Aleksander has preserved much more of the old attitudes —
love for land and farming, attachment to his country,
traditional conception of marriage, interest in the family.
But the real feeling of solidarity and community of familial
life is weakened, and all these traditional attitudes take a
new form, are directed in practice toward egotistic ends.
396 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
This is a very frequent type of partial disintegration of
solidarity; the individual is still attached to the group and
wants to live within it, but he develops purely personal
tendencies and refuses to make any sacrifice for the group.
Jan Baranowski seems to be a rather unequilibrated man.
He certainly gives proofs of true generosity, not only with
regard to his own family — his mother praises his good heart
— but also toward the family of his wife. (He married the
daughter of Franciszka Kozlowska. See that series.) It
seems that his friends have even exploited his generosity
(cf. No. 72). On the other hand, he shows occasionally a
lack of consideration, as, for instance, in his attitude toward
Frania's marriage, and some avarice, as in his haste to get
his part of the inheritance, his dissatisfaction with his share,
and his effort to get as much money as possible from us for
his letters. Although this avarice in matters of inheritance
has nothing very prejudicial from the individualistic
point of view, it is contrary to the familial spirit. His
attitude toward Frania, on the other hand, is to be under-
stood only from the familial standpoint. It seems in
general that in Jan contradictory elements coexist — a broad
basis of familial attitudes, and some individualistic tend-
encies, acquired during his solitary struggle for existence,
but not interacting with the first; at different moments
different sets of attitudes prevail in his behavior. This is, of
course, one of the typical forms which a partial disintegration
of the old psychology assumes.
Frania, the daughter, is, on the contrary, a rather
harmonious character. Her psychology is determined in
its main outlines by her familial functions, first as daughter,
then as wife. But the (still rather low) degree of instruction
which she received, and the individualistic tendencies which
influenced her, as well as every other member of the com-
munity, make her perform her functions more consciously,
OSltfSKI SERIES 397
without the passivity which a peasant girl would have
shown fifty years ago and sometimes still shows in more
isolated groups. She is in particularly good relations with
her mother, whose situation and feelings she understands
better than anyone else. If she sides with her parents
against her brothers in all the misunderstandings between
them, it is not because of a mere subjection to authority, but
out of real familial feelings. Even in writing letters under
her mother's dictation she shows an effort to express exactly
what her mother wants her to express, contrasting with the
negligence of Aleksander. For the sake of economic and
familial considerations she has to make a sacrifice and
makes it, even postponing her marriage for three years.
She finally marries from real love the man who waited for
her, refusing another brilliant match. Later she is a loving
wife and mother while keeping always the same attitude
toward her parents.
We know little about the other members of the family.
Adam, Frania's husband, is evidently a nice and relatively
cultivated peasant, as is shown by his attitude toward
Frania and by the fact that he has been elected to a post
of confidence in a peasant association. The wives of Jan
and Aleksander seem to be rather insignificant; there is not
a trace of their influence upon the family life. The other
branch of the family, the Smentkowskis, is also very little
characterized. Their situation is more or less the same as
that of the Osinskis.
Now, the Osinski situation is very typical for the present
moment. The 'whole of the old organization of life is
proving unadapted to the solution of new problems, and
the result is a tragedy for the individuals who are unable to
change their attitudes. Thirty or forty years ago the
course of life of the family would have been very different.
Each son would have lived at home until his call to military
398 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
service; he would have helped the parents, perhaps worked
in addition as a hired laborer in the neighborhood. Having
served his term, he would have returned and married, in
the same village or in the neighborhood; he would have
received money or land from his parents, taken some dowry
with his wife, and settled upon a farm. One of them would
have taken the parents' farm, as Aleksander did, others
would have bought land. Of course, in spite of the dowries,
each of them would have been poorer than the parents were,
and only perhaps after many years, much work, and great
parsimony would have attained almost the same level. But
this problem was not particularly important as long as the
fundamental economic idea was that of living, not of
advance. If only each member of the family had enough
to live on his own farm, the situation was all right.
But now comes the new tendency — that of advance. It
is evident that the old organization gave no opportunity to
advance. At best the next generation could attain the
level of the preceding generation, and even this was more
and more difficult. And it is also evident that a new
organization is required to meet the new problem based no
longer upon mere familial arrangements but upon the idea
of improvement of personal economic aptitudes. Actually,
a spirit of enterprise and a higher technical instruction in
various lines should be developed hi the young genera-
tion, enabling each member to rise independently, without
further help from the group. But instead of this we find
only partial and insufficient changes brought into the old
organization. Jan, having spent his time'iinproductively
until his twenty-sixth year, first at home, then in the army,
has to increase his fortune instead of marrying and settling,
according to the tradition. But no way other than emigra-
tion is left to him. Michal is sent to serve, in order to
spare the cost of his living; in the manor he develops a
OSINSKI SERIES 399
different psychology, but acquires no useful technical
knowledge, and so his only recourse is also America. But
he calculates rationally that since he is to emigrate he may
as well do it before his military service and not waste
his time unproductively. Later, the Russo-Japanese war
breaks out, and after this neither he nor Jan, classed as
deserters, can return. When they finally get their shares
of the familial property these shares are certainly of very
little productive utility to them in America. On the other
hand, Frania gets a little technical instruction, but not
enough to be of any real use, and she must be provided for
in the old way, by a dowry. Thus the result of these
inconsistent and partial changes of the old organization is
that the family, whose task is really to provide for its
members and which it would do more or less for all the
members under the old system, is able to provide for only
two — Frania and Aleksander. The two others get no
serious help from the group, or get it too late. They
become and have to remain isolated from the group and
from their country. The parents are separated once and
forever from two of their children; even if they went to
America to live, against all their habits and traditions, the
situation would not be better. In this way, through mis-
adaptation the family loses all its real functions, and until
a new and more perfect adaptation is elaborated its dis-
integration is a social necessity.
THE FAMILY OSINSKI
Antoni Osinski, a farmer
Wiktorya Osinska (by first marriage Baranowska) his wife
Jan (Janek) Baranowski, Wiktorya's son by her first husband
Michal (Michalek)] , . , . , liri ,
i / . i «x ? s°ns Of Antoni and Wiktorya
Aleksander (Alos) J
Frania (Franciszka), daughter of Antoni and Wiktorya
Adam (Adas) B., Frania's husband
. Marysia Kozlowska, Jan's wife
400 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Julka (Julcia), Aleksander's wife
Uncle and Aunt Smentkowski, probably cousins of Antoni or
Wiktorya
Antoni, their son
Anneczka (Anna, Anusia)] ., . , , .
' \ their daughters
Frama J
[68-138. Nos. 68-69 are to the authors from Jan Baranowski, in
America, to whom most of the letters of the series are addressed. Nos-
70-106 are from Wiktorya Osinska in Poland to her sons in America. They
are dictated to her daughter Frania, except as indicated in the notes. The
name of the husband is associated with the mother's in signing, and he
occasionally dictated a passage. Nos. 107-24 are from Frania. Their
brevity and informality are due to her youth and to the fact that until her
marriage she inclosed them with the letters dictated to her by her mother.
Nos. 125-28 are from Michal; Nos. 129-38 from Aleksander.]
68 November 23, 1914
RESPECTED SIR: I, signed below, found in the Dziennik Zwiqz-
kowy your advertisement that whoever has letters from the old
country should send them to your address to demonstrate the nature
of the Polish people. I have more than 100 letters from my parents
and my wife's parents and from my dear brother who has perhaps
already given his spirit to God or lies wounded in some hospital or is
a prisoner. But I ask you whether it is true that, as your advertise-
ment says, I shall receive 10 to 20 cents for each letter and that these
letters will be returned. For they have a value for myself to keep,
because when this unhappy war is over, I have money to get or this
farm to take So I beg you for a written answer and for better
information: (i) Shall I receive the reward as advertised and ho
much ? (2) Shall I get the letters back ? I beg you to send me a
guaranty, for should I lose these letters, I should prefer not to have
this reward at 20 cents each
JAN BARANOWSKI
69 December 7, 1914
RESPECTED SIR: I received your letter, .... and after res
it I commit myself to your generosity I send you the lett
which I have These letters from my parents are very good
and detailed with regard to your demand. Most of them are from
the time of the Japanese war and during the bloody troubles until t\
OSlfrSKI SERIES 401
years before the actual bloody tragedy which no pen can describe and
no reason embrace. What my dear fatherland, and my parents and
sister and brother are suffering! My brother is perhaps already
murdered, and even perhaps my dear parents who longed so much for
me and wanted to see me once more. When I prepared these letters
to be sent to you, I read a few of them and I wept bitter tears and
thought thus: "Perhaps they are the last." So I beg you very much
to send them back to me in totality, for I want to keep them in
remembrance. And also, as I wrote you in my preceding letter, I
have an inheritance [in cash] or a farm to get, if this accursed war is
calmed *
JAN BARANOWSKI '
70 September 9, 1901
"Praised be Jesus Christus."
DEAR SON: I received your letter .... and I am glad that you
are healthy and that you got happily through. As to Antoni, we
learned two weeks ago that he was stopped in Otloczyn [as having
trachoma]. First his mother learned it and came to me crying and
said that they would surely spoil his eyes [in trying to cure them] or he
would die.2 But I persuaded her that there are surely more [patients],
and their eyes don't get spoiled, so his won't be either.
Now I inform you, dear son, about our health. Your father was
ill, he had some pains inside, and I had to manage the harvesting
alone. I hired 3 men to reap and 4 women to rake, and 3 more men
to build. As to the building, dear son, it was so: When you left, the
1 The letters are to be used as evidence of his claims. The connection of
sentiment and business is not felt to be improper and does not hinder the reality
of the sentiment. In the same way, death of a member of the family hardly inter-
rupts the usual home occupations of the other members. The material side of life
has originally nothing of the "low" character which it acquires later by antithesis
to the higher moral, religious, intellectual, aesthetic, interests. For the peasant
it is a part of the essential human task to support life and to fight against death.
The most trifling practical affairs may assume in this light a character of solemnity,
almost sanctity. Cf. Introduction: "Religious and Magical Attitudes."
2 The peasant occupies the habitudinal standpoint, and everything seems
possible to him outside of his normal conditions and known environment. The
lack of continuity and proportion between cause and effect in general does not
permit the prevision and limitation of the effects of a given cause. This attitude
is particularly strong with regard to the government. Cf. Introduction: "Social
Environment"; "Religious and Magical Attitudes."
402 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
building stopped for 2 weeks. I could not sit in this [new] house at
all from sorrow,1 as if half of the people in the village were dead and
you were dead also. In the 3d week the carpenter worked alone with
your father for 2 days And in the fourth week the carpenter
worked 3 days with Adam. And in the fifth and sixth weeks the
carpenter, the mason and 4 men worked. Your father's work was
such [of as little worth] as when you were here. I finished the work
with these men on the last day of August. This whole work, harvest
and building, cost us 25 roubles, besides the carpenters and yourself,
dear son And all this building, as we calculated, will cost us
about 700, and still it won't be finished before next year, for we don't
wish to make big debts. We sold the horse for 34 roubles, and father
sold the pigs for 50 roubles and now we must also sell the cow and the
calf.2 Now, dear son, I don't know what to do with your clothes,
whether I shall keep them or give them to your father to wear.3 You
wrote me, dear son, to hire somebody to dig the potatoes, and you
would pay for it. May God reward you for your promise! I can-
not thank you [reward you] in any other way, except by these
words. Michalek gave me also a rouble for my dress. May our Lord
Jesus grant you health and pay you with Heaven for your good
[WIKTORYA OSINSKA]
71 November 12, 1901
.... DEAR SON: .... The carpenter finished his work on the
day before St. Michael, and your father drove him to the town and
we moved into the house with our beds and our cooking. The
remaining furniture is still left in the bam All is now finished
except the white- washing and the stairs It cost us 1,000
roubles in all. [Weather; acquaintances.]
1 Because the son had worked at the building of the house.
1 It would seem quite simple to give a mortgage and in this way cover the cost
of the house. But for the peasant this is logically impossible. The house belongs
to the class of movable property, like the horse, the pig, or the cow, as against
land property. It is an inferior kind of property. And mortgage would destroy
the social value of land, the highest class of property. To give a mortgage in order
to build a house would be, in the peasant's eyes, an action like that of selling a
valuable horse or cow in order to have good time on the money.
3 Clothes do not constitute property in the proper sense, but, like food, belong
to the objects of consumption owned primarily by the family, only secondarily by
the individual. Cf. Introduction: "Economic Attitudes." '
OSIlsrSKI SERIES 403
Now I thank you heartily for the shoes which you bought me
[before going away]. They are so comfortable that I can walk as far
as I need without feeling that I have anything on my feet. Whenever
I put them on I always remember you with tears r I am very
glad that everybody acknowledges that you are very good. May
our Lord God grant you not to be spoiled in America! May you
always be good, first toward God and toward God's Mother, then
toward us, your parents, and toward all men, as you have been up to
the present. Amen.2
WlKTORYA OSINSKA
72 December 22, 1901
.... DEAR, BELOVED SON: .... We were glad on receiving
your letter, but we were not glad that, although you know how to
write, you describe very little of your condition. You did not even
write why you could not come back to our country if you married
her. But probably they considered you a good man [appreciated you]
only as long as they did not profit from your work.3 So I thought
myself, and when Michal came and read this letter, he said the same,
that you would have a good Christmas-gift [in the woman] ! We said
to each other, I and Michal, that you were in the army and you did
not write us the truth even then [how ill he felt], but although you
did not write us the truth, still we guessed it. Certainly now you don't
write us the truth either. It would be much better if you earned a
little money, came back to our country and got married here. We
[Michal and I] spoke so before parting. And moreover, we advise
you, we your parents, if you have any money earned, send it to us, for
here it won't be lost; we will put it in the savings-bank. But it you
1 She is probably not accustomed to wearing shoes regularly. The habit of
going barefoot is very persistent, mainly for economy. Shoes are in many localities
worn only on Sunday. And often when going to church or to a fair the peasants
(particularly women) carry their shoes and put them on only when approaching
the church or town.
3 The original obligatory familial and communal solidarity is here already
treated as moral goodness and put into relation with the religious idea. This is
the state of things which we have studied in the Introduction: "Religious and
Magical Attitudes."
3 The girl's parents probably first agreed to give her to him unconditionally
because they wanted to borrow money from him. When they got it, they made
the condition that he should not take her from America. Wiktorya supposes that
in general they have changed their behavior toward him after having got money.
404 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
keep it with you you will always find friends who will want to borrow
it from you and will want to get you married. Moreover, they could
steal it from you, as [was done] in the army. [Greetings and New-Year
wishes.]
WlKTORYA OSINSKA
73 January 3, 1902
DEAR SON: .... We thank you nicely for the 10 roubles. You
wrote us, dear son, that we might make [from this money] a better
Christmas tree [instead of the word "tree" a tree is roughly drawn by
the sister who writes this letter] and make ourselves merry during
the holidays. I should be much merrier if you came here
This money has been of use to us, for we were owing 8 roubles to the
carpenter, so your father gave them back at once. He brought 2
roubles home. Of these two we gave 8 zloty [i rouble, 20 copecks]
for a holy mass, and the rest we took for our Christmas festival.
Father says so [to you]: "Economize as much as you can so that no
one [of your creditors] may drum at your windows when you come
back." If our Lord Jesus allows us to get rid of our debts, we shall
remember you, for our debts amount to 70 roubles. If God grants
us health in this New Year we hope to pay them back, for last year
there were only expenses, and no income at all.
Now inform us whether you are near a church, and whether you
have already been in it a few times, and how is the divine service
celebrated, whether there are sermons and teachings like those in our
country. And inform me how do you like America, whether you like
it as much as our country. Describe everything, for it is difficult for
me [to write you long letters],. since I cannot write myself to you.
[Wishes for the New Year.] Now I admonish you, dear son, live in
this New Year honestly and religiously, for I pray our Lord Jesus
for you every day, when going to bed and rising *
WIKTORYA OSINSKA
The candle burned down, the ink is out, the pen broke, the letter
is ended. [Pleasantry by Frania.]
1 The mother's prayers are a reason for the son's living honestly and religiously,
because by those prayers she helps him to become a member of the divine commu-
nity and he ought not to break the harmony which she has established between him
and God. Cf. Introduction: "Religious and Magical Attitudes."
OSIIsrSKI SERIES 405
74 March 18, 1902
DEAR SON: .... Your last letter grieved us very much, when
we learned that you were sick. Particularly I, as your mother, wept,
thinking who cared for you in this illness, you orphan! When we are
ill, we nurse one another, while you are always alone in the wide world.
But I remembered and I sighed at once [in prayer], that you had still
a Father in Heaven and a Mother who guards orphans.
Now I inform you, dear son, that I was also sick with colic for two
weeks. For the first week I could do nothing, so that your father had
the organist come and he applied 12 cupping-glasses. Then I felt
somewhat better, but still for a week I could not work. And during
my sickness Legoski came for money, for he was going to America.
.... But not only we had no money, there was not even anyone
to prepare a good dinner for him, a suitable one. We had 10 roubles,
for we got 30 for the cow and we paid Radomski 20 back. So we gave
him these 10 roubles. Your father would have gone and borrowed
more, but he did not wish it .... and he said that perhaps you
would send some for Easter, then your father would give it back to
his wife Then we sold the calf and got 12^ which we paid to
your aunt Smentkowska. Then we sold the pig and gave Skunieczny
10 and Szymanska 5. We left 5 for the tax and for Easter. We are
still owing 12 to your uncle, 6 to Pazik, 6 to Mr. Krajewski; these are
the debts which we still have. And then we lack many things for
the house, which we reckon as about 30 roubles. And you know, dear
son, that this year is bad, you have seen yourself that the crops were
not abundant, so we can sell no grain.
Here your father speaks to you: "If our Lord God grants you
health, economize as much as you can and send [your debt] back, that
they [your creditors] may not come to us so often. Were it not for
the building and for our own debts we should have paid this debt
for you."
You asked who died In Trombin the organist's wife [or
widow?] whom you knew, is dead There are 8 children left
and the ninth [girl] is in America. When these orphans began to
weep at the churchyard during the funeral, all the people began to
weep and even the priest wept and could not make the speech.
[Information about marriages, weather.]
You ask about MichaL He has a strong wish to go to America,
but father won't let him go before the military service, for he has
406 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
only 2 years to wait and he will be called during the third [and if he
does not go when called, he will never be able to return to his
country]
And now I beg you, dear son, if you intend to enter into such a
state as Antoni did [get married], don't look at her dresses, but esteem
only whether she loves our Lord Jesus. Then she will respect you
also I On the same day when I received this letter from you
the parents of Antoni's girl came to his parents .... and there was
joy such as if all of you came back from America. But they visited
us also and are very agreeable people, particularly her mother. They
invited his parents and they invited us for the holidays, so on Sunday
after Easter they [the uncle and aunt, Antoni's parents] will go, and
your father is to go with them, but I probably shan't go, for there is
nobody to take my place at home in my household 2
WlKTORYA OSINSKA
75 May 25, 1902
DEAR SON: .... You asked me to send you one gomdlka [small
home-made cheese]. When they read it to me, I laughed. It is true
that I had none when she left [a cousin going to America], but if she
would have taken it, I would have found one. So instead of cheese
I send you a godly image — you will have a token — and from every
member of the family I send you a small medal. When you receive
this image, kiss it, that it may bless you hi your work and your
health and guard you against a mortal sin 3 Michal sends you
a package of tobacco and Aleksander a package of cigarettes. .
You wrote to your father asking, what he would send you. Well,
he sends you these words: "Remember always the presence of God,
1 The expression of the norm of respect instead of love as fundamental ii
marriage-relations, and at the same time the connection between religious life ;
family life.
2 The invitation for the holidays is a proof that the relation between the writ
and her husband on one side, the parents of their nephew's wife on the other, is
familial relation, although it is a mixed blood- and law-relation of the fourth and
fifth degree.
3 Both the image and the medals are consecreted; if therefore the first has a
particular magical value, while the medals are treated merely as family-tokens, it
is evidently because of the particular intention and desire of the mother to let the
image have a magical influence. Cf. Introduction: "Religious and Magical
Attitudes."
OSIlSrSKI SERIES 407
and when we shall stand before the last judgment you will calmly wait
for the holiest sentence." Now I send you other words: "Work and
economize as much as you can; I won't take [the fortune] into the
grave with me. When you are not able to work longer [in America],
then I will divide [the fortune] among you. And God guard us
against a sudden death. Amen."1
I can send you nothing more, dear son except my heart. If I
could take it away from my breast and divide it into four parts, as
you are four whom our Lord Jesus keeps for me still [besides those who
are dead], I would give a part to every one, from love [Wishes
and greetings.]
[WIKTORYA and ANTONI OSINSKI]
76 July 29, 1902
DEAR SON: .... I inform you now that on July i, there was a
terrible storm. The lightning struck in 3 places in our village, but,
thanks to God, without damage, for only in trees and in the stream.
But do you know Betlejeski in Lasoty ? Well, lightning struck him
dead and burned his house, and beyond Rypin a man was killed.
This storm lasted for 3 hours; it lightened continually.
The crops are good this year, but it is difficult to harvest them, for
it rains often We ask you now, dear son, to inform us how
long do you intend to be in America, for about America bad rumors
are spreading, that it is to sink in, and even priests order us to
pray for those who are 'in America. [Referring to the eruption in
Martinique.] Now I inform you, dear son, what accidents happen
in our country. Two men were going away to America; one of
them had money and was to pay for the other and for himself,
but the one who had no money killed him. They were even
brothers-in-law and kums. And in Ostrowite also a man killed
another.3 May this be a lesson for you, my dear son, not to
believe too much and not to be overconfident in friendship
[WIKTORYA]
1 Perfectly typical father's harangue. Cf. the address of the mother imme-
diately following. As to the familial standpoint of the father and the more personal
standpoint of the mother, cf. Introduction: "The Family."
2 The spirit of the letter is like that of the mediaeval chronicles. The news is
evidently derived from verbal rumors.
408 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
77 October 27, 1902
DEAR SON: .... As to your wish, we agree with it, if you think
that your lot will be better. You cannot always live so lonely, so
we, as your parents, permit you [to marry] and give you our parental
blessing. May our Lord God, God's Mother and all the Saints bless
you! We beg Him most heartily that He will grant you, your dear
wife, her parents and all of us health and His blessing.1 This we wish
you with our parental heart.
And we inform the parents of your wife that they can be willing,
for you have been always very good to us, obedient in everything that
can be expected from a child, so we guarantee that it will be so later
on. And not only we, but all the people of the whole village, can
gladly testify that you are from a good house2 and of good conduct.
WIKTORYA and ANTONI OSINSKI
78 July 29, 1903
.... DEAR SON: .... We are late with the answer but on
Sunday I was with Aleksander at the parish festival in Obory, for he
joined the Scapulary Fraternity,3 and on week-days we had no time,
for we harvested. We received the money in June and at once father
paid the debts You wrote us, dear son, to take a maid-servant,
1 The future wife and her parents are thus taken at once into the family-group
by making them share the expected effects of the blessing, whose object is the
family.
2 The presupposition that the origin of a man is a guaranty of his character.
The same presupposition which allows a man in America to bring over a girl whom
he does not know but whose family he knows.
3 Religious fraternities are a very old institution; we find them in the earliest
mediaeval traditions. They are of two types — with and without a social end.
The first exists mainly in towns, and develops mutual insurance (sickness, burial
expenses, dowry, widowhood) and philanthropic activity (help to the poor, nursing
in hospitals). In the country the merely religious form prevails, as there is less
occasion for mutual insurance, and philanthropic activity remains familial or
individual. The members gather periodically for common prayers and adoration
and perform determined functions during solemn divine services. At a solemn
mass they kneel in the middle of the church with burning candles; at a procession
they carry feretories [moving altars], standards, candles; they do the same
during the funeral of a member. Most of them develop choral singing. They
are named according to their particular religious purpose, object, and means of
their adoration — fraternities of the Holiest Sacrament, Rosary fraternities, Scapu-
lary fraternities, and those of particular saints.
OSltfSKI SERIES 409
but the worst is that there is none to be found; they all go to America.
Probably we shall manage alone until you come back. Aleksander
can already help me in the heaviest work, he can already reach the
sheaves to the cart and then pull them back [into the barn], and
Frania also works as she can. So instead of sending money for the
servant, if you have any, send them a little for okr^zne.1 Then they
will be still more willing to work, and when you come back we shall
give you whatever we can Father was ill for a week; now he
has already recovered I was so grieved, for father lay ill, and
Michalek was on the journey — such is my luck, that I am always at
work and in grief. Such my life has been and such it will probably
be up to the end.2
As to Michal, we tried by all means to persuade him not to go,
particularly I told him about his journey, how it would be, and that
he would be obliged to work heavily. But he always answered that
he is ready to work, but he wants to get to America and to be with
you. Now I beg you, dear son, if he is in grief [homesick], comfort him
as much as you can and care for him. You wrote me, dear son, not
to grieve about you, but my heart is always in pain that we are not
all together or at least all in our country, that we might visit one
another You asked us how many years there are since we
1 Festival after the harvest. In some localities called "dozynki." It is one
of the oldest pagan traditions. The word is used sometimes, as here, for the extra
reward which the proprietor gives after a successful harvest.
2 The pessimistic view expressed here and in many other letters, is particularly
frequent whenever the peasant begins to reflect upon his life. On the contrary, hi
practice he is usually very optimistic, he expects that in some undetermined way
his action will have the desired effect even if rationally there seem to be no sufficient
natural causes to produce this effect. Both the pessimism of reflection and the
optimism of practice are rooted in the same attitude as the magical beliefs; the
peasant does not give sufficient attention to the continuity between cause and effect.
In his opinion a determined fact may produce another fact even if he does not see
in what way this is possible, provided only those facts seem in some way connected
with each other. So long as he is acting, he is inclined to hope against all probabil-
ity; when he begins to reflect, the same insufficient analysis of the process of
causation makes him fear also against all probability. (Cf. Introduction: "Reli-
gious and Magical Attitudes," and note to No. 70.) There is also another reason
why the old-type peasants tend to emphasize unconsciously hi their reflection the
evil as against the good; it is the lack of any idea of advance. The modern type
of peasant, with his strong tendency to climbing, is much more optimistic. Finally,
as we shall see later, the peasant often complains insincerely. But here the
attitude is evidently sincere.
410 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
were married. Well, only the 24th year is going, since January.
[Greetings.] And care for Michalek.
[WIKTORYA]
79 November 20, 1903
DEAR SON: .... We received your letter .... but we were
not very glad, first because you wrote that Michal had .been ill without
saying with what, and second, because you wrote that we don't care
for you at all. You err much in saying so We could not send
you the photograph for your name-day, because father was ill. We
promised to send it on St. Michael's day, but we had no time, for the
harvest lasted up to autumn, for first the weather was bad, and then
in autumn it was fair; then we dug the potatoes. Afterward father
brought fuel and plowed what was necessary for winter, and Alek-
sander went to earn for his winter suit and boots, and we both [mother
and daughter] worked industriously, and kept the stock. [Stock
sold; debts paid; no money left.] It is easy for you to say that we
don't care for you or begrudge a few zloty for this photograph ! In
America nobody comes to you and calls: "Lend me money, for I
have nothing to live," or, "Give me my money back." You wrote
that you did not work for 7 weeks. But we must always work, like
worms. [Greetings, Christmas wishes.]
WIKTORYA OSINSKA
[Inclosed with the preceding letter.] .... Now I, your sister,
did not forget you yet. I send you this flower as a token for these
solemn holidays of Christmas, and I divide the wafer with you.
[Wishes]. As to mother, don't write it ever again, that mother does
not care about you for we can never reward mother for all these tears
which she sheds More than once I have tried to comfort her,
when mother weeps that you are not in this country
[FRANIA]
80 May 17, 1904
DEAR CHILDREN: .... We received your letter .... together
with the photograph. We were very glad, so that we even wept from
joy. You wrote, dear son, that you had a sad Easter, for you did
not see your parents. I had also [sad holidays].1 When I arranged
1 Holidays are always occasions on which there is a revival of familial feelings,
and traditionally the whole family ought to meet.
OSltfSKI SERIES 411
the swi$cone* I sat at the stove, and thought that there was nobody
to make a swi$cone for you, and I wept. You wondered, dear children,
why I look so sickly [in the photograph]. But you also look sickly
and sad. Not only we say so, but all those who have seen you. Every-
body wonders particularly about Janek, who looked fatter and merrier
on the other photograph. Some people envy us that you write so
often and that on every holiday you send something, either money
or a photograph — that you don't forget about your parents
Now we inform you about our farming. We had 4 horses; we
sold one of them and got 50 roubles, for they were sick. We have
2 cows, 2 calves and a young cow, one year old, and more than 20
bee-hives. Father has sowed rape for them, and now it blossoms;
and there is such a humming as if somebody were playing an accor-
deon. Now I inform you about the crops. Rye is nice up to the
present; summer grains are nice above, but it has been too wet
below, for it rains often. This year is like the last one; up to the
present some people have not planted the potatoes, for they cannot
plow, but we planted and sowed everything, thanks to God and to
God's Mother
[WIKTORYA]
8 1 June 26, 1904
.... Now I inform you about the misfortune which befell your
aunt and uncle Smentkowski. On June 25 lightning struck Anneczka
[their daughter] and killed her and the Zwolenski child. At 4 o'clock
in the afternoon she was sitting near the kitchen stove and your aunt
was standing near holding the child. The lightning came in through
the chimney and went out through both windows, but thanks to God,
it did not burn the house. So we beg you, and they also, for the love
of God inform their whole family [the children in America] about it,
and ask them, that someone among the four of them come. They
are old and cannot work. Moreover, your aunt is often sick, and
1 On Easter all kinds of food which the peasant uses during the year are con-
secrated by the priest. The consecration, by a magical symbolism, is supposed
to sanctify and purify any food of the same kind which the family will eat
till the following Easter. The custom is connected with the old pagan spring
festival. Easter eggs are also consecrated and form an indispensable part of the
Swiqcone. At the same tune, there is a connection with fasting: Lent ends on
Easter, and the first meat, dairy, and alcoholic drink after the fasting must be
consecrated before being consumed.
412 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
what will now happen after such a misfortune ! .... Your aunt could
not write from grief, and we can write no more, for tears drown our
eyes
[OSINSKIS]
If I wrote you badly, excuse me, for my hands trembled from all
this.
[FRANIA]
82 July 21, 1904
DEAR CHILDREN: .... Now we inform you in what way the
Zwolenski child was killed. It was so. The Smenkowskis came from
the field and the uncle remained in the garden, while the aunt and
Andzia [Anneczka] came back home and brought firewood. The
aunt took Zwolenska's child for it wanted to go to her. Zwolenska
wished later to take it, but it did not want to go to her, so your aunt
took it and they went into their house, and Zwolenska into her house.
Your aunt sat down near the table with the child, and Anneczka sat
down near the stove, and when the lightning struck, it killed both
Anneczka and the child. Your aunt alone remained alive and called
to Anneczka, telling her to go away, or she would be burned. Imme-
diately your uncle ran into the room and people gathered. They took
Anneczka and the child and dug them into the earth, but they did not
awaken. And now I explain to you in what a manner the Zwolenskis
were there [the Z's were manor-servants, and had to live hi manorial
buildings] . They lived first in the osmioraki [long house for 8 families] ;
there they could not come to an understanding with their neighbors,
and got a lodging in the czworaki [house for 4 families]. They had
lived there hardly a week when the czworaki burned down; but they
did not lose many things, for people came and saved them
Thence they moved to the same house where the Smenkowskis live.
And I inform you about the burial, how uncle had her buried. It cost
him 20 roubles [to the priest]. The priest went to meet the procession,
boys brought her to the church, and there she stood upon a catafalque
during the whole holy mass. Thence the priest led and church-
servants brought her to the cemetery. There were many people,
for she was in a [religious] fraternity and bore the flag [during
processions]. Everybody wept, for she was liked and respected.
But your uncle did not regret any expenses, saying that this was her
dowry
OSltfSKI SERIES 413
You asked whether Antoni would be exempted from military
service as a guardian [of his old parents]. Now, during the war, no
exemption is valid. Your uncle would be glad to see them [Antoni
and wife] if they came to work, for he is already weak; but should
Antoni come back and go again to another country [to the Japanese
war], they would be still more grieved.
Whoever of them is to come let him come the soonest possible, for
now there is continuous work. And perhaps the aunt would sooner
forget Anusia [if she had another child with her]
[OSINSKIS]
[Letter of July 21 contains further details about the death and funeral
of Anneczka and the child.]
83 September 24, 1904
.... DEAR SON: .... We are very glad that you are in good
health and that you succeed well, so that you even want to take us to
America. But for us, your parents, it seems that there is no better
America than in this country. Your father says that he is too weak
and sickens too often. I should be glad to see you, but it is impossible
to separate ourselves in our old age. I have also no health; particu-
larly my arms are bad .... and you wrote that in America one
must work hard, and often cannot get work even if he wants it, while
here we have always work and we can hire somebody to do the heavy
labor. You wrote me, dear son, that you will send me a gift. I was
very glad, not so much because of the gift as because of your good
heart
Dear son, when I learned from your letter and from Frania
[Smentkowska] that you love reading, I was gladder than if you had
sent me a hundred roubles.1 May our Lord God bless you further,
may God's Mother of Cze.stochowa cover you with her mantle from
every evil and every misfortune.
Now, dear sons, I inform you that I want to let Frania learn dress-
making, for she respects her parents and is obedient, and secondly,
1 Interesting appreciation for seemingly devoid of any idea of the practical
application of learning which is so emphasized in the movement for instruc-
tion carried on by the newspapers. Back of this appreciation is probably the
idea that reading keeps one away from mischief and denotes a seriousness of
character.
414 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
because she is too weak for heavy work. Although it will cost us, yet
if we live, we must leave her at least such a token I
Your aunt and uncle and Frania [Smentkowska's cousin] greet
you, and they greet their own children. Auntie says that Antosia
ought to remember her mother's old age and send her [money] for a
warm dress for winter
WlKTORYA OSINSKA
84 November 8, 1904
.... DEAR SON: .... You wrote about a church-certificate,
but we don't know which one you wanted. Father got your birth-
certificate. Is it good or not ? And as to my family, about which you
wanted to learn, our priest says that in his records there is nothing,
but we must go to the mayor of the commune. Your father will do
it when he finds time. Dear son, you say that it is well if everybody
knows about his family for many years [past]. But only those people
can know whose parents live long, while I was 4 years old when my
parents died. How can I know anything about my family?2 I
asked your aunt, but she does not know either. She says only that
some years ago a paper from Prussia came, that some money there
was owed to us, some family-inheritance. But there was nobody to
go for it, and your uncle did not wish to go, for he said that perhaps
it was not worth going for.
You wrote, dear son, that probably we shall not see one another
any more. We were very grieved, and particularly I was. But we
1 This desire to give the girl technical instruction already involves a modifica-
tion of the primitive economic attitudes; the individual is no longer conceived as
exclusively dependent upon the family, familial property ceases to be the only basis
of individual existence, and there is a tendency to advance along the line of an
improvement of work and income, not merely of an increase of property. (Cf.
Introduction: "Economic Attitudes.") But the whole attitude is still evidently
new, for the technical instruction is conceived as a gift, justified by exceptional
circumstances.
3 We have here a good proof that the peasant family is essentially only an
actual social group, and does not depend upon the remembrance of the preceding
generations, as does the noble European family (heraldic continuity) or the ancient
Roman family (cult of the spirits of the ancestors). The ancestry is traced only as
far as the actual, real connection between the living members requires. (Cf . Intro-
duction: "The Family.") In the present case the son's demand is clearly felt
as strange; he is influenced either by the idea of the noble family (probably drawn
from his reading), or by economic considerations — the hope of getting some
unexpected inheritance.
OSINSKI SERIES 415
should grieve still worse if you had to go to this bloodshedding. And
perhaps we shall see one another yet, if they annoy us further [for
we shall go to America]. Already they have raised the taxes, and now
it is said that they will take the cows; whoever has four will have only
one left I You wrote, dear son, that you and Michal listen
much to each other. I am very glad. Nothing could make me so
glad as this r~ , ,
[OsiNSKis]
As to Michalek, we don't write to him, for he does not write to us
either, as if he had forgotten us.
85 December 18, 1905
.... DEAR SON : . . . . You ask about Frania, how much her
learning and living will cost. When we sent her there, we agreed
upon 55 roubles, but now she only dines there, and buys breakfast and
supper herself, so we don't know how much we shall pay. She learns
with the daughter of Brunkowski, who was manager of the estate of
Gulbiny 30 years ago and lives now in Dobrzyn
And Frania, how clever and cunning she is! When I persuaded
her that [her learning] would cost us much, and that I did not learn ,
she said that I had no parents, while she has and she wants to have
some token from them.
Now I advise you to marry, so perhaps you will be happier, as
Antoni and other people are 2 r.,T -.
[WIKTORYA]
86 February 6, 1906
.... DEAR SON [Michal] : . . . . We received the money today
.... and we thank you kindly and heartily for this money, we your
parents, your brother, and also I your sister, for most of it is destined
for me [Frania]
I came to our parents on February 2, and I learned that many
young men come, but the girls don't seem to want them, and probably
there will be no marriage this year.3 Cousin Frania [Smentkowska]
1 Anything may be expected of the government. Cf. note to No. 70, and
Introduction: "Social Environment."
2 He evidently did not marry the girl mentioned in No. 77.
3 Marrying assumes often an epidemical character in a village or parish.
There comes a year when, without any apparent reason, the number of weddings
assumes an astonishingly high proportion; then again, as in the present case, the
4i6 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
says that she won't marry until you come back. And I inform you,
dear brother, that I am learning embroidery, and it goes on pretty
well. Now I have no time to write more for I must go back to
Dobrzyn [FRANIA]
87 February 18, 1906
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... You write us to sell [our property]
and to go to you. We should be very glad to see you, if even only a
few days before our death, but perhaps you heard yourself how difficult
it is now to be admitted, particularly for old people. It is true that
here we must work heavily, and [get cash] only for taxes and fuel, and
even this is difficult to get. But your father persuades us that if we
sold it and then were not admitted [to America], we should then have
no place to go. Then we say that, if even only two of us went [one
of the parents with one child], the two remaining would not be able
to do all the work and the longing would be still greater
[OSINSKIS]
[Letter of one page, March 6, requests the children "not to travel so
much about America, as it is a spending of money and some accident might
happen." Also that they receive the newspaper Gazeta Swi^teczna at home
and preserve the copies.]
88 May 24, 1906
.... DEAR SON: You wrote us that you intend to marry and
you asked us for our blessing. We send it to you. May our Lord
God help you, and God's Mother of Cze/stochowa, and all the saints.
It is very sad for us that we cannot be at your wedding, but let God';
will be done. But we are anxious whether you have met a good girl,
for it happened already that one man from Gulbiny wrote how he
got married [in America]. He lived for only a year with her, for she
stole his whole fortune and went, nobody knows where. I thank you
for your flowers; we adorned half the house with them, and when
come into the room and look at them, I shed tears.
[WIKTORYA]
Now, dear brother, I send you a little tobacco. I had no tinn
to send it to your wedding, so at least I want it to come to your name-
marriage season (December-February) passes without a single wedding. The
reason seems to be imitation, or rather a certain common attitude developed among
the boys or girls during a given period — a kind of fashion.
OSltfSKI SERIES 417
day. And I beg you, send me the watch, for you don't need it now
any more.
[ALEKSANDER]
89 October 29, 1906
.... DEAR SON [Michal]: .... We received your letter.
.... We are glad that you are in good health for we thought that
you all were dead [allusion to their not writing]. You had written,
dear son, that you would write us something curious, so we waited
impatiently thinking that perhaps you were already journeying home.
.... So now when we read this letter of yours we were very much
grieved, for we remember you ten times a day and it is very painful
to us that you evidently forget us. Dear son, since you did not come,
surely we shan't see one another in this world, for this year a penalty
was established, that if anybody who belongs to the army [who is of
the age to be called] went away, his father must pay big money for
him, and when he comes back after some years, he must serve his
whole time in the disciplinary battalion. This is a still greater
penalty than for these reservists who went away before the war, for
these have only 2 months of prison or 300 roubles to pay. The
punishment is not so severe, for Cieszenski [a reservist who did not
come from America until after the war] has even earned 7 roubles
during this time [of prison].1
Dear son, you write that you are getting on well enough. Thanks
to God for this, but we beg you, we your parents, not to forget about
God, then God won't forget about you. It is very hard for us that
we cannot see you. More than once we shed bitter tears that we
have brought you up and now we cannot be with you May we
at least merit to be in heaven together
[OSINSKIS]
1 Prison for offenses against the state, for violation of police ordinances, and
in general for offenses which do not imply the condemnation of social opinion is not
considered a serious punishment except for the loss of tune. Prison for slight
administrative offenses can usually be converted into fine, but the peasant always
chooses prison. A curious incident characterizing the peasant's attitude toward
the Russian state occurred four years ago in a commune of the province of Piotrk6w.
When the district chief of that commune proposed to the peasants to contribute a
certain sum toward the expenses involved in the celebration of the jubilee of the
imperial family, there was some hesitation. Finally an old peasant, after some
talk with the others, stepped forward and said, " Could we not sit instead ? "
4i8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
90 April 26, 1908
DEAR CHILDREN: .... We received your letter and the post-
notification on Good Friday evening when we came back from the
passion [service commemorating the sufferings of Jesus]. So we read
only about your health, for we were very tired for it rained the whole
week, even on Sunday morning. So we read your letter only on the
first day of Easter, after the divine service, and only then we learned
the rest.1 At once Aleksander went on the third day for the tokens
[holy images, etc.] and got them. We thank you heartily. May our
Lord God reward you. We are glad, dear children, that you remember
about God. Thank you once more for these tokens and for your letter
so nicely written.
Dear children, you write that you think about taking Aleksander
to America. But we and our work, for whom would it be left ? You
would all be there and we here. While if he goes to the army for
3 years and God keeps him and brings him happily back, he would
help us as he does now. Well, perhaps Frania could remain upon this
[the farm] ; but even so we could see him no more [forever, if he escaped
military service]. Moreover, now whole throngs of people are coming
back from America .... and the papers write that it won't be
better, but worse. And about this army [service] we don't know yet
how it will be, for it is intended to have a communal decision — when
the chief of the district asks. So if the Gulbinaks answer that
Michalek is not there and does not write, he [Aleksander] could
perhaps be exempted. But if people say that sometimes he [Micha-
lek] sends news of himself, then nothing can be done, for though he
does not write himself, Ulecka wrote to your uncle that he was there,
and your uncle does not give the letters to us at home to read but
goes to Lisiecki, so that everybody learns at once 2
[OsiNSKis]
* The fact shows how difficult and important a matter are the reading and
writing of letters with the peasant. This must be kept in mind if we are to appre-
ciate how much familial attachment is implied in frequent letter-writing, and how
the peasants themselves consider the frequency and length of letters a sign of this
attachment.
1 As in Russia the number of recruits needed is less than the number of young
men of eligible age, there are different kinds of exemption. A man is exempted
when he is an only son, or when he is the oldest son and his father is at an age when
he is supposed not to be able to support his family. A certain number is also
exempted because of defective health, and out of the remainder a number, fixed for
OSltfSKI SERIES 419
91 November 15, 1908
DEAR CHILDREN: .... We are late with our answer, for we
have waited [to see] what will become of Aleksander. Now it is
decided that he must serve. On December i, they will go away.
Father could do nothing, for the officials with whom he tried to settle
the matter went away and others came, and now there is another
mayor, and when the decision was made at the communal meeting
the Gulbinaks [inhabitants of Gulbiny] said that Michalek is alive
and writes. Particularly your uncle Smentkowski said it. Then no
exemption was possible; it would cost big money and even so it would
not be certain. It will be very hard for us without him, for you know,
dear children, that we are no longer young. It will be very painful
for us to be alone, but we cannot help it. At least we are glad that
you succeed well enough, as you inform us. We beg you heartily,
don't forget about us, but write as often as you can, for it is particu-
larly painful for me and I shed tears more than once. I have had so
many troubles with you, I bred you, and now in my old age, when I
can work no more, you left me, all of you
[WIKTORYA]
92 March 9, 1909
.... DEAR CHILDREN: You write us that you are very much
pained at our being alone, and that Janek intends to come to us. We
should be very glad, but we don't wish you to have any losses through
us, and we should grieve still more about Michalek if he remained
there alone. Now you are two, so if — God forbid! — some sickness
or accident happens, you can help each other. During this year we
shall still manage alone, if our Lord God grants us health and life, for
Frania will leave her sewing and will help, and Stanislaw Ochocki, for
whom your father carried bricks when he built his house, will help us
also. As to the rest, we shall hire somebody from time to time, for
a servant must now be paid much, and even so it is difficult to get
each community beforehand, is selected by drawing lots. Thus in the place of
each man exempted because of the family situation or health some other member
of the commune must serve. And as the commune must certify that a young man
ought to be exempted because of his family situation, evidently the members of
the commune are not eager to exempt anyone without real reasons. Therefore
the efforts to exempt Aleksander fail, for the commune knows that the old man has
another son.
420 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
any, for everybody goes either to America, or to Prussia for season-
work. And so we shall live this year alone, for we don't wish to get
Frania married this year, although some [boys] have called on her
already and begged [to be allowed to court her]. We are too sad now
after Aleksander left us. Perhaps next year, if some good party
appears, we won't oppose her marrying, lest she might complain about
us later on. Then, if we cannot get on alone, and if it is impossible
to find a good servant, we hope that you will help us [and come].
But now, if the work is better, earn for yourselves, and may our Lord
God help you and bless you, and God's Mother of Czestochowa,
our dear children!
Dear son Michalek, we are very glad that you have begun to
occupy yourself with farming [literally: country-housekeeping] and
that you succeed pretty well, since you keep so many young ones
[poultry ? rabbits ?]. Frania envied your having so many and she had
none. I was obliged to find some, and she will receive them as a gift
from a man from Rypin [OsmsKis]
93 August 23, 1909
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... When we read your letters, we
were very much grieved, but nothing can be done. We must submit
to fortune. If you cannot come back to us we must find another way.
Although it is painful, we must be pained for some time, if our Lord
God allows us to live longer. We should not like to scatter our old
bones about the world. Here we have worked for so many years, so
we should be glad to rest here, on our fathers' soil.1 And you work
and find your own way as well as you can. May our Lord God help
you, since, alas! we cannot be together, dear children. [Crops;
weather.] You wrote us to send you tobacco and honey through
Bendykowski. If he goes and if he will take it, we will send you some.
Zygmunt K. from Trabin took your address, but now it is impossible
to believe everybody. Perhaps he will do as Zieleniak did.
[OsiNSKis]
1 Typical arguments of old people against emigration. This attitude, how-
ever, gave way completely during the emigration fever to Brazil. People of seventy
were seen going with their children and even inciting them to go. Two reasons
may explain this difference. The emigrants were to settle in Brazil upon land, and,
as it seems, almost all of these old emigrants to Brazil were manor-servants or
parents of manor-servants, not farmers. In the same way the old S^kowskis (see
that series) do not hesitate to go to America.
OSlftSKI SERIES 421
94 September 28, 1909
.... DEAR CHILDREN: We wrote to you, but you would not
come, so father is trying to get Aleksander back. It is hard for us
to work, but we shall be obliged to get on as well as we can. But this
is worse, that if he ends his military service, afterward he will be often
called to the commune, and still further [to drill]. And there are
rumors about a possible war, and Aleksander begs us to get him back,
if we can. So father went to that official and told him that there is no
news of Michal at all for some years. He told father to get a cer-
tificate, confirmed by the consul, that Michal was lost somewhere.
So I, your father, wanted to ask your advice, dear children, and
particularly yours, dear son Janek, for you have been more in the
world. Advise me, whether you could not get there such a certificate,
for it would be very useful, for without any big cost he would be set
free. I beg you very much, dear children, try to get it, if you can.
And Michalek, if he wants to come back some day, could take a
passport as an American
[OSINSKIS]
95 December 9, 1909
.... DEAR SON: You write us that it is dangerous [the arrange-
ment to get Aleksander out of the army]. When we reflected about
the matter, we acknowledge that you are right and we thank you for
your advice. Nothing can be done, such is evidently the will of God,
for we can by no means have him exempted. Probably he must suffer
his whole appointed time. If only Lord Jesus grants health to us and
to him, perhaps we shall still live up to his return and he will help us.
Could we only get a servant now! It is really hard for us to work
alone. When your father walks a few steps he complains of his legs,
and I have also pain in my arms and legs, and we must always work
in the soil. [Crops; weather.]
Now, dear children, come the solemn holidays of Christmas. We
are here, three of us, while you are there in distant foreign countries.
But there is the same God, our best Father. So we commit you, dear
children, and ourselves to His care, we are confident in his holiest will,
and we hope that this Jesus born [on this day] will not desert you and
will bless you, if you only love him. And we, on the occasion of this
solemn commemoration, send you this wafer and we divide it with
you, wishing you every good, and health. Dear children, spend
422 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
merrily these holidays and during this solemnity remember kindly
your parents and your sister who longs for you. Oh, if we could see
one another once more ! May God grant it, Amen. [Typical Christ-
mas wishes; less formal than usual.]
[OSINSKIS]
96 January 10, 1910
.... DEAR CHILDREN: I, your father, write to you these few
words. First, I inform you that Frania intends to marry after Easter,
and on this occasion I ask you, whether you will also require your
parts or any money. I suppose that you are somewhat better off, for
you economized, i.e., earned some money, so perhaps you will bequeath
it [your parts of the inheritance] to them, i.e., to Frania and Alos
[Aleksander]. For if it came to sending this to you, it would not be
worth while, for in American money it would be only a half. So I beg
you very much, dear children, reflect and answer me, for I should like
to have peace with you all before I die, that you might not disturb
me [my will] later on, as it often happens. I am now weaker and
weaker, I often fall sick, so I should like to die in peace, when this
last hour comes. Now I inform you that I still try to get Aleksander
free, but I don't know whether our Lord God will allow me to succeed
in getting him out of this jaw. Now, dear children, we beg you once
more, we your parents, inform us as soon as possible how you decide
there. Then we would also know how do you advise Frania to do, for
she had already some opportunities [to marry], rather good ones, but
she knows how we despair about you, dear children, that we educat
you and now we have none with us, so she lingered, wishing to
longer with us J
[OSINSKIS]
1 The letter is important for the understanding of the relation of family-lif
and the economic situation. The dominant factor in the father's attitude is
wish to assure the integrity of the farm after his death. In this wish a complex i
various feelings is involved — the love of the farm as the object of his work;
complicated, not exclusively economic, but partly social idea of property; the ide
of family as a continuity of generations, and the wish that his family may have it
the future a standing in the village and community. (Cf. Cugowski series.)
The situation is complicated by the fact that the farm is really the wife's property
and that one son (Jan) is the old man's stepson, having therefore a particular moral
right to the inheritance.
OSltfSKI SERIES 423
97 February 28, 1910
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... You ask us whether we could
not send you about 2,000 roubles.1 But it is true, dear children, that
we have not so much money of our own, for you know yourselves that
it is not so long ago since we built the house, and then we spent all our
money and even made some debts. Later we economized [earned]
some money but we built a barn, as we wrote you, and this cost also
enough. Why, from 12 morgs there is not such a big income, and the
expenses are different and many — taxes and fuel and various others.
This year a priest's house and two schools will be built in our commune,
so money will be continually required. We have still some money, but
we are trying to get Aleksander free, and this year we have hired a
servant, whom we must pay 30 roubles [a year]. He is 17 years old,
but nevertheless it will be much easier for us. So we can send you
nothing from our own money. We could perhaps get some money
by borrowing, but at interest, and then if we could not pay it back
they would sell our farm, as often happens. Moreover, you would
receive only, so to speak, half the sum [in dollars], so it is not worth
while. Therefore you must find your own way, dear children, as you
can, for if you were here in our country, we would share our last
copeck with you.2 We thought, dear children, that you had paid
everything, and we are very much pained that you still have trouble
with your debts. And we cannot help you at all. You must forgive
us this time, for it is already too difficult for us, old people. [Acquaint-
ances; weather.]
Now we inform you that in our country a greater and greater
movement spreads out. Everywhere shops [consumers' associations]
1 The sum is the probable share of inheritance which the sons in America,
both together, would have if the property were equally divided, as a good farm of
twelve morgs is worth about 4,000 roubles.
2 All 'the excuses are trifling. The expenses enumerated except the house,
which was built nine years before, are really small. Borrowing money by mortgage
is easy, on a very long term, and the difficulty of paying the interest is hardly real
in peasant life. The old man wishes to preserve the familial property intact, and
feels that in separating themselves from the family interests they have separated
themselves from the right of participation in its property also. This shows that
the mere sentimental connection between individuals, without an active group-
organization, could never explain the family hi its whole social reality. On the
contrary, this sentimental connection is only a secondary effect of the group-
solidarity, and remains after the group has disintegrated.
424 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
are set up, and agricultural circles. Well, and if somebody comes in a
few years into our village he won't be able to recognize it. There
is this brick-factory, so in one place they dig holes, in another again
they cover holes, so that it is difficult to get to the lake where the mill
was, and the forge is falling down, for they have dug under it.
Mr. Piwnicki [the manor-owner] has now such a beautiful environ-
ment near his palace! The factory has been rented by the dziedzic
[heir; estate-owner. Half -honorific title] from Trombin, and he
established a telephone from Trombin to Gulbiny. Now a common
store is set up, and they intend to build also a common bakery. Soon
everything will be like hi a town. Many people from our count
intend to go to America. And another bit of news: a star with a t£
or a so-called comet, appeared in the sky, on the western side.1
Now we have nothing more of interest to write, only we wish you
health and happiness Remember, dear children, God and
our holy faith and our beloved fatherland, then our Lord God will
not leave you and will help you
[OsmsKis]
98 August 2, 1910
.... DEAR SON [JAN] : We thank you for having written us
much news. It is a pleasure for us that you at least don't forget
and inform us that you are alive, for as to Michalek [if we depended
on him], we should never know anything about you. It is very painful
for us that a year has passed since he wrote us a few words with his
own hand. Does he want to forget about us altogether ? [Health,
weather; harvest.]
And so everything is going on in the usual way. As to the news
of the world, you know more than we do, dear children, though we also
keep a paper and read different books. You write, dear son, that
you long for your fatherland and would be glad to see it. Why, dear
son, you can come back! Michalek cannot any more, but many such
as you came back and nothing bad befel them. We should be glad
also, dear children, to see you, but for us old people it is more difficult
to drag our old bones about the world. So we ask you, dear children, .
if you intend to remain in America for many years still, you could
visit us this winter. Many people come here for some time and then
1 This news is evidently added to weaken the impression of the refusal to send
money.
OSltfSKI SERIES 425
go back. We beg you heartily, dear children, come to us if you can,
but don't wait till winter for now it is nicer here than in winter, and
it would be merry for us. May God grant it to be accomplished!
[OSINSKIS]
99 December 5, 1910
.... DEAR CHILDREN: We inform you that now we are alone,
father and I [because Frania is married], and I am very sad and
I don't care any more for this farm and household. Were it not
for that water I would go at once into the world after you. I did
not expect, dear children, that in my old age I should have to live
alone in our house. I look at the walls around, I see you [pictures]
which Frania hung there — but what! I cannot speak with you. I
could still see Janek at any time, but I shan't probably see Michal
in this world
Now, dear children, we inform you about Frania. It is very
painful for us to be without her. When he took her away, we all
wept. But still they visit us and come to us often, and he is up to the
present very polite to us. They wonder, for they sent you their
photograph and have no answer yet. [Weather; Christmas wishes;
greetings.]
[WIKTORYA]
i
100 January 7, 1911
DEAR CHILDREN: We thank you for your letter with the wafer.
We pray to God that he inay keep you hi His guardianship, and since
by His holiest will we must be separated far from one another, may
He grant us to be again together, if not in this world, then to be happy
in the other world.
I am very glad, dear children, that you are so well-disposed to one
another. When Janek was in the army and wrote for money, Micha-
lek always spoke for him, that we must send him some, and now Janek
got easy work for him, and you agree also with one another. This
rejoices us very much. And we beg you, inform us whether you have
still much to pay for your house, and how are you getting on with your
farming [probably only gardening and poultry-keeping]
Now we inform you that together with your letter we got also a
letter from Alos. He comforts us [by saying] that he will be free in
426 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
October. May God grant us to live up to this time. [Weather.]
We have spent the holidays alone. On the star-evening [Christmas
eve] Frania and Adas [the son-in-law] were with us, and then your
mother went with them to the pastoral service [night-service on
Christmas, called so in commemoration of the legendary shepherds].
When we are at church, we always visit them and they also visit us
on Sunday afternoon, but on week-days we are alone, and we long for
you and we remember you often
Your loving parents,
[OSINSKIS]
[Letter of May 10, 1911, explaining again why they cannot go
America.]
I
101 June 17, 1911
.... DEAR CHILDREN: We did not answer you at once, for we
waited for the Radomski boy to come to us [from America]. But
we have not seen him yet. I saw only Radomski, his father, who said
that he had sore feet. But I learned almost nothing from his father,
and it is difficult for me to be there, for we are now alone. Even our
servant went to America, and now in the summer it is difficult to get
another. Only Frania and Adas visit us sometimes, and help us a
little. So we did not learn anything, only Radomski mentioned
something I was pained at, as he said Janek has learned to swear
and does not respect his wife much. I don't know whether I ought
to believe it, but if it is so, then, dear son, it is not very pleasant for
me, your mother
[WIKTORYA]
102 February 17, 1912
The first words of our letter to you, dear children: "Praised be
Jesus Christus." Then we inform you that we received your letter
wfiich found us in good health and success, and from which we learned
about your dear health. This rejoiced us the most, dear children,
when our Lord God gives you health. And it rejoiced us, dear son,
that you wrote at such length in your letter about your success. May
our Lord God help you the best possible and bless you for your further
life. This we wish you, we your parents. And also Frania with her
husband and little son sends you greetings and good wishes, and in
OSltfSKI SERIES 427
general all your relatives and acquaintances. May God grant it.
A*1611'1 [OSINSKIS]
103 February 6, 1913
DEAR SON [JAN] AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW: .... I received your
letter and I am very glad that you are in good health, but it is very
disagreeable to me that you wrote such a complaining letter. My dear
son, I beg you don't send me such letters, for happily I learned about
this letter, got it myself and had it read, and I did not show this one
sheet at all at home, for if they had received this letter, I should have
much displeasure to bear from them, for your father and Aleksander
would be very much pained. We received a letter also from Michalek,
but he did not write wrongly and did not quarrel as you did, only he
thanked and asked father to send him this money when he was able,
and did not require more than that. Dear son, you say so [that it is
too little?], and you count so dear this farm, but if you knew what
expenses are now, larger and larger. Formerly it was possible to
save much more money, for everything was not so expensive, and
such large taxes were not collected. Now a priest's house, then a
school was built, and for all, this money is collected from us, the
farmers. Dear son, Aleksander must give us living and covering
[clothes] and fuel costs 30 roubles a year .... and with his wife
he did not get any big money either. He got what God helped
him to, so now he must also spare in order to be able to exist. So
don't imagine at all, dear children, that you have too small payments,
for if you were here, dear son, you would know how great the expenses
are, and you would not envy at all, for there is nothing to envy.
Now I beg you, don't answer this letter at all, for I wrote it only
from myself; they don't even know it at all. When father sends you
a letter, answer only then
Your mother,
WlKTORYA OSINSKA
Don't be angry, dear children, for my sending you this letter
without stamp, but I had no money for it.
1 An empty and perfunctory letter written by Aleksander in the name of
his parents. The greetings at the beginning and end are greatly abridged in
comparison with those in the letters written by Frania. For example, the latter
always enumerated the "relatives and acquaintances" who sent greetings. This
and two other letters written by thg son and here omitted show how the form and
content of the letter depend on the person who acts as secretary.
428 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
104 March 12, 1913
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... We inform you about our success.
We succeed well enough, thanks to God. The weather does not annoy
us too much. We think already about work in the field. When our
Lord God grants the soil to get dry, we will go at once to work, for
in the barn we have threshed everything. This only is bad, that
gram is exceedingly cheap, so all this remains in the barn. Write
us what is the news there about our country, for you know more than
we do [because of the censure]. We inform you only, that industry
and commerce develop more and more in our country, common
[co-operative] shops are set up, they wish to kill the Jewish trade, but
we don't know whether it will succeed. Now, as to your inheritance,
which you asked us to send you, it would be well, but the money is in
the savings-bank, and when I wanted to take it, they refused to give
any interest until the money has remained a whole year. So I
reflect, let it remain till the end of the year; only then will I send it to
you. Why should we give them these roubles for nothing ?J I ask
you moreover, advise me, for you are more in the world. I intend to
go to you after the swarming of the bees, so write me whether it is
better to go with a [prepaid] ship-ticket or for ready money, and
whether I can yet come to you. Answer me, and after swarming I
will prepare myself to visit you, for you cannot come, and I would be
glad to see you before my death
After reading this letter give it to Janek, for it does not pay to
write separate letters to you both, so I wrote it upon a single
sheet.
[Your father,
ANTONI OSINSKI]
105 September 3, 1913
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... We wait for your letter, but we
hear nothing. We don't know what happened to you. Perhaps you
are angry with us for not having sent the money to you ?
Now we inform you that here is a farm to sell after Szczepan B.
['s death]. Janek remembers it certainly. We write it because Janek
promised to come back to our country. So if he wanted to settle
upon a farm we could buy it with your money and Janek could pay
r
1 This is only a pretext. The real reason is given in the following letter.
OSltfSKI SERIES 429
his part to Michalek there, and here he would have this farm. There
are 9 morgs of land, good buildings. The proprietor wants 2,000
roubles for it. So speak with one another. If Janek wants to come
back upon a piece of land, answer us.1 He [the proprietor] asks you to
answer in any case, whether so or not. And inform us how you
succeed. Then we shall write you more news in another letter. Now
we end our few words and wish you health and every good.
Your loving parents
Also Adam, Frania, Zygmus and Walcia greet you. Also Alos
and Julka wish you every good.
Now I, your mother, must also send you a few words. You have
always spoken in favor of Alos, that he might remain with us, and
your father also wanted him [to take the farm]. But he does not
know now how to be grateful to us. He is not very good to us, and
our daughter-in-law sees how he does and does not respect us either.
She told me. to go to my half of the house. Now it is still worse for
me than it was while I was alone. Then I knew that I had nobody,
but now I have a son and a daughter-in-law, and it is not good enough
for them to speak to us. And I am so sad now. It is difficult for me
to go to Frania, and she has children and cannot visit me often either.
Dear children, if you don't intend to come back to our country forever,
could you perhaps visit us for some time ? Please inform Janek also
about it, and when you answer me, I beg you, dear children, send the
letter to Frania's address
Your loving mother,
[WIKTORYA]
1 06 November 4, 1913
.... DEAR CHILDREN: .... This year we shall still remain
with Aleksander, as we have lived up to the present, but next year
we shall probably live and board separately, for we don't wish to
importune [burden] them too much.
Then, dear son, as to this money, I write you from myself, that
I have spoken to father for your sake, asking him to send you the
1 As soon as the possibility of the son's returning and settling in his native
village appears all the reasons quoted by the father for not paying at once his part
of the inheritance disappear; the father is ready to spend all the money immediately
in buying land for him. Of course the reason is that the son by returning would
become again a member of the family-group.
430 . PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
money now, but father told me, that we don't know how long we have
still to live, and he is afraid to remain without money at all, for there
is ro money stipulated from Aleksander [only natural products].
Fr her counted that you are rather well off there and that you won't
re. "'re your dues at once, and for a few years still we shall be able
to ^et the interest from this sum. So I beg you, my dear children,
don't be angry and don't grieve. That which is yours won't be lost
to you; even if we don't add anything, nothing will be missing. I
w" )ok after it myself [literally: I shall be in it]. And now manage
as . ^u can, my dear children. It is very painful for me, not to be able
to h :lp you, but really at present I can do nothing.
Now, dear children, remember me at least, your mother, who have
bred you! God alone knows how many tears I have shed that, for all
my suffering and troubles about you when you were small children,
I have now nobody to comfort me, nobody to speak merrily with. If
I could, I would fly to you, but surely I shan't have now any opportu-
nity to see you in this world, for I feel by my bones that every-
thing is more or less diseased. So I beg you once more, speak to
us at least through paper. May I not have this disappointment, at
least
[WIKTORYA]
107 [GULBINY, September 9, 1901]
I, your sister Franciszka, write to you also that I am in good
health Don't be angry with me for not having written to you
nicely or much [in letter for mother of same date] I beg you,
dear brothers, inform me what is the news in your country, for in our
country there are frequent misfortunes and accidents. Karpinski
was nearly killed by his horses. He lies as if he were without a soul.
In Upielsk half the village is burned down In Bozomin the
miller mounted upon the windmill to cover it. He fell down am
was killed, and so on, continually I
[FRANIA]
tie
*
1 The first of Frania's letters show a characteristic interest in any extraordinary
happenings in the community and neighborhood. With this anecdotic interest in
the neighbors' life the peasant child gets its first introduction into the life of the
community. The town child lacks in general this interest in the doings of grown-up
people, except those of its parents and teachers. Cf. also Borek series.
OSltfSKI SERIES 431
1 08 November 12, 1901
I, Franciszka, your sister, greet you and inform you about my
success, that I was digging [potatoes] for 4 days — and I earned 4
zloty [60 copecks]. I hoped that I should earn at least for a second
skirt for myself and for mother.1 But it rains and there are cold
winds, and they [the parents] have still potatoes to dig, for a week at
least [so I cannot go to work elsewhere, where I am paid]. Now I
inform you who was taken to the army. [Enumeration.]
[FRANIA]
109 December 3, 1901
I, your sister, dear brother Jan, thank you heartily for your gift
and for your noble heart. You sent me a token which, keeping it
with care, I can have for my whole life. But, dear brother, Alek-
sander [younger brother] when he learned, that there was nothing for
him, began to cry. He was grieved, that Michalek promised him a
watch and sent him none.
I inform you, dear Janek, that I was with a procession in Plonne
at a parish festival. The festival was very beautiful. I was at
confession. When the priest began to preach people wept as if they
were going to death * Now I inform you about Michal that
he remained in Dlugie [as the Count P.'s groom] for a year more.
Michal was here on the day when I wrote you this letter, and mother
wept that while Michal sometimes comes, and will be here at Christ-
mas, you cannot [Christmas wishes.] Amen.
F[RANIA]
1 The money earned at hired work, as additional income, has always some
particular destination. See Introduction: "Economic Attitudes."
1 The children are taken very early to the church; it depends only upon their
having holiday-clothes. The powerful influence of church-ceremonies upon the
peasant begins thus in childhood. And the child is not excluded from any mani-
festation of religious life, except sacraments; there is a gradually growing under-
standing of the ceremonies, but no particular initiation. The only process which
has some character of initiation is the preparation for the first communion, but, as
the child has taken a part in the religious life of the community before this, the
first communion has not the same importance for the peasant children as for the
children of intelligent classes, who, even if admitted to ceremonies, are not initiated
into the personal religious life of grown-up people. Here, as well as in other
spheres of social life, the peasant child shares much earlier the interests of the
community than a child of a higher class.
432 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
HO May 25, 1902
Now I, Franciszka, your sister, speak to you I inform you
that I send you a small cross through [our cousin], for you wrote, dear
brother, that I would be the first [to send you a token]. I should be
glad to give you something more, with my whole heart, but I have
nothing except this divine sign. May it help you in everything.
I have a small bottle of honey but our cousin did not wish to take it.
.... Now I inform you about Aleksander's stock, for he has no
time to write. He has 3 rabbits and 4 pigeons. [Greetings and
wishes.]
[FRANIA]
DEAR BROTHER [JAN]: You say that I don't write well; but it
only seems to you so. I write characterfully. But you, dear brother,
try also to write better. I remain with respect.
F.
Appreciate my writing!
Dear brother Michal, I, your sister, inform you that Stefka
Jablonianka gave me no peace, but asked always for your address, and
I had to give it to her. She always says that she will be my sister-
in-law, but God forbid!
If I wrote anything bad[ly] pardon me.
[FRANIA]
112 September 24, 1904
.... Now I inform you, dear brother, that in our country fires
continually break out. Not long ago Strzygi was on fire; half the
village was burned. In Gunsk the whole village and the chapel are
burned; only 5 houses are left. In Bozomin, a few days ago the
whole courtyard [all the farm-buildings] burned down, and there is no
village where something has not been burned And I inform
you, dear brother, about the air. It is very dry, and our parents
they don't remember such a year in their whole life
You asked me, dear brother, about Frania's [Smentkowska]
journey. We sent you a letter, but evidently you did not receive it.
.... Her health was good She was sent to Aleksandrowo,
so before she got to the commune it cost her 14 roubles [bribing Rus-
sian police, for she had no passport] When she came, we did
OSItfSKI SERIES 433
not know what to give her and where to seat her [we were so glad and
honored her so]. But still we cannot forget the other one [the one
killed, whose place this cousin came to fill].
Now, dear brothers, I thank you kindly and heartily for your gift.
I have nothing to send you, except these words: "God reward." I
shall be thankful to you during my whole life. I will pray God and
God's Mother to give you happiness and blessing and that we may see
one another, if not here, then in heaven
Now, dear brothers, I inform you about Aleksander. When I
read him this letter of yours, he said so: "Let them not jest about
me, I will write them a letter yet. But I don't mind it at all, and
may they only come. I will give them a dinner of my pigeons and a
supper of my rabbits, buy a keg of beer for them, and bake wheat-
bread." ....
[FRANIA]
113 May 17, 1904
.... Now I, your sister, write to you, dear Michalek, a few
words. I inform you that the strawberries passed the winter well.
I weeded them and I hope that they will bring fruit. If our Lord God
grants you life and health, you will also try them Before the
house I made small round flower-beds and sowed the flower-seeds
which you brought me from Dlugie Only I need a fence, for
the poultry spoil my work. But our parents say that before this we
shall build a new barn, for the old one wants to fall down. So this
year we shall bring material, and next year we shall build. Then, if
some money is left, we shall make the hedge. Now I inform you that
in Dlugie [where M. was a groom] they are already selling the small
things, and the Count will go away in July. Mr. Bozewski's brother
will live there
[FRANIA]
114 January 18, 1905
.... DEAR BROTHER: .... We received two letters from you,
which found us in good health .... but we could not understand
much of them, for they were written upon such dark paper that it was
difficult for me to see what was written. And as to what you wrote
in your first letter, that mother should inform you about her parents
and family, mother tells you, don't turn her head [worry her] for the
434 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
mayor is not in the village, and mother walked enough when you were
in the army. Now she hardly walks about the house.
Now I inform you, dear brother, that I write this letter myself,
from myself, even our parents don't know about it. Father told me
not to write, for Michal Zieleniak went to America and took the
address of Michalek. He will inform you about everything I
and brother sent you small gifts, brother 10 cigarettes, 5 for each of
you, and I a handkerchief for each of you. You won't be perhaps
satisfied with this token, but I can send you nothing more
In our village nobody is dead and nobody married, for all went to
the army.
Pardon me for sending you such a letter [without stamp], but I
have no money at all
F[RANIA]
On the same day when I wrote this letter, the priest went through
our village on a visitation [kolenda],1
__w _, __, ..,__
.... Now I, your sister, thank you heartily for your gift, dear
brother Dear brother and sister-in-law, I would gladly go
to you in a single hour [at once], but when I say to mother that I will
go, mother weeps directly, that she bred us up and now, when she is
old, we all want to leave her. And I could not earn for my living in
that country, for now, although I have much work and must sit the
whole day, hi the evening I get scarcely 30 copecks
[FRANIA]
Il6 January 24, 1907
DEAR BROTHER [JAN] : . . . . Pardon me for not having answered
at once, but I was in a hurry with wedding-dresses for Stanislawa
Czechoska .... and then I had to be at the wedding Here,
thanks to God, is no news except weddings. On one Sunday there
were 13 banns in our parish a I was asked to every wedding
but I was only at that of Czechoska, for if I went everywhere, I
1 Kolenda: (i) Christmas wish, song, gift; many Christmas songs have this
word as refrain; (2) visitation of the priest after Christmas (originally probably
during or before Christmas), during which the priest inspects the parish, examines
the parishioners on religious matters, and gets gifts from them.
2 There were no weddings at all the preceding year. Cf. No. 86, note.
OSltfSKI SERIES 435
should have no money left for clothes, for now at weddings everybody
pays largely [to the bride's collection]. I have indeed work enough,
but in the country the prices of living are very low, so that my work
is very ill paid. Dear brother Michal, your betrothed pleases me
very much, but I should like to be at your wedding. Dear brother,
if I see that it is not worth working here and if Aleksander gets
married, so that mother has help, I would go to you, but I don't
know when
[FRANIA]
117 April 25, 1909
DEAR BROTHER: You write me not to marry until Michalek
comes here with his fiddle. But so it could easily happen that I
should remain an old girl. But never mind, if at least one of you were
with me. As it is, I live as in a prison. I must weep almost every
day. If it lasts longer, I shall consume myself with grief, so I think.
I have nobody even to speak with. Our parents are old and go to
sleep early, and I think often that my head will burst, I must weep
so, and I long for you, for I am alone like an orphan. If I did not
pity our parents, I should go at once to you, for with this needle I can
earn little, and money is needed for everything. Now I won't even
sew, for there will be work enough at the farm. But is it possible to
leave our parents to the mercy of fortune, while they have raised us ?
Well, I will bear it as I can and pray to God that he will bring here at
least one of you, for I long terribly. Goodbye, and don't be angry
with me for writing this, for I have nobody to whom I can complain.
Your sister,
FRANCISZKA
118 February 28, 1910
Now, dear brothers, I also pen a few words to you I
intended to marry, but you write that it would be better if Alos
remained on the farm, so I shall probably come now .... to you,
for I won't marry a man who has to pass from one manor to another
[as manor-servant]. Even if he were a craftsman,1 and if he wanted to
1 Marrying a manor-servant would be a step downward for a farmer's daughter.
But the wandering life of the servant, not his dependence, is put forward by the
girl in a contemptuous way. And it is not an economic matter, for a craftsman in a
manor (blacksmith or carpenter) usually lives better than a small farmer. Two
436 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
settle upon a good farm, at least 2,000 are needed. But, as I wrote
you, there is not so much money now; our parents have only enough
for their expenses. So perhaps when brother Alos conies back,
with God's help, he will pay us what will be the suitable part to every-
body. If he gets more dowry with his wife, he will be able to pay
more to us.1 Meanwhile I shall probably leave our parents as you
did2 and will go to earn a little for myself, for here I have a bad
income, for when I am at home I must always do something else.
Moreover, mother complains often now, for she is no longer young, so
I must busy myself with the household. And father also would not
like to pay me anything, for he pays the servant, while I always need
a little money besides everything else. Now, if you have no money
you cannot show yourself anywhere, particularly a young person.
Lastly I am always so alone, you are all scattered about the world,
so it is very sad for me. Therefore I must find some other way. . . .
[FRANIA]
1 19 August 2, 1910
DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER-IN-LAW: I beg you also, be so kind
and visit us. Perhaps you will come just for my wedding. You
would cause me a great joy, for to have 3 brothers and to have none
at the wedding, this is something very painful. My wedding was
to be in August, but the father of my betrothed died, so our affairs
got crossed, but we hope that our intentions will be fulfilled and the
wedding will be in autumn. I must inform you who is my future
husband. He is the miller from Trabin, schoolmate of Michalek.
Michalek knows him for he went to school with him. I invite him,
factors determine this appreciation of the stable life of a farmer as against the
wandering life of a servant: (i) The social factor; the fanner is a member of a
community, with a determined social standing; and (2) the love of land and farm-
work.
1 For this reason the brothers want Aleksander to take the farm. Frania's
husband, whoever he may be, will have no cash ready to pay her brothers off, for
cash is first of all reserved for girls as dowry, while Aleksander will get a dowry in
cash and will be able to pay. Of course the family of Frania's future husband may
mortgage its farm and give him the necessary cash; but we know the peasant's hate
of debts.
2 There is bitterness in this phrase and in the whole letter, although no
reproaches are made. The letter contrasts with the preceding one (No. 117),
which is only sorrowful.
OSltfSKI SERIES 437
i.e., Michalak, also heartily, for he promised me to play at my wedding-
festival, so I remind him and I invite you all together to my wedding-
[FRANIA]
120 September 12, 1910
.... DEAR BROTHER [MICHAL]: You wrote that I could wait
still a year with my wedding. Evidently, as to my years it would not
be anything important, but my betrothed is almost obliged to marry,
for his mother cannot work heavily any more, and his sister does not
want to, but intends to go away as an apprentice. And then, to say
the truth, he has been calling upon us for 3 years; it is long enough.
I inform you that the first banns were on September n, but the
wedding won't be at once, perhaps not until middle October, for we
are waiting for Alos. He wrote that he would come. If they don't
set him free once and forever, he would come at least for a leave.
.... As to the wedding, it will probably be sad, without music, for
even if it were with music it would be also sad for us, because he has
no father. I probably shan't have any brother, so indeed it will be
painful and sad. But, dear brothers and dear sister-in-law, I invite
you to my wedding. If you cannot be there personally, then be at
least with thought and spirit, for I will always think that I have dear
brothers and a dear sister-in-law, but there somewhere, far away in the
world. But nothing can be done. Such is the will of God. I will
inform you later when my marriage will be with certainty, for now I
don't know at all
[FRANIA]
121 November 4, 1910
DEAR BROTHERS: We thank you for the wishes which you sent,
for we received them the day before our wedding Now we
inform you about our wedding. We amused ourselves well enough,
only it was painful for us that we could not rejoice together with you.
Then we inform you that the wedding was with music, as you wished
it. The marriage-ceremony was performed in the evening after the
Rosary, and afterward the priest-vicar went ahead in order to receive
us with bread and salt, after the old habit, and gave us at the same
time his blessing. Our professor [village-teacher] Paprocki came also
to our wedding and received us, together with the priest-vicar, with
438 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
bread and salt J And our professor wished us progeny, and
as a token brought before us a child, enveloped with big kerchiefs,
upon his arm, and the child was very small, for it has finished 7 years
already! This was a scene! If you had been there you would have
seen!
Then we inform you that the festival lasted for a night and a day,
without any collection.2 After the wedding we went to the photog-
rapher in order to send you the token in remembrance, which we senc
you now, wishing you every good.
Yours, loving,
ADAM and FRANCISZKA
122 March 27, 1911
.... DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTER-IN-LAW: .... We received
your letter .... and your [wedding] gift We thank you
heartily for this money, dear brothers and sister-in-law We
cannot prove to you our gratitude even now for your good heart,
except by thanking you once more. And we inform you at the same
time that we gave [money] for a holy mass, at which we will beg God
to reward you a hundred fold.
[Weather; crops.] There is nothing interesting hi our country.
There are rumors again that there is to be war. May God the
Merciful give peace, for it would be the worst misery to our Alos.
He rejoices that he has only 7 months more to serve. If there were
only peace, we should live perhaps till he comes. We inform you
also about the trouble which we have with our farm. We have 8
morgs of land and a windmill. We keep some stock, for the income
from the mill is not large, because steam mills have been constructed
in the country and these took much bread away from the millers. As
to the buildings, we have a new barn, a stable which is not bad; only
the dwelling-house is not very good — old fashioned. Moreover, we
have 250 roubles of debt which we took over from his parents when
they willed us the farm. But if only our Lord God grants us health
and life, in a few years we hope to make everything all right, wi
1 This, as well as the whole description, shows that the wedding was first rate
from the peasant point of view. Evidently both bride and bridegroom had a high
standing in the community.
2 This is not in accordance with the tradition and shows a somewhat advanced
attitude. A collection would probably have been felt as a humiliation, but this
proves that the real meaning of communal solidarity is already obliterated.
OSltfSKI SERIES 439
God's help. Our life flows pleasantly, for we love and respect each
other, so whatever happens, grief or joy, we share it together in
concord
[Greetings and wishes.]
A[DAM] and F[RANIA] BRZEZINSCY
123 July 7, 1913
DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER [-IN-LAW] : . . . . We did not answer
you at once for we had some trouble with our farming. It was going
pretty well, we had paid a part of our debt back, and then suddenly
in autumn a fine colt died, and then in May a horse died, and this
always befalls the best ones. But what can we do ? It won't come
back. When our Lord God sends a misfortune the man can do
nothing. If only God grants us health and life, we shall manage in
some way. Our children, up to the present, get on well enough.
Zygmunt already explains himself well enough. They are our whole
joy. [Weather and crops; greetings and wishes.]
A[DAM] and F[RANIA] B.
124 TROMBIN, November 4, 1913
DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER [-IN-LAW]: .... We had this year
some misfortune with the horses, as I wrote you already, and then the
wings of our windmill fell down. We both had trouble enough, but
nothing could be done. We have talked with each other, that our
Lord God is trying us, and we commended everything to His will.
This alone makes our life sweeter, that we live hi good harmony and
respect each other,1 and that up to the present our Lord God has kept
our children well. They are lively and grow well. Little Walcia
already stands alone. If we could get some more money, we would
send you their photograph.
As to the windmill, probably it won't be worth repairing any more
for now steam mills are built in the towns and everybody prefers to
take [the grain] there, for they have it at once and more finely ground.
Now we inform you that we have a co-operative milkshop in our
1 Again the attitude of "respect" as a basis of conjugal life. And it is sig-
nificant that hi the first letter "love" is mentioned, while hi the second, two years
later, there is no such mention. It does not mean that the relation has grown,
colder, only that the first sexual novelty has disappeared and the sexual relation is
subordinated to the respect norm.
440 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
village. Adam was even elected treasurer, to pay for the milk.
[Weather.] We won't inform you about political questions, for you
know more there from your papers than we know from ours. Now I
beg you in my own name, dear brother and sister, remember our
parents, and particularly mother. Write often and comfort her as
you can, for mother despairs much about you.1 When she comes to
me, she only pets Zygmus and Walcia a little and leaves at once, and
there at home she weeps again and there is nobody who knows how
to comfort her, for Alos is somewhat indifferent
ADAM and FRANIA
If anything is bad[ly written] forgive me, for now I don't write
often, so it does not go well.
125 DLUGIE, April 27, 1902
.... DEAR BROTHER: I received your letter I had at
the moment urgent work which hindered me from reading it. When-
ever I took it in my hand and began to read, I was called away. I1
looked always for the words "Prepare to come to America," or, "The
ship- ticket is on the way," but I read instead that you were sick.
When I read this I did not wish to read any further, for my companion
is going now, in April, and I thought that I would go with him, but
I did not succeed. I don't know whether my wish is right or wrong.
Now, dear brother, I inform you that in the holidays I was at
home with our parents. I went there on the last Sunday [before
Easter]. I arrived just after the priest [who consecrated the Easter-
food] left. They have their [new] house hi order; the priest conse-
crated it, together with the &w$cone [Easter-food] and my favorite
sausage, which I settled [ate] in 2 days. But I was not very glad
[I did not amuse myself well], for both holidays were cold and rainy.
They remembered you continually, particularly mother. I told them
always that I would go to America after the holidays, that I had
received a letter [from you] and a ship-ticket. Only when I was about
to leave, I told the truth Now inform me, where do you like
the most [to live] among all the places you have been, in our country
and abroad I don't know whether anybody got married in
Gulbiny ; I know only that the girl who expected you in vain to marry
1 The mother has lost her practical interest in life since the farm was given to
Aleksander. From this probably, more than from Aleksander's coldness, comes
the growing longing for her other boys.
OS1NSKI SERIES 441
her [or "whom you expected in vain to marry"] took some clay-dabber
[brick-maker]
MlCHAL O.
126 May 10, 1902
.... DEAR BROTHER: .... I wish you good health and
happiness, that you may as soon as possible get out of this trouble, in
which you cannot even "trinkejn glass Bir." .... As to my watch,
I have it indeed, but I am not much pleased with it, for it has been
already treated by a doctor, and now it wants to stop again, ....
but when I frighten it perhaps it will know better.
Now I inform you, dear brother, about our spring in our country.
Up to the present it has been bad, for it even snows sometimes, and
at night it is impossible to go anywhere for — well, for laughing [love-
making], for it is so cold that the potatoes in hot-beds are frozen.
Now I inform you about our village Dlugie. It is so spoiled that
nothing can be done to improve it — not the village itself, but the people
in the village. First, card-playing without any consideration.
People come from other villages to ours [to play]. At the same time
drinking, fighting — almost every boy with a stick in his hand, a knife
in his pocket and a revolver in his bosom. [It assumes] such propor-
tions that a man who returned from America and brought with him
more than 400 roubles was killed and the money taken. I don't
suspect exactly that these robbers were from Dlugie, but they were
from the neighborhood, at any rate. It is not yet discovered [who
did it]. People began to talk about one man, that he was the one, but
he went and hanged himself.1 [Wishes and greetings.]
Only don't do as Antoni did [don't marry] until I see you
Everybody dissuades me from going to America [saying] that I shall
have to work hard and still to die from hunger, and that I should be
killed, for there are so many robbers , , ~
MlCHAL O.
1 Suspicion, just or unjust, is the most usual cause of peasant suicide. (Cf.
Introduction: "Social Environment.") The main factor here is the fear of the
dishonor of condemnation, as a man who has been condemned, or even tried, for a
criminal offense loses once and forever all social standing. He can never try to
exert any influence in his community, for he is always reminded of his condemna-
tion, and it is difficult for him to settle in any other community without his past
becoming known; the system of "legitimation papers" prevents it. The peasant's
suicide seems to indicate that social opinion can become the most powerful element
in the peasant farmer-village life.
442 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
127 August i, 1902
.... DEAR BROTHER: .... I was rejoiced that you were in
good health, until I read that you had no work, and this grieved me.
But I hope in God that presently you will get better. I am also very
sad that I shan't see you, dear brother, and also that I must now sit at
home. Therefore I asked father to give me a few roubles in order to
go to Warsaw, but father said that he wanted to ask you to lend him
50 roubles, and father and mother say that I could go to Warsaw, that
they prefer it to my going to America, for it would not pay to go
before the military service. But what can I do in my misery ? If you
could, dear brother (I don't dare to beg you, for you complain that
you have no work, but I dare only to say, if you could), help me I will
give it back to you with thanks, for I hope in God and God's Mother
that I shan't always be so badly off. And I add, dear and beloved
brother, that I should gladly remain at home, but father always says
that I ought to earn for myself, that he has already fed me long
enough.1 In some respects he is right, but if I get into the world, I
shall perhaps find some way if our Lord God grants me health. I
have a few grosz, but I cannot go as I am. I must buy clothes and
shirts, or stuff for shirts and have them sewed. There are also many
other trifles, and some sort of a valise. Now, dear brother, don't
reject my prayer, and don't delay, if you only can. You know, when
you needed [money] one time or another, although I could give you
nothing2 — yet if I could, I would have shared with you everything,
even the blood from my finger.3 And so, dear brother, when we see
each other, I will give you everything back with thanks
Now I have nothing more to write, only I beg you once more, be
so kind and don't wait for anything, only help me. If you cannot, as
I wrote you [lend money], to the parents, then help me at least with
a few roubles. I don't require you to send me your money and to
1 The idea that every member of the family who is not absolutely indispensable
at home ought to earn his living outside by hired work is relatively new. Of
course, when the farm is insufficient to feed the whole family additional work of its
members is a necessity; but here this is not the case. It is the substitution of
economic advance for mere living as an aim, which leads to the desire to give the
most productive use to the work of each member of the family, in the interest of
the family as a whole.
3 Alludes to the fact that he tried to persuade his parents to send money to
his brother when the latter was hi the army.
* Half proverbial, probably originating in the form of blood brotherhood.
OSHSTSKI SERIES 443
live there in misery yourself, for I am not dying with hunger, but I
have no luxury either. For you know, dear brother, that I like to
work, but only if I know what I am working for. But I cannot dress
myself any more now for 30 roubles [a year]
Pardon me, dear brother, for having written so badly, but I wrote
and thought about something else. [Wishes.] And now I bow low
to my beloved Frania [probably cousin, who went recently to America].
Please beg her, if you see her, to pardon me what I said to her on her
departure, and to write me something
I embrace you and kiss you kindly and heartily, as well and per-
haps even better than my sweetheart.
MICHAE O.
128 February 21, 1903
.... DEAR BROTHER: .... I have waited for your letter for
days, and weeks, and months I don't know what is going on
with you, whether you are ill, or whether you got so proud after your
marriage. I make diff erent suppositions. Forgive me my joke, dear
brother [about the marriage; Jan was ultimately refused by the girl],
for perhaps my Zosia S. will also despise [reject] me. I don't mention
her name, for she is in America, and you are still a bachelor, so you
would be ready perhaps to take her for yourself
Now I inform you, dear brother, that my companions and mates
leave me and go to America, and I should also prefer to work if I
could only follow them. Those who went write well enough. They
have no hard work, and even if it were hard, I ought to be able
to hold out as others do, for I shall soon be twenty. I should be glad
to earn a little before the military service, or if not, then at least to
look a little about the world, for if I keep this groom-work longer in
my hands it will go out by the top of my head [upset me]
Father allows me to go. Mother says it would be better if I did not
go, but if you send me a ship-ticket and if I beg her, she will allow me
to go
MlCHAL O.
129 March 6, 1906
And now I beg you, dear brothers, help me in some way to get
there to you, for here I work at home and as a hired laborer, and even
444 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
so I hardly earn enough for my clothes.1 Moreover, all my compan-
ions are going, so I want also to visit America. Dear brothers, send
me money or a ship-ticket. When I come there, I will work it back
with thanks
ALEKSANDER OSINSKI
130 November 15, 1908
Now I, dear brothers, bid you farewell [on going to the army] and
greet you kindly and heartily, for I don't know whether our Lord God
will allow us to see one another any more.2 I beg you, don't forget
about our parents and about me, for you know that there is hardly a
day when our mother does not shed tears, either about me, what will
happen to me, or about you, whether you are healthy and alive, and
there will be nobody to comfort our mother
[ALEKSANDER]
131 TOWN KANSK [SIBERIA], May 17, 1909
.... DEAR BROTHERS: .... I learned from your letter that
you sent me 20 roubles. This rejoiced me, for they will be very useful
to me. I don't wait with answering until they come, but I answer you
at once and thank you, dear brothers and sister-in-law. Perhaps our
Lord God will allow me to show you my gratitude
Now I inform you .... about my service. On May 21, our
oath will be taken .... and we hope that it will be somewhat
1 The dissatisfaction with working on his parents' account is a typical sign o^
the beginning disintegration of the family as a unit. Cf. letters of Stanislaw in the
Markiewicz series.
2 We find this farewell also in other letters of peasants going to serve in the
Russian army. The separation is felt as more absolute than any other, certainly
not only on account of any possible war (no war was expected in 1908) and not only
on account of the length of the separation, or of the distance, since the emigration
to America goes on without such tragic farewells. It seems to be a social custom(
and its source is easily traced back to that period in the middle of the nineteenth
century, where a peasant taken to the army was to serve seven to fifteen years or
more (because every disciplinary punishment brought a prolongation of the term),
when communication by letters was above the means of a soldier, who, moreover,
usually did not know how to write, and when the discipline of the Russian army was
the most severe and unreasonable possible. At that time going to the army meant
often really a separation for life even if there was no war, and the fact had still
more meaning because of its relative rareness, as the number of recruits which a
community was to furnish was much smaller than now.
OSHSTSKI SERIES 445
better, at least for our legs, for now there is no day without our
running like wet dogs. .... Now I inform you about the life of the
people here, how they live and with what they occupy themselves here
in this Siberia. In villages they occupy themselves mainly with
agriculture, for there is no lack of land, but they do badly in it, for
they are lazy. On Good Friday we went to the town; there they
occupy themselves mainly with trade, and there are many who only
loaf about and look out whom they can rob, and get drunk. The soil
in this country is fertile and everything would grow, but the winter
lasts too long and not everything can ripen. There are no fruit trees
at all, the fruits are brought from other countries. Now I inform you
that in our country beyond Plock the water [Vistula] did much dam-
age, submerged many villages, tore away the railway-bridge in Modlin,
and many people remained without living [work] and without a bit
of bread Dear brother, inform Janek Sz., if he does not long
for our country, let him remain in America, for if he gets here [to the
army] he will remember it, but it will be too late
ALEKSANDER O.
132 KANSK, September 6, 1909
.... DEAR BROTHERS: .... I was very sad, for I learned
that you received none of my letters. I wrote you two and I paid
for both, and I don't know whether they did not reach you because
they were paid or because of something else. I send you the third
unpaid, perhaps this one will reach you sooner I
I was very grieved on learning that Michalek won't return home
any more. I did not expect it at all. I thought that when our Lord
God grants me to finish my service and to go back home, he would
come at least on a visit and we should rejoice all together under the
native roof. For now we are scattered about the world, and whenever
I remember it, I can hardly refrain from weeping. Our father must
work alone, and I am living here worse than a beast. It will be soon
a year since I have seen a church or a priest.2 And all the people live
'The argument seems strange, but it corresponds with the facts. The
Russian post is very negligent, and many ordinary letters are lost, but for a letter
without a stamp the receiver has to pay double, and on this account there are some
formalities connected with its forwarding and delivery.
1 Example of the importance of religion as the main idealistic factor in peasant
life, even for a young boy, who is usually the least religious person in a peasant
family.
446 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
here in the same way. In the evening all the shutters are closed, and
if anybody shows himself on the street he won't return home alive;
he will be either shot or butchered with knives. Many have been
killed so. Once we stood on guard near the prison and we were
attacked by day. They wanted to set the convicts free, but they did
not succeed. We killed one with a bayonet, and the other fled. . . ,
Now I inform you that the harvest is finished here only now,
and the air is cold already. And I beg you, advise me, whether I may
go on leave, for they wrote to me twice already from home to come;
but it would cost very much, 30 roubles for the journey alone, without
the living. And they would give me leave for 3 months
ALEKSANDER O.
133 SIBERIA, March 28, 1910
DEAR BROTHERS: .... On Easter-Sunday after the evening
roll-call I had already gone to sleep when a letter from home was
brought to me. When I read it, I learned first that father had already
sent to the governor the decision of the commune that you [Michal]
had not been [in the country] for so long a time, dear brother, and in 3
weeks the decision will be in the office of the military chief So
perhaps our Lord God will grant us to see one another soon under the
native roof.1 If you knew, dear brothers, how sad my holidays were
until I got the letter, you would not believe me Now, dear
brothers, I learned .... that Janek intends to go [home] to the
wedding [of Frania]. Perhaps our Lord God will grant me to be
there also, for our sister will certainly marry Adam Brz. from Trombin,
who. went with us to school. I think that Michalek knows him; he
is the son of the miller. On New Year there was also a man from
Obory, but she did not want him, although he is rich; he has more
than 40 morgs of land. She did not want him, for it is too far away
from home, and he is as old as the Bible As to the farm, I
think that you advised father well [to give it to me], for Michalek
won't come back any more and won't wish to work in the earth, while
I have worked from my young years, so I am very accustomed to the
earth and I know how to manage it. Just for that I am so awfully
1 That is, Aleksander will be released from the army as the sole support of his
parents.
OSINSKI SERIES
447
homesick in the army, for I am away from the soil, I cannot work in it.
[Moving-pictures shown the regiment.]
Now, dear brothers, you wrote that you can help me, so I beg you,
when you receive this letter, send me a few roubles. Perhaps they
will be useful for my journey, or if not, then in the autumn I will go
on leave I beg you, dear brothers, don't forget me ....
particularly you, dear Janek, who have served. You know how
bad it smells here; particularly during their Lent one almost
dies.
ALEKSANDER O.
[Letter of March 17, 1911 shows that the plan to have him released
from the army did not succeed. Letter of January, 1912, announces
arrival home.]
134 GULBINY, February 17, 1912
.... DEAR BROTHER: First I greet you, and also your wife, and
I inform you that I got free from this slavery and came to my dear
parents. What was my joy, dear brother, I won't describe it to you,
for I know that you know it well, because you have also eaten of this
Moscovite bread and you know how good it is. Only I inform you
that I am treated without end, everybody invites me, and Frania does
not want to let me go from her house, she wants me to remain there
day and night and to relate about this Siberia, while I need to go
somewhere farther in order to find some girl for myself. You all, dear
brothers, are married, only I am still alone. Perhaps you have there
in America some pretty and rich girl, so when you come here, bring
her to me, for here it is difficult to find such. All the prettiest girls
are gone to America. So I beg you, dear brother, don't forget this.
[The request is half a jest.]
Now I inform you what is the news here. As to the old people
about whom you wrote, only the old Jablonska from the end of the
village is dead, and Uncle Sm. is lying very sick. For a whole year
he has not been able to eat and to rise .... and we don't know, but
probably he will soon end his life. And our Mr. Piwnicki [manor-
owner] lives so that you would not know him and his estate. I was
away for only 3 years and even so I could not recognize it. What a
factory they built near the farm-yard! And the mill and that forge
448 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
which stood near the mill have been pulled down, and they take clay
from that spot.1 [Weather.]
Now I have nothing more of interest to write. If you can,
inform me when you will come back and how much money you can
bring with you, I shall perhaps find you somewhere a nice piece
of land
Your well-wishing brother,
A. 0.
135 July 12, 1912
.... DEAR BROTHER : I will pen to you a few words, not much
at present, for I am not yet married. As soon as I marry, I will write
you more. Do you know, dear brother, that up to the present I have
ridden in search of a girl, but now I must walk on foot, for I have
already worn the horses out! After so many troubles I found two,
one named Bronislawa C and the other also Bronislawa, but
excuse me, for I forget her name. Probably one of these two will be
mine .... and I hope that in my next letter I shall invite you to
my wedding
Your well-wishing brother,
ALEKSANDER O.
1 Rather an expression of commiseration (cf. corresponding letter of the
parents) than of approval. The peasants are ready to appreciate any aesthetic
improvement of the manor, as well as any progress in the purely agricultural line,
but every industrial undertaking of the manor-owner, particularly the building of a
factory, provokes a mixed feeling of satisfaction, because of the new opportunity of
work, of admiration for the man's cleverness, and at the same tune a half aesthetic,
half moral disapproval. The man is slightly despised because for the sake of a
greater income he deprives himself of an aesthetic environment and from a tradi-
tional country lord becomes an entrepreneur. The same feeling of commiseration
accompanies any endeavor to diminish the household expenses, the number of
servants, of carriage horses, etc., and in general any conversion of an aesthetic
value into a productive value. The country lord, in the peasant's opinion, ought
to live according to his social standing, to afford unproductive expenses, to main-
tain the same standard of life as his father and grandfather before him. He may
and should improve his farming but it is not suitable for him to be too eager to
make money, "like a Jew." The argument is always "Is he not rich enough to
afford this or that ? " This attitude is particularly marked when a new proprietor
comes and begins to turn into money values which his predecessor used to maintain
his standard of life. Such a man, if not known in the country, is immediately
classed as a parvenu.
OSltfSKI SERIES 449
136 September 24, 1912
.... DEAR SISTER [-IN-LAW] AND BELOVED BROTHER: You
wrote that you had sent two letters and in one of these [our parents
say] you asked for money. We were much grieved that you, having
been so long in such a free and rich country, cannot get your living,
though you are young, but write to us, old people [speaking in the
name of the parents] for help.
You know, dear brother, that I came just now from this prison
[the army], I had even no time to look around well among the people,
and I needed some clothes to be made for me in order not to be the
last among other boys, and all this costs very much in our country.
I even expected now a few grosz from you, as first help, and you
write in quite another manner. We don't even know whether you
are in earnest or making jokes at us. You know, dear brother, that
you will receive everything, whatever your father destined for you,
but not sooner than I get married. Perhaps I shall even come soon to
you, for here it is difficult to get a rich and good wife, and instead of
taking just anything I would rather come to you soon. That will be
quieter [less distracting]. And if you wish you can come to our
country and farm, for now I cannot act in a different way. I pity
the old parents who will be left alone, but what can I do ?
I inform you that on September 29, is the 5oth anniversary [of
the priesthood] of the old priest F who was for so many years
in Trombin and is now in Radomin. A company [procession] will go
from here to Radomin. [Weather; farm- work.] The worst of it is
the digging of the potatoes. It rains almost every day, the potatoes
rot, and it is impossible to hire anybody. People want 50 and 60
copecks a day, and afternoon luncheon, and a bottle [of beer] to be put
out for them. This is too expensive for us. We must dig alone
Your well-wishing brother,
ALEKSANDER 0.
137 November 16, 1912
"Praised be Jesus Christus!"
DEAR BROTHER: We signed under, invite you, together with your
wife, to our marriage-ceremony and to the wedding-feast which will
be celebrated on Wednesday, November 27, 1912, in the house of
450 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Mr. Jur., in Bozomin. I shall describe to you our life more in detail
in another letter.1
We remain, with respect for you,
ALEKSANDER and JULCIA 0.
[Greetings from the parents and sister, and news about the
weather on a separate sheet.]
138 January 20, 1913
.... DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER-IN-LAW: I pen to you a few
words, together with my wife. First I inform you that health favors
us up to the present. We live merrily on. Only now I have got full
liberty after such a long waiting, and I don't think of moving any-
where, if only our Lord God gives us health. When I learned from
your letter [about some catastrophe] I felt cold, and my Julka red-
dened and said that she won't let me go anywhere alone. As to the
photograph, we beg very politely your pardon, but we shall send it to
you perhaps in another letter, for now we have no opportunity at all.
I beg you also, inform us about Michalek, for he wrote us that he
would soon work together with his wife [after being married] and now
he does not write. I don't know whether they live in health; per-
haps the stork is near. Then hurrah! [Weather.] We bid you
goodbye very kindly and heartily. My wife always tells me that she
would be glad to see you and talk with you about America. Now be
healthy, until the pleasure of seeing you.
ALEKSANDER and JULKA O.
1 The invitation is evidently purely formal, as the letter will hardly arrive
before the date of the wedding. Nevertheless not to invite would be considered a
great offense.
GOSCIAK SERIES
The writer is an average Galician peasant. The relation
of the father and the son-in-law is more cordial than that
of the father and son. The son-in-law has evidently at
once taken the standpoint of familial solidarity with regard
to his wife's family, while the son has become more or less
estranged during his stay in America.
139-41, FROM JAKOB GOSCIAK, IN GALICIA TO HIS
SON-IN-LAW AND SON, IN AMERICA
139 [1913?]
"Praised be Jesus Christus."
DEAR SON-IN-LAW AND YOU, DEAR DAUGHTER: [Generalities
about health, success, crops.] Now I inform you, dear son-in-law and
dear daughter, that I tried to buy [land] from those old women in
Czarnocin .... but they say that somebody .... gives them a
whole 7,000 [crowns], but we don't know whether it is true or not,
because now they have very beautiful crops and therefore they are so
proud, and so we must wait what will be further. It pleases me well
enough .... but it does not please your father. He says that it is
possible to find something better to buy, that this is dear, and worth
little.
And now I inform you that a young man from America came here
who says that Wojtek Wojtusiak broke an arm and Wojtek Lesny
broke a leg. And here people say that it is true, and you don't
write to us anything about it, whether it is true or not. So answer
us. And people say that in America are wars, and you don't write
us anything about it. And now I inform you that our lawsuit with
Tomek is ended, and it resulted so that we have to divide the pine
grove between ourselves, and the land will be mine. We lost much
[on the lawsuit], but even so it was worth it, for the land alone is
worth something, because now land is very dear there. They ask
1,000 for a morg. And I write some words. How does Jozek
Patoniec behave there ? Answer me about him.
452 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
And now I shall write you some words, sincerest truth. Believe
me, what I shall write is the very truth, because your mother herself
ordered me to write a few words about your father, how he is farming
here. It is such a father. When he began to call upon us and to ask
us for a loan of some money, in order to buy a calf, we lent him
25 gulden. What did he do ? When he seized this money he bought
a pig for it. Because when he seized it he went at once with it to
Hejmejka, and drank so long until he spent it all, and it did not even
suffice. And what did he do when he lacked more money? He
went home, took a cart and a mare and drove to [ ? ] and there sold
everything to Placiak, Josek and Szymczyk, saying that he would
spend everything in drinking. Your mother told me to describe all
this to you, and she asks you not to dare to send any money, none of
you, for this liquor
JAKOB GOSCIAK
140 March 10, 1914
I sit down to the table, I take the pen and I greet you, dear son-in-
law, and you, my daughter. [Generalities about health and success:
letters received and sent.] Probably my letter did not reach you,
since you say that I don't know how to write your address; but I
write as I know, and so don't be contrary to me [angry]. And now I
write you that we have no more snow, but rain pours down and it is
wet and there is no spring yet. And now you write us that we did
not send you any Christmas token. But how should we have sent
you any since you never once wrote to us about it. And now you
ask whether my leg is healed. It is healed, thanks to God, but I
cannot walk yet in a small shoe, because it gnaws me. And now you
ask about those planks whether I hid them. Well, I hid them in the
barn, and I had trouble enough with them, because your father wanted
to take them and to drive them to Hejmejka because here [he thinks]
they are useless, and your father wants money for liquor, because
vodka got dearer, 7 szostkas [i crown 40 heller] for a liter. I was
obliged to insure my buildings, because your father said that he
would burn us. And now I wrote you in that other letter about this
money. The Bodziunys and Jasiek paid it back long ago, and now
what shall I do with it? Whether I have to put it into a savings-
bank, or to lend it to anybody in the village, or to let it remain at
home ? Answer me at once, how I should do with it. And now you
GOSCIAK SERIES 453
write me, dear daughter, about our son Wojtek. Don't be anxious
about him, what he is doing there, let him do what he will. As he
makes his bed, so he will sleep. We got rich enough through him,
with those wages of his which he sent us! And now here people ask
us always whether Wojciech Wojtusiak married Kaska, your sister,
so write us about it
QAKOB GOSCIAK]
141 [April, 1914?]
[DEAR SON WOJTEK]: .... And now you say that we don't
write to you and that we are angry with you. But we are not angry,
it is you who are angry with us, for you don't remember us, you have
forgotten that you have here parents and a brother and sisters. You
say so [reproach us], that we wrote you to work and to send money.
So I will tell you this: "As you make your bed, so you will sleep."
Now you have a better reason [wisdom] already than you had formerly,
[irony] for you said formerly that you had no reason, and now you
ask us to give you this fortune, which is first God's, then ours. All
this may be. But now we must speak, how to do it. First suppose,
that I give you it. But you know that you have here a brother
Jasiek and sisters. Perhaps you have forgotten them, so I shall
remind you who they are. The name of one is Maryna, of the other
Kundzia, of the third Ludwisia. And it is thus here [in our village].
Jozek Blaszczyk got married .... so his father willed him this his
farm. But he has another son, and for this one he designated 5
hundred-notes to be paid [by the older] from these three quarters
[morgs ?] and this hut. The older said that it was too much, but the
younger said thus: "If you think it is too much, then [give me the
farm and] I will give you 8 hundred-notes."1
And now people say here that you want to marry. But how
about the call [to military service] ? A constable went here about
[the village] and wrote down all of you who went to America without
having been at the call. They say that you will be driven home as
prisoners [from the frontier]. And now all this is still nothing. But
if you marry, where will you put this wife, in her hat ? Since here
women and girls walk in homespun and kerchiefs [szmata] and eat
1 This means that the son cannot get the farm without having money to pay
his brother and sisters because land is expensive and it is no longer the custom to
favor too much the son who takes the land.
454 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
gruel and potatoes and bread. And it is necessary to work, while
your lady won't work, for where will she put her umbrella ? But all
this is still nothing. But how much money have you sent to us?
We are really ashamed, people laugh at us so. The wise man promises,
the stupid man rejoices. If I had nothing but this which you help
me with, it would be enough, for I get on very nicely on the money
which you have sent! So I thank you for it. And it will be also
useful to you, when you want to buy farm-stock !
But enough of this. And now I shall write you, dear son, a few
words. You went to America for money, tot you know that you will
need it if I want to give you a lot of land.
And now we greet you nicely
JAKOB GOSCIAK
MARKIEWICZ SERIES
The Markiewiczs are a family of peasant nobility living
in the province of Warsaw, near the Vistula and on the
border of the province of Plock, but not like the Wrob-
lewskis in their ancient family nest. This part of the
country has almost no industry, but the neighborhood in
which the family lives is not isolated from cultural influence,
as the town of Plock, lying across the river, is the seat of a
rather strong intellectual movement. Life is much faster
in their social environment than in that of the Wroblewskis,
who come from the same class, and this may explain the
difference of attitudes. Unlike Walery Wroblewski, the
Markiewiczs are "climbers." The whole familial situation,
the difference between the old and the young generation, the
individual differences of character and aspirations are much
better understood if this fundamental feature is kept in
mind. We find analogous situations in other familial
series, but nowhere so universally and fully presented in its
most interesting stage, i.e., at the moment when the tend-
ency to rise within their own class begins to change into a
tendency to rise above their own class. The situation of the
family Markiewicz is thus representative of the general
situation of the middle and lower classes of Polish society.
It is a family in which the characters of the old society, with
its fixed classes of families, and the new society, with its
fluid classes of individuals, are mixed together in various
proportions. Their only peculiarity is that, thanks to
their origin, the tendency to climb within their class can
have much more important consequences than with the
ordinary peasants and appears therefore as especially
justified. For it happened frequently in the past that a
455
456 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
branch of a family of peasant nobility, by a gradual advance
in wealth and education, rose to the ranks of middle nobil-
ity, and even two or three of the highest noble families
are reputed to have grown in this way. Even now if the
family Markiewicz as a whole made a fortune and acquired
education, it would gradually identify itself with middle no-
bility. But this climbing within the old familial hierarchy
would take at least three generations, while climbing within
the new individualistic hierarchy could be achieved in one
generation and it is doubtful whether the aim of getting into
the middle nobility is consciously realized by the family.
We must remember that the isolation of the peasant nobility
as a class is four centuries old and that the traditional social
horizon of its members no longer reaches beyond their class.
Thus the two older brothers, Jozef and Jan, are typical
peasants whose sphere of interests is completely inclosed
within the old social group. They do not tend to rise
above their class and they do not understand the conscious
or unconscious tendencies of their children in this direction.
Each of them wants his family to occupy the highest possible
place within the community — his family as a whole, not
one or another individual in particular, not even his own
personality, which he does not dissociate from that of his
family. All the efforts of Jozef and Jan are concentrated
upon this aim. They both economize as much as possible,
making little distinction between their own money and that
of their children; they both buy land wherever there is any
opportunity; they try to profit from every source of income;
they neglect any showing-off except in the traditional lines,
giving no money to dress their children, but spending large
sums on wedding-festivals. They endow their children
very well, but want them to make good matches. They
give their children instruction, but only as far as instruction
helps to attain a higher standing in the community itself,
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 457
and provided it does not lead to ideas contrary to the tradi-
tions. They do not understand at first how their sons in
America can have any other aim than to gather as much
money as possible in order to come back and buy good
farms and marry rich peasant girls. When they begin to
understand that their sons' sphere of interests has become
different from their own, the discovery leads either to a
tragic appeal or to a more or less complete estrangement
between father and son.
The two mothers, wives of Jozef and Jan, have no
such determined tendency and seem in general to have
no conscious and far-going life-plans. Their ideas turn
generally in the traditional circle, but their familial atti-
tude is not pronounced and their love for their children
individually allows them to understand them and to sym-
pathize better with their individual needs and their new
tendencies.
Each of the children has a somewhat different attitude.
In Jan's family the three sons, Michal, Wiktor, and Maks
present the most perfect gradation from a typical peasant to
a typical middle-class attitude. (The fourth son, Stanislaw,
is not sufficiently characterized in his brothers' letters; he
seems to be more or less like Wiktor.) Michal is nothing
but a peasant, without even his father's tendency to advance.
Perhaps he is too young. His whole sphere of interest is
that of a farmer. He hates the army with a truly peasant
hatred, and does not even try, as members of the lower-
middle class usually do, to become a sergeant. He has so
little ambition as to think about becoming an orderly. At
the maneuvers he is interested only in Russian farming;
cities have no interest for him. And his highest dream is
to come back and to take his father's farm. He has particu-
larly strong familial feelings, not only of love but also of
solidarity, and few purely personal claims.
458 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Wiktor is also a peasant, but much less so than his
father or his brother. The career which he desires lies in
the line of peasant life in the sense that he intends to remain
a farmer. But he has already certain points which dis-
tinguish him from the peasant. These are (i) much
stronger personal claims, which become a source of antago-
nism between him and his father; (2) a tendency to general
instruction, not limited to the necessary minimum; (3) a
tendency to get into "better society," to boast about higher
relationships (even if they be those with a Russian official, in
spite of his hatred for the Russians), and to assume certain
forms and manners of the better society. But this will cer-
tainly be dropped when after his marriage he settles down
upon a farm, and he will become a typical well-to-do farmer.
Maks has little of the peasant even in the beginning of
his career in America, and almost nothing after seven years
spent in this country. He drops all the peasant ideals one
after another — agriculture, property, communal interests,
familial solidarity (without losing attachment to individual
members of the family) — and while keeping the climbing
tendencies of his father, develops them along a new line, in
the typical middle-class career.
Still more variety is shown among the children of Jozef.
Two of them — Alfons and Polcia — have not the smallest
interest in anything outside of the peasant life; on the
contrary, they want to remain peasants in full consciousness
of the fact. But since at the same time they show no
climbing tendencies, it seems that the father's attitude
toward them is rather contemptuous. The mother shares
the contempt toward Alfons, while she rather favors Polcia,
who helps her, although she is not proud of her.
Stanislaw and Pecia show a mixture of the attitudes of
the peasant and the lower-middle class, which results in
rather negative features, as only the superficial characters
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 459
of the lower-middle class have been assimilated, and many
valuable peasant characters lost. Stanislaw is peculiarly
undecided in his life-plans. He hesitates between marrying
and remaining a peasant, and going to America. Finally
he goes to America, but comes back after a year, and then
regrets it. He has much vanity and very strong personal
claims; a superficial tendency to instruction, which does
not develop either into professional agricultural instruction,
as in Alfons, or into professional instruction along the
technical line, as in Maks, or even into a serious "sport,"
as in Waclaw. As to Pecia, she seems to have assimilated
merely the external distinctions (dress and manners) of
the lower-middle class; she is a climber, but without the
strong character necessary to climb. She marries a man a
little above the peasant level of general culture, but instead
of pushing him in the line of a middle-class career, drops with
him into the peasant life again, and has not even the qualities
required of a farmer's wife. Her laziness and vanity make a
peasant career impossible for her.
Waclaw and Elzbieta are perhaps psychologically the
most interesting types. Intellectually and morally they
are completely outside of the peasant class. Their sphere
of interests is totally different from that of their parents and
environment and they take their new line of life very
seriously, particularly instruction and — with Waclaw —
social activity. But they have developed no new economic
basis of life; they have not the energy or self -consciousness
to begin a regular middle-class career. Waclaw ought to
imitate Maks; Elzbieta ought to become a teacher or a
business woman. But they do not do it, and thus arises an
interior conflict which is perfectly typical at the present
moment. They remain in the old class by their familial
connections and economic interests, while intellectually and
morally they have little in common with it.
460 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
The letters of Michal show fully the peasant's attitude
toward military service, particularly in the Russian army.
This attitude is universal; we find it, a little less strong, in
Aleksander Osinski's letters, and stronger still in the letter
of J. Wiater, No. 664; and everyone shares or is supposed
to share it. That the military service is a great annoyance
to the peasant is shown by the fact that so many peasants
prefer to leave their country forever rather than to serve—
for example, Maks Markiewicz and Michal Osinski. No
other manifestation of the authority of the state interferes
so much with the peasant's life.
It is not difficult to understand the peasant's hatred of
the army. First of all, in Russia he is completely isolated
from his family and community and finds himself among
foreign people whose language he does not well understand
(even if he was taught it in the school), whose faith is
different, whose cultural level is lower than his own, and
who dislike him. He is driven far into the east of Russia,
often to Siberia, for it is a policy of the Russian government
to scatter the Polish soldiers over the whole empire, for
fear of a revolution. Further, the peasant accustomed to
the relative liberty of country life finds himself in the
barracks, under a harsh and continual control; all his acts
are prescribed; there are innumerable trifles which never
permit him to forget his dependence. Instead of farm-
work, which is for him full of meaning, which has a great
variety and requires no particular precision, he finds drill,
with its efforts to attain mechanical precision, not only
monotonous but absolutely meaningless. Not only are
three or four years of his life lost without any benefit, but
there is nothing to compensate for this evil — no patriotism,
since the cause which he is serving is the cause of the enemies
and oppressors of his country, no idea of military honor,
since in Poland this idea was developed only among the
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 461
nobility, no expectation of a material benefit, since the
military service does not prepare him for any future position.
In Germany, and particularly in Austria, the hatred of
the army is not so strong; the soldier is less isolated, he can
usually go home on leave more than once; the cultural
level of his companions is higher; the military authorities
know much better how to interest the soldier in his work.
In Austria there is still another reason why the peasant
looks differently upon military service — the fidelity of the
Austrian Poles to the Hapsburgs. But, even there a strong
antipathy to military service persists, for some of its reasons
remain always the same.
THE FAMILY MARKIEWICZ
J6zef Markiewicz
Anna, his wife
Waclaw (Wacio, Wacek)
Stanislaw (Stas, Stasiek, Stasio) his sons
Alfons
Elzbieta (Elzbietka, Bicia)
Pecia . . . .
Polcia (Apolonia)
Zonia (Zosia, Zofia)
Franus (Franciszek), Pecia's husband
Grandmother (probably Anna's mother)
J. Przanowski, probably Anna's brother
Feliks 1 probably Anna's brothers; perhaps
AntoniJ cousins of herself or husband
Mackowa, cousin of Jozef or Anna
Teosia, daughter of J. Przanowski
Wacek, Teosia's husband
Maks, son of J. Przanowski
Jan Markiewicz, J6zef's brother
His wife
Maks (Maksymilian)
Stas (Stasio, Stanislaw)
Wiktor (Wiktorek)
Michal
Ignac
his sons
462 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Weronika
Julka
his daughters
Mania
Grandmother (probably mother of Jan's wife)
Zi61ek (Zi61kowski) , her husband
Jan Zi61ek, the latter's son by his first marriage
Zi61ek's sister
Other relatives in Poland, in America, in Prussia, in Petersburg.
142-225, FROM MEMBERS OF THE MARKIEWICZ FAMILY,
MAINLY TO WACLAW MARKIEWICZ, IN AMERICA. 142-71
ARE FROM THE PARENTS, JOZEF, AND ANNA; 172-77,
FROM STANISLAW; 178-84, FROM ELZBIETKA; 185-86,
FROMPOLCIA; i87,FROMALFONS; 188, FROM JAN; 189-
200, FROM WIKTOR; 201-11, FROM MAKS; 212-225, FROM
MICHAt.
142 ZAZDZIERZ, January 7, 1907
DEAR SON: We received your letter .... and we thank God
that you are in good health, because I [your mother] have continually
felt and even dreamed about you very badly, and I always remem-
bered that dream, and we both were anxious for you There is
news that Teosia fled to America, to W. Brzezoski, but it is not certain
whether the trick will succeed, because your uncle J. P[rzanowski]
went in pursuit of her to Bremen. God forbid, what a meeting it will
be.1 As to grinding, there is much of it this year. Thanks to God,
we shall earn enough for the household expenses. You asked about
the horse. We sold him during the harvest of summer-grain. We
got 24 roubles for him. I bought an ass, but I sold it at once, for it
was a dog's worth [proverbial]. Now I write you that from Wincen-
towo there are a dozen [men] going [to America], and they beg for your
address. Shall we give it to them or not ? .... We have in our farm-
stock 3 nice cows, 3 rather good hogs, 5 geese. Before winter there
will be some young ones, and so we push forward our lot and our age.
And Elzbietka has boys from time to time. One came as if to the
mill. His name is Tokarski, from Rychlin. His sister says that if we
1 Elopement is very rare among the peasants, and, in view of the familial
character of marriage, the family is supposed to condemn severely such an attempt
to avoid its control.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 463
want [him], he has 400 roubles in a bank and he can show them for
greater certainty. She says that he had a shop in Lodz. But we are
not in a hurry, we only said to him that he can call upon us. Stas
cannot find anything favorable; that about which I wrote you did
not please us, nor him either. So he absolutely wants to go to you.
How do you think ? Is it worth while or not ? . . . .
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
DEAR BROTHER: Send soon the ship-ticket or money, or else I shall
take money from here for the journey. Why, there is so much money
with us! But let it rather remain;1 I would pay you back later on.
Answer at once, and write me, what I shall take of clothes, linen, and
living [food], because about the middle of March I am going to you.
Let me also try America! I would not spend there longer than 2
years. In our windmill there is big grinding, day and night
Answer at once, because I will leave about the middle of March.
Be healthy, be healthy [goodbye], dear son and dear brother. As
to the ship-ticket, wait a little, because I want now to marry [the
daughter of] Gasztyka in Topolno. If I succeed, I shan't go to
America, and if I don't succeed, then I shall go.
[SXANISLAW M.]
143 February 10, 1907
DEAR SON: .... We thank you for not having forgotten our
need which it was absolutely necessary to satisfy. Mr. and Mrs.
Goszewski moved on January 22. We gave them the money back;
they refused to accept any interest, so we only thanked them. We
helped them, when they moved, to pack up their baggage. In
bidding them farewell, we all wept. Tadek did not want to go to
Ojcow; he mentioned very often Mr. W[aclaw] who will bring him a
[wooden] horse from America. And now, when [more] money comes
from you, we will at once turn it over to Pecia, and so we shall have
peace once for all with these debts
And now I write to you about Teosia. Your uncle sent a telegram
to Bremen and went himself to Torun, to your uncle F. F., and they
1 An expression of the old qualification of economic quantities which we have
treated in the Introduction: "Economic Attitudes." The peasant is reluctant to
touch, even for a short time, money which has been put aside. But in this case it
is rather the reluctance of the father than of the son.
464 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
sent her photograph, and the police turned the girl back to her father
in Torun. It is said that they wrote a letter to Brzezoski telling him
to come, for they give the permission because of the wish of their
daughter [and of her behavior]. And Stas cannot find anyone such
as he would like to marry. Dear son, send us your photograph
[JOZEF and ANNA MARKJEWICZ]
144 March 10, 1907
DEAR SON: .... And now we are very sad, dear son, that you
are longing for your family. But I don't marvel, because although I
have them all here, I weep [for you] more than once and I pray our
Lord God that you may come happily back to your family home. We
will now write letters to you oftener, because it won't be so difficult
[to get] to Plock, for you know how it is in winter — always snow and
cold. We go there seldom, and here we have no post-office.
We received on one day the 100 roubles which you sent and on the
next day we gave them to Pecia and Franus, and 8 roubles of interest.1
You ordered us to buy for the children [material] for dresses, so I
bought it at once, and you made them very glad. They thank you.
And now, dear son, when you earn as much as you can without
damaging your health, send the money home, and we shall make it
safe. Don't think that perhaps we will take it for our household
needs; what you send now will be made safe for you once and forever.
.... You ask about grandmother. She clucks as a hen when all
her chickens have been taken away. Walentowa weeps for her boys
[who are in America] ; Antoniowa does not regret much [her man who
went away] because she has another. Everybody whom I meet asks
about you, dear son, and wishes you the best possible, and everybody
says, " May God grant us to see him happily once more." We bought
a good overcoat for Pecia, and in the spring we will also give her a
young cow Stasio often looks in at Dobrzykow Some-
thing ties him, some love, nearer to the Vistula May our Lord
God help you to earn some hundred roubles that you may find your
way here. Now bee-keeping is again considered a good business.
1 This money was evidently destined originally for Pecia's dower. It had
apparently been advanced to the brother in America, and as Pecia did not receive
it promptly on her marriage, interest is added. The giving of interest here indi-
cates the substitution of an economic for a purely social attitude. Under the old
system the delay would have formed no reason for the payment of interest.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 465
.... Elzbieta's kum [god-brother] said that he got 80 roubles for
the honey in one year. .... So when our Lord God brings you back
we shall will you [some land] and you can set up an orchard and bee-
hives
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
145 July 4, 1907
DEAR SON: .... We heard about a terrible accident, that
Seweryniak who was in America was killed by a train, and it is true,
for his brother Franciszek buried him. Dear son, be careful. May
God keep you from any accident In the autumn Alfons
seriously intends going to you, but don't think that it is not a fact.1
So answer his question. You know his strength. We say that his
intention is of no use. The fathers and mothers [of the young men
who went to America] and the wife of Mielczarek send you their
thanks [for having received and helped the newcomers in America].
Dear son, you write us not to be surprised, that you want to
marry. But we don't oppose it at all if she is only a girl with a good
education.2 Consider it well, because the state of marriage is subject
to great [many] conditions. But if she pleased you, then very well.
May our Lord God bless you, and we wish you with our whole heart
everything the best In fact I spoke about it myself [wishing]
that you might not spend your young years on nothing. So consider
it the best you can and marry. If only the girl is orderly and good,
we can only rejoice. .... If she is from Plock, let her give you her
address — if she has parents here, and where they live, so we shall get
acquainted with them.
If you don't marry, send your money home, but if you have the
intention [to marry], then do not.
Be healthy, be healthy, dear son.
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
146 December 5, 1907
DEAR SON: .... In our home everybody is healthy enough,
only in Pecia's home her youngest daughter died. Stasio and Kocia
1 This phrase is ironical. Alfons is not treated seriously by any one of the
family.
3 Showing how relatively advanced the writers are. In no other series is this
question of education raised.
466 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Bialecka were the god-parents. She lived only 5 weeks
You ask about Teosia. She came home very quietly with her father
and she is at home. Perhaps there somebody told tales like a gypsy,
but don't believe it at all, because all that is untrue.1 [Weather;
Christmas wishes.] And your father, thanks to God, is not at all the
same as he was [his character has improved]
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
147 February 24, 1908
DEAR SON: We received your letter We wish you to be
healthy in body and soul, because this is the excellence of man. For
the second year is passing already, and you don't mention anything
about religion or church. Remember the admonition of your parents.
For faith is the first thing, and everything else is only additional.
Don't step aside from the true way. Consider it, for you can do harm
to your whole family.2
And now I inform you that rye is 7 roubles [a bushel]. Thanks
to God there is work in the windmill; the barn brings also a few
bushels [for space rented ?] and so we try as best we can that there may
be more and more [property] for you [children],
Dear son, reflect well, if you are working beyond the ocean only
for the sake of living [without saving], leave it and come to us.3 If
1 Evidently, such an exceptional occurrence as Teosia's flight has stirred up
much gossip. This is one of the reasons why girls and boys avoid any irregularities
in their marriage. Sometimes the smallest irregularity in the wedding ceremony
provokes the most mischievous gossip and most wonderful interpretations.
2 Probable meaning: "God may punish the whole family for your sins."
Thus, the feeling of familial unity is carried so far as to acknowledge a common
responsibility before God. The attitude is evidently not an isolated fact; common
religious responsibility is still more or less admitted not only for families, but also
for other social units, as villages and parishes. This has clearly nothing to do with
the biblical heredity of sin and punishment: it is merely the manifestation of the
group-solidarity.
s The new tendency to advance as against the old interest in mere living is here
expressed as clearly as possible. Fifty years ago it was all right if a young member
of a family, which was too poor to support all its members, earned his living
by servant- work and thus spared the rest of the family his living expenses; there
was not even the idea of his increasing the familial fortune for he had no wages
in cash. Even now, in the Osinski series, we find this attitude, when Michal serves
as a groom, for the father refuses to feed him (although this refusal, in the good
economic condition of the family, is already something new). But here, with re-
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 467
you have a few hundred roubles, I will take [add] my money, and I will
buy a farm somewhere for you. The inn in Dobrzykow is now for sale,
or perhaps something else J6zEF MARKIEWICZ
148 March 29, 1908
DEAR SON: I received your letter. I rejoiced much that you are
in good health, but for another cause you make us sad, for you don't
intend to come back to our country. At this moment the paper
trembled in my. hand or my hand shook in recording it. Why, even
birds who fly away from their native place still do come back ! How
did you dare to pronounce such wretched [mean] words ? You ought
to hold to the parental exhortations. I never taught you to criticize
the clergy. You know that Bonaparte shook the whole of Europe
until he broke off with the head of the Church, and later — you know
what became of him later! Well, I don't mention that you forgot
about religion, i.e., about the greatest jewel, only that after a year you
[raise yourself ?] above us. What you give to the papers is bad, and it
is a pity that you use your learning so, for learning is everywhere
useful to man, but [your ideas] are useful to you there, but won't be
when you come back. [Whole paragraph obscure and translation
conjectural.] And now with us it is as it has been As to
money, we don't absolutely require you to send any when you cannot,
because I try always to have a few hundred roubles on hand. Only
don't forget about yourself for your later years
I have nothing more to write, only I tell you the news. Wiktor,
son of Jan, went to the army to Petersburg and there he found our
family. Three sons of my father's brother are there. One of them
is a higher railway-conductor, the other a physician, the third a
professor. And in Prussia our family also got honors. Stasiek up to
the present does not succeed [in marrying] and Elzbietka also sits at
home. I end my letter with these words: May you not forget, even
as swallows don't forget their native nests.
J. MARKIEWICZ
Dear son, why are you so angry and why do you answer us so
severely ? The girls wept after reading this letter, so that it was quite
gard to Waclaw, the situation of the family is almost brilliant when measured
by peasant standards, and still Waclaw should increase the fortune. If he cannot
do it by working in America he ought to do it by farmer's work. If he does noth-
ing but live on his income he is regarded as losing his time.
468 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
gloomy in the house. And we, the parents, what are we to say ? You
don't want to come back to us, but I don't think it true. I believe
in you that you love your parents and your country J
[YOUR MOTHER]
149 September 7, 1909
DEAR SON: .... And as to the letters from you, we had none
except last year in July for my name-day. Then we answered at once
and we asked you for an answer, but we received no letter until today,
September 7. Dear son, believe us, there was not a day when we did
not complain about your negligence, and you complain about us!
Neither letter nor postcard, nothing up to the present. I don't know
what happened. We have only this letter which you tell us to send
to the editor [of some paper]. As for me, I fall asleep with the thought
about you and I awake with the same thought; I end the day with
tears and I begin it with tears. I did not understand what happened
to you. Everybody at home tried to comfort me, but it was hard to
wait. Your father went to Jan M[arkiewicz] in order that he might
ask Maks. They said that Maks wrote about your having gone
somewhere without giving any word of yourself, but they did not
allow us to read the letter.
With us everything is as it has been from old; we have a horse,
worth 100 roubles, a new wagon, 3 cows, 2 calves, 4 pigs worth also
about 100 [roubles], etc. The crops are the average. Franus [son-in-
law] is captain [of a Vistula boat]. They bought 6 morgs of land.
We have given them some money already, but we will add some more,
for we must give them at least 500 roubles. Teosia and Wacek were
with us for a week, but they did not say anything about any loan, so
it is probably a lie. We heard that they said something to Franus.
They are all worth the same [little]. Well, God be with them. I
don't see any blessing of God for them. They had only her [one
daughter] and even so they came to us asking us for a hundred [roubles]
for her wedding *
1 For the meaning of this letter, as showing the contrast between the old and
the young generation, cf. Introduction: "Peasant Family."
3 We see how success may assume a moral value by being conceived as the
result of God's blessing. Formally this conception was introduced by the church
in its endeavor to ascribe to God all the good. But the content is really older.
Prosperity was a sign of a harmony between man and nature. Cf. Introduction:
"Religious and Magical Attitudes."
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 469
Your father was in Wloclawek .... and called upon Edek.
Edek said that he saw you in the spring and that you intend to come
back to our country. (If you think it good, then come. He said that
you are some sort of a boss, and that you earn about $400. Can it be ?
Or perhaps it is only a slander of your enemies; I don't know. Your
grandmother began to reproach us for your education, saying that
we have praised you so much, and now you don't write. We grieve
ourselves enough. All other people do write, and we don't have any
news. How hard and painful it is when anybody asks us [about you].
We were quite ashamed at last. . . . .f We keep the shop after Pecia.
It brought us also 100 [roubles]. We all work as we can. Elzbieta
is in Czestochowa and Polcia in the shop. Answer us the soonest
possible
[MARKIEWICZS]
150 March 12, 1910
DEAR SON : We received your postcard. On the one hand we are
glad that you are in good health, on the other we are pained that you
spend your youth in vain, doing nothing. Why, you have your own
reason [you know] that it is necessary to provide somewhat in youth
for old age. If you have nothing to do there, move to Europe, or, if
you think it good, come home. As to the money, if you have not
enough, take from Mielczarek, or simply write home and I will send
you some to America. And if you borrow from Mielczarek, we will
give it back here [to his parents], for some hundred roubles are
ready.
What more shall I write you? I can only write you that the
winter is here very severe and cold, and at home it is not quite well,
because everybody was more or less unwell, particularly Elzbieta.
.... Your aunt, Antoni's wife, is dead. And except for this, things
are not bad in the household, for we have threshed and now we are
grinding. And I must tell you that on March 14 is my birthday. I
finish 60 years. Perhaps I shall not be able to work for a great while
longer, and at least I should like to see all of you again. Your grand-
mother sits in her house and is farming, but badly. Uncle Felus was
with us for a few days, and your aunt also; they enjoyed our hospi-
tality and danced. As to our country, you know probably the news.
Your father,
JOZEF MARKIEWICZ
470 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Dear son, we think much about it, for you grieve there perhaps
very much that you have no work. But you are not alone [in having
no work], so there is nothing to do. Consider it and don't grieve.
Our Lord God has more [left] than He has spent. Be healthy, be
healthy, dear son
[YOUR MOTHER]
151 May 5 [1910]
DEAR SON: .... You keep writing always about those 100
roubles. Well, I will send them back, but remember that you don't
do harm to me, but to yourself. And with me it is so: I thought that
I should increase the fortune, but nothing thrives with my children,
neither a good marriage with my daughters nor [a good lot] with any
boy. But I return to you once more, I send you these 100 roubles.
But why can others send enough money home, while you have not
enough even to live or to come back? My whole dream is vain.
Come here. Why should you sit there since the star [of fortune] does
not shine for you ? It is very bad, dear son. If you have not enough
for your journey, take from Mielczarek. We will give it back here.
Right now land and other property open [for sale], but if you have no
money to buy — well, perhaps God will give it.1
Your father,
J. MARKIEWICZ
152 June 20 [1910]
DEAR SON: In our home everybody is in good health. As to
Stas, it is always the same, .... and as to Elzbieta, she won't
marry Janek; she has changed her views already. In our field the
rye is average, the peas not very good, the wheat nice, the potatoes
nice. Our horse is nice, our cattle as nice as never before, we have
4 cows big with calves and one young cow, we have sold one cow and
got 60 roubles, and for the calf 4 roubles; we have pigs, ducks, of all
1 Plainly the fundamental life-interest of the old man is to increase the fortune
of the whole family, to arrange rich marriages for his children, to have them all hi
the neighborhood, prosperous, respected by the community, keeping the traditional
attitudes and ideals in harmony with his own, solidarity among themselves, suffi-
ciently instructed to play an active part in communal life, and always obeying the
father. The position of head of such a family is the highest one of which an old
type of a peasant can dream.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 471
poultry we have more than 100 pieces; there is a nice amount of
work. This is not all. We must often help Pecia, because they are
building a barn and have made a shack for themselves of the stable.
Later on they will build a house, and Pecia has nice rye, potatoes, peas,
etc. So hi general everything is succeeding well enough with us,
only we have the worst trouble with Stasiek, although I did not want
to grieve you. When he came from the army he seemed to be healthy
for a few days, but then came a continuous cough, and pains in the
breast, belly, hands, feet, etc. — everything. After he has been better
for a few days, then all this returns. Always nothing but the doctor
and the drug-store. I have already proposed to have the doctor and
the drug-store move into our house. What can I do ? I have grieved
and wept enough; it fell upon [settled in] my eyes, which are worse
than ever. And now, dear son, don't care about anybody, only mind
about yourself. For nowadays people are even too clever when they
want to get other people's good, but they keep well their own T
I did not write you for so long a time because I had hoped to write you
something new [Elzbieta's marriage], but she says that the lot which
she would have now with him may be still had 10 years hence
You asked what scabs the children had. Very dangerous ones, for it
was scarlet fever. Now, thanks to God, they are recovered
Many different people are visiting us now, as always when there are
girls at home. Even sometimes the chief forester [from the manorial
forest] of La.ck comes with his wife. Well, you can imagine how
it must be [how troublesome and expensive] but all this is done for the
children. You know, dear son, often when they amuse themselves,
father comes to me and says: "Ah, if Wacek came now, what a joy
it would be."
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
153 August 8 [1910]
DEAR SON: .... As to your marriage about which you wrote,
we are very satisfied. If only the girl is as you want her to be,
let our Lord God bless you. We all wish you with a single voice:
1 The complaints of old people about the avarice and unreliability of the
present generation, which we find in many letters, seem to have a real ground.
With the dissolution of the old solidarity the old norms regulating economic rela-
tions disappear, while the new norms, corresponding to the individualistic stage of
economic life (business-honesty) have not yet developed.
472 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
"Whatever is the best in the world, may God grant it to you." But
consider well what you intend to do.
[Crops.] Your father went just now with Franek to put the
wings on the windmill; it will take some weeks. Stasio is grinding
flour, Alfons is mowing peas, Elzbietka is sewing a dress, we all push
the work farther on You write about Broncia. She has
already got married. She married the baker about whom I wrote
you, who wanted our Elzbietka, but she did not want him
Write us, Wacio, what is your betrothed occupied with and in whose
house she lives, for here people say that she went to her uncle x
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
154 [September 13, 1910]
DEAR -SON: After returning from that miraculous place [Cz§-
stochowa] I am healthy enough, as well as all of us at home, but we
are much grieved that you are not in good health I begged
God's Mother for health and good success for you all. And now, dear
son, don't be angry with us about this loan to your aunt [for not
having lent her your money], for she has the mouth in the right spot
[talks much and knows what to say]. And now we will give Pecia 40x3
roubles, because they will buy that house from Jakubowski
[YOUR MOTHER]
Dear son, mark it well, if your health does not favor you, return
home, for why should you do penance there ? Here is bread enough
in my house. You gave me the order to lend a few hundred of zloty
to Mackowa, but surely you know how I lent 50 roubles to her brother
and could not get them back for 10 years. You know that it is easy
to let money go away while it is difficult to put it together. An
incident like this happened a month ago with Mr. Mroczkowski who
lived in our house during the summer. When he left he took 15
roubles from us. Stasiek was too credulous, and now I don't know
1 The letter shows how the control of the family over the individual is lost.
There is no mention at all of the girl's dowry, in spite of the father's formerly
expressed wishes, and only a discreet attempt (hi the last phrase) to learn anything
more about her personality and family. The parents agree with their son's wish,
and they dare only to advise him "to consider the matter well." The attitude is
totally different toward the other son, who stays at home; here the parents show
more clearly what are their wishes, and the son could hardly marry a girl who did
not please his parents. Compare this letter with No. 145.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 473
when he will get them. I beg you, don't send any more such [orders].
If you need money, I can send it to you. Moreover, I did not forget
what Mrs. [ironical] Mackowa said last year when she met Andzia.
.... She reproached you for living with her son, saying that you
settled in his house and filled your belly with his food — as if you did
not pay for boarding! [Crops and weather.]
Y[our] f[ather],
J. MARKIEWICZ
155 November i [1910]
DEAR SON: .... Walenty in Dobrzykow built a small mill
upon his water [in competition with us], but he grinds [only] three
quarters of once-ground flour a day. Well, we don't know how it will
be later. As to Elzbietka, she has a boy, a butcher from Lubien.
•I don't know whether she will marry him or not, but she says that this
winter she will surely decide. If not this one, then another. I have
trouble enough now for my [sins]. Always new guests, always some
new fashions, always these new things, so that my income does not
suffice.
And you know that [your] father always says so: "When any-
thing is not there, we can do without it." But sometimes it must be
had, even if it must be cut out from under the palm of the hand! So,
dear son, I beg you very much, if you can, send me a little money, but
for my needs. Bicia [Elzbieta] is grown up, Polcia is bigger still,
Zonia begins to overtake them, and they all need to be dressed, while
it is useless to speak to your father about it. If you can, send it as
soon as possible, because if I sell some cow, or hog, or gram, it must
be put aside; [your father says that] it cannot be spent. We gave
Pecia 100 and 200, but we must still give 200. Bicia also [must have
money], so we must put money aside. Well, we have nice hogs, nice
cattle, and a nice horse, but I must work conscientiously for all this.
Your father just excuses himself with his years and I may work with
the children so that my bones crack. He says: "Then don't keep
[so much farm-stock], don't work. Do I order you [to do all this] ?"
But when he wants anything, he requires it. As to the crops, every-
thing is not bad .... only we. must work so much. Bicia is con-
tinually in the shop, she has pupils and sews. Zonia will help her
presently, and so we push things further and further. You write us
that you won't be the best man [at your sisters' weddings]. It is hard
474 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
for me to read this and my tears flow. Well, let God's Mother of
unceasing Help not forget you J
Your truly loving mother,
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
156 February 6 [1911]
DEAR SON: We received .... 50 roubles for which we thank
you We bought a fur [sheep] coat for Stas for 34 roubles, and
for the rest two dresses, one for Bicia and one for Polcia. [Sickness of
the children.] As to Elzbieta, there is to be a wedding, but not till
after Easter, because he has a brother in America, so they wait until
he comes and stays with his family [parents], for it is impossible for
her to go there [to her husband's parents]. Let them rather set up a
place of their own, when the matter comes to that.* And Stasiek is
walking and walking [in search of a wife] but I don't know when he
will "walk out" anything for himself I don't remember
whether I wrote you that one of Pecia's children died, a nice little boy,
half a year old. [Stock sold and bought, windmill, shop, money
received from debtors, farm-work.] We wish you good health,
happiness and good success in the new year. Get married, don't
mind A. T.,3 because it is of no use
[MARKIEWICZS]
157 June 3 [1911]
DEAR SON: We received your letter .... and once 200 roubles,
and again 50 roubles. Thanks be to God that He allowed you to earn
them. We thank you for this money. We will put it in a safe place.
If you can, send even more, it won't be lost. [Health, weather,
1 The difference in the economic attitudes of the man and the woman is here
most typically expressed. The man is exclusively interested in the welfare and
social standing of the family as a whole; he seems to have very little understanding
of the particular, actual needs of any member of the family. The woman, on the
contrary, understands the latter very well and sympathizes with the members of the
family whenever they lack anything actually and individually, but seems to have
no real eagerness to contribute to the fulfilment of her husband's general plans.
1 It would be bad form if a girl with Elzbieta's social standing went to live
with her husband's parents, for it would look as if she had not dowry enough and
he could not earn enough to start their own home, even if in this case the real cause
were that the boy's parents needed the help of one son.
3 Evidently a girl, and probably one whom he did not succeed in marrying.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 475
crops.] We have i horse, 4 cows, i young cow, a young bull of good
breed .... pigs, 22 geese, turkeys, ducks, chickens; we have more
than 100 pieces of poultry in general, because we are preparing for a
wedding. Elzbieta will now at last marry that Janek K. She did
not want him, but evidently it is God's will for her, for she despised
him, but he did his best to please her again. But the wedding won't
be sooner than September, because he is as far as Sandomierz, on a
government ship. He has not the worst salary. It will be as God
grants. We must buy every thing for her and give her away; nothing
can be done. You ask about Pecia and Franus. They were sick in
the winter, first F., then P., then the children; they spent a nice sum
of money! But now, thanks to God, they are in good health. The
children loaf about, Pecia rocks the boy to sleep [calls to the others:]
"You, don't touch that," ''You, put that down." She is always
shooing them off. Franus, since he mounted the boat of Mrs.
Jaworska, is sailing up to the present as captain. He does his best.
Perhaps our Lord God won't refuse happiness also to that other
[son-in-law], for Elzbieta is a good, honest, orderly girl. Nothing is
amiss with her. We hoped something else for her. Well, nothing
can be done. Polcia is also a good girl, but surely she will soon become
a loafer. They sing in the church in the choir, beautifully, it is true,
but I have the more to do. Well, let them know that they have a
mother Stasiek wants to marry, but only if we will him [the
farm]. What do you say to this? What shall we do? ....
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
158 [August-September?] 15, 1911
DEAR SON: We and Elzbieta received your letters As to
Elzbieta, she postponed all this to future times. Well, you have no
idea how great a regret it was for Janek, but she did not care much
about it. Well, nothing can be done; she is not for him. She won't
despise the man who will be suited to her. Perhaps at last she will
choose. We had some expenses, and he also, but nothing can be done.
A girl with such a character as Elzbieta's is not easily found, so it is no
wonder if she prizes herself much.1 Even now she was in Plock taking
1 The case of Elzbieta is frequent in the lower classes. In a family which rises
above its class the condition of a girl is much worse than that of a boy. The latter
has already risen when he has a higher instruction and a better position, and
476 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
business lessons, so she profited once more somewhat. Thanks to
God, Zosia will be clever also. Well, I work much for them, but what
can be done ? As to our grinding, we earn poorly now, because such
an executioner [accursed big mill] is built in Ga.bin as suffices for
everybody. [Crops.] Everywhere only work and work, so that the
bones lap one over another, but what can be done ? But, unhappily
my teeth already decline absolutely to work, so I must have some put
in, but I have not money enough for it, for I have enough other things
to spend it on. So if it would not be a great detriment to you, I
would beg you for a few roubles for my teeth, but if not, it cannot be
helped. Even if I breed anything [and sell], either some clothes
must be bought for one child, or another calls for something else,
or the boy must be paid who tends the cattle. And your father
won't know anything about [have anything to do with] all this.
[Greetings from the whole family and for all the relatives who are
in America.]
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
Maks [Przanowski], send me those 100 roubles back. I think that
I have waited long enough. I beg you very much.
[I. M.]
159 November 5, 1911
DEAR SON: In our home everybody is in such health as a worm-
eaten nut, but everybody pushes slowly his lot It is not well
in our home. Stasiek would be glad to marry, but only if somebody
gave him bread, a knife, butter, a good sofa to sit upon, etc., but don't
speak to him about working: "I am tired," "I don't want to," "I
cannot," etc. Don't speak to him about this or that to be done,
marriage is for him in this respect a secondary matter. But a girl cannot rise
socially, unless by marriage; instruction, relative refinement, do not put her imme-
diately above the level of her class, but only prepare the way to a better marriage,
make her fit to rise through marriage. But in a milieu in which the conditions of
life are difficult and the tendency to rise is strongly developed such a girl will with
difficulty find an opportunity to marry above her class, as the men also prefer to
marry above theirs. But a refined girl is not easily reconciled to marriage with
a man of her own class, and thus her condition is not enviable. The usual result
is that, after waiting for a good match which does not come, she finally resigns,
fearing to remain an old maid more than to marry below her aspirations. These
aspirations are then transferred to her children.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 477
because he does not care much about anything. Let him be.1 I
don't wish many people what I have [of trouble]. As to Elzbieta, the
heart must weep! A pretty, graceful girl, skilful, honest, trained as
no other in the family — well, and there is nobody whom it would suit
her to marry. So she intends to go to a school. She wants to learn
to be a teacher. We don't know how she will succeed, because she is
only just now going to make inquiries. I will write you in another
letter. If only our Lord God saves us from any accident to the
[sick] horse .... for it would be [a loss of] 120 roubles. God
forbid it!
You ask about your trees. They bore cherries, pears, apples;
there were a few olives, and nice wild pears. We sold fruit for a nice
score of roubles, as never before, because the summer was very dry and
hot. In Pecia's home everybody is in good health. They live on
their own land, they made a shack of that stable and live there for
the present. Next year they will perhaps build a house. Genia
Jaworska is going to marry, but our girls don't even look at such
young men. The other who now has Bronka wanted to come to
Elzbieta but she refused. Now this one also wanted [to marry
her], but she will not even listen. Well, I don't know who will
be better off.
You write about your marrying. Decide as you please, provided
only that you are happy, and that which is good and nice for you will
be that also for us. May our Lord Gocfbless you
Zosia is growing, a nice little girl. Soon she will be as big as her
mother. She is intelligent enough, she sews not badly. Polcia is
not [intelligent], she is only a housekeeper, a scrub-woman, an ironer,
a laundress — all of them.
Your sincerely loving parents,
J. [and] ANNA M.
Our horse just died. A horse and 3 pigs! It is a nice comedown!
We shall not overtake it soon!
1 Stasiek is probably demoralized by his military service, and his bad health.
But it is very probable that his unwillingness to work is to a great extent due
to the loss of family interests and to the lack of personal interests. (Cf. his
letters.) The family life is organized by the father upon the old basis' of familial
unity; each child has to work, not for himself personally, but for the benefit
of the whole group. But Stasiek has no longer this attitude, and perhaps his long
and fruitless search for a wife is caused by his wish to become independent.
478 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
1 60 January 20, 1912
DEAR SON: We received your letter .... for which we thank
you heartily, but .... don't be such a cause of grief to your family.
You know that we all grieve about you [when we have no news];
when anything bad or good happens to you, share it with us, as we do
with you In our home everybody is healthy enough. There is
sufficient grinding, as much as there is wind. Our farm-stock is, 4
cows big with calves, one young cow, 6 pigs which are worth about
100 roubles, geese, ducks, etc Our crops are average
Pecia's children are somewhat ill, because scabs are spread out in our
neighborhood. In Tokary, Dobrzykow, many people lie sick with
scabs. Walenty's Witek came from the army and has smallpox,
Antoni's Maks has smallpox. Antoni has been sick for more than a
year. He lies almost continually. She lies sick also, with swelling of
the liver Bulkoski's wife died just now. In our home up to
the present everybody is well enough, but we don't know how it will
be later. Stasio is walking here and there [in search of a wife].
Well, I don't know. As to Elzbieta, if anybody wants her she does
not want him, so I don't know how it will be, whether she will win or
lose. Well, it will be as God grants. She cuts and sews, she sings
religious and dancing songs, she has a pupil [in sewing], the girl of Jan
Seweryniak, and so she passes her moments. When Sunday comes
Andrzej Kusio calls upon them and plays, they dance a little. One
and another comes, boys from the manor-farm, and we amuse our-
selves. Polcia has grown bigger than Pecia and Elzbieta; when she
comes from the kitchen to the room, it [the door] is full of her from the
top to the bottom. She works at home and helps Elzbieta. Zonia
goes to school and learns. We have a new teacher, but an orthodox
[Russian], so we don't have any friendly relations with her
You ask who got married. [Enumerates 7 marriages.] We had 200
roubles with Fijolek, he paid us the sum and the interest; and
Matusiak and everybody paid us back. Write us whether you have
any cash Everybody who comes to us, asks what you wrote
and whether you are in good health, and asks us to greet you: "From
me also," "And from me." ....
YOUR PARENTS and FAMILY
Dear brother, I am addressing this letter in the home of my
betrothed, in Gombin, in the house of Pokorski the tile-maker. Our
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 479
father and mother are here expressly for the first [preliminary]
betrothal. The marriage is to be after Easter, so don't send the
ShiP-dcket [STANISLAW]
161 March 17, 1912
DEAR SON: .... I beg you, write letters home oftener, for why
should we grieve so much about you ? In our house everybody is hi
good health, but in Pecia's house Felus has spent the whole winter in
getting well, for he caught cold. Well, now he is already sailing upon
the ship. And Pecia, you know while she was yet [a girl] at home said :
" I must not eat the breakfast, for I shall be thick," or " I must squeeze
myself tightly with the corset." Well, and now the results of all this
show themselves. Now that she is married, she is sickly J Jan
[Markiewicz] boasts that Maks has already sent some thousand
roubles home, that he has there almost 10,000 roubles, that he passed
an examination as engineer, and he says: "Your Waclaw is also going
to this school." And your father answers him : " You are stupid, say
'yes'!" If you intend to send some money , send it ; we shall place it
here. Don't be afraid, we won't do as your grandparents did.
[Incomes and expenses; weather.] And beware of these "engineers"
and locksmiths and cabinet-makers, because both sides [the parents
here and the sons there] are worth the same. When they [Jan M.]
receive a letter, and your father is there, they never give it to him to
read, because there are always some secrets from that " engineer.". . . .2
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
162 October 20 [1912]
DEAR SON: We received your last letter .... for which we
thank you heartily. You pained us [in writing] that your teeth are
1 Pecia also tried to rise above her class. The purely peasant girl does not
resort to lacing and keeping down her weight but uses external ornamentation
instead. After her marriage Pecia falls back into the peasant ideals of land-
owning and successful farming. Her imitation of town-manners is purely superfi-
cial, while Elzbieta tends to acquire an interior culture.
2 There is evident rivalry between the two brothers, J6zef and Jan, and their
families, on the score of social standing. Jan's family is more successful, and
hence the envy manifested in this letter. The term "engineer," properly applied
to a graduate of a higher polytechnical school, is sometimes used by courtesy of
graduates of lower technical schools, and hence again the irony and incredulity of
the old man.
480 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
aching, but that is nothing new, for such is their habit at present. In
our home now it is somewhat different, for it was very bad, because I
was very sick. I got sick on the way from church on September 10.
I was so terribly sick with vomiting and headache on the field of
Jankowski that I could not come home alone. Well, they helped
me with whatever was possible, but I was in such danger that they
had to bring the priest at once, and then the doctor.1 With the help
of a medicine I got a little better, but I lay for two weeks. Now I
can walk and I work a little but my head pains me a little still. The
money from you has come already; we .will get it -and put it in the
bank. We will add 100 roubles and put 200 together We
lent 200 roubles to Fijolkowski [Fijolek].2 .... We sold a horse,
pigs, a cow and geese, and we got 300 roubles, and these from you will
make 400 together. If your health favors you, earn whatever you can
and send us; it won't be lost for you here. [Crops.] You ask about
your god-son. He is growing, a nice boy, he says always that his
god-father will bring him a horse from America. Pecia bore another
child, a daughter. We sold more than 8 bushels of pears. Old
Seweryniak died. Be healthy.
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
Dear son, you need not fear [on account of a possible war], for
everybody here is very calm. The only thing is that you should not
return with your hands empty, because, you know, if you want to pay
[your brothers and sisters] off, you must have some hundreds of
roubles, and if you don't wish [to take my farm], then another farm
will be bought, for Franus has also 400 roubles of cash .... [and
could take my farm].
JOZEF MARKIEWICZ
1 In case of a dangerous sickness it is the habit to bring first a priest, and only
afterward the doctor; the care for the soul is considered more important than the
care for Jhe body, and it would be worse to neglect the opportunity of the patient's
making peace with God than to neglect the possibility of his recovery through
immediate help. To understand this better, we must remember that the old
peasant is not afraid of dying, provided he has religious help and tune enough to
make his dispositions.
2 Note the change in the name. In No. 160 the man is called "Fijolek."
The old peasant names never ended in "ski" or "cki, " which, dating from the
fifteenth century, were the endings of the names of the nobility (etymologically
adjectives, formed from the names of the estates). Lately the peasants (follow-
ing the bourgeoisie) have begun to imitate the form by adding these suffixes to
their names. But this is not done in Galicia, where class-consciousness is stronger.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 481
163 March 26, 1913
DEAR SONS: We thank God that you saw one another healthy
and happy. Love one another, as you did formerly in school, for we
believe that you love one another sincerely and that you don't wish
one another evil, but good Our whole family is in good health,
only in Jan's house one of the girls died, but perhaps there will be
added one more instead, because Maks intends to marry Miss Dob-
rowolska. [Farm-work.] That man Buzanski comes often to Polcia,
and we don't know what to do. Advise us what to do. Fijolkowski
intends to sell the 6 morgs near us. Perhaps we shall take them.
Dear sons, I beg you very much to send me a few roubles for my
teeth, because I must have new ones set in, and I hate to spend money
Jwhich is put aside]. Perhaps you have more, then send me
And now, dear Wacio, care for Stas as you cared once for me in
my sickness. May our Lord God reward you for it! ....
Your loving mother,
ANNA MARKIEWICZ
164 April 26 [1913]
DEAR SONS: .... Alfons sold that old horse and bought a
young one, 3 years old, good for eating and for pulling and for every-
thing; but his hip was somewhat injured. It was so difficult to
notice that at the fair Prussian Jews bought him and did not know it.
Even so, Alfons made a profit of 6 roubles, and the horse's work was
worth 10 roubles. He [the horse] remained 6 weeks with us.
And Andrzej is calling upon us as often as before [courting Polcia].
Surely we must consider it and finish this business Our shop is
sold; we gathered in all 100 roubles and there is still a little credited
to people, but there will be always those who won't pay
Jankowski moved beyond the Vistula. He had borrowed 100 roubles
more and owed us 200, but when he was to move, he came to us and
calmed us,1 paid the whole 200 roubles back, and interest, and offered
7 roubles for the sake of good feeling. But we took only 4 roubles in
order that there might always be good feeling between us 2
1 To "calm the creditors" is an old expression for paying debts.
2 Survival of the old custom connected with the lending of naturalia. When
a natural product borrowed for productive purposes yielded more than was
expected, a return was made greater than the amount agreed upon. This custom
survived in money loans, but is rare. Cf. Introduction: " Economic Attitudes. "
482 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
I am astonished, how you can write such things, that we don't care
for you. Only beyond the grave father and mother [part with] their
chUdren [ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
165 July 3 [1913]
DEAR CHILDREN: .... I answer only now, because we have
such different circumstances. Elzbietka's betrothed was here in the
end of June, Edward Topolski, about whom you know. So perhaps
now her maidenhood will come to an end As to Polcia, she
will probably marry this Andrzej, because she won't hear to anybody
else, and he waits as if for God's mercy [for our decision]
We have a great sorrow, my children, because Alfons bought a
mare for 130 roubles which won't pull at all, particularly when going
alone, and working double she pulls only badly. Alfons has now
enough to listen to. But he is worth much, for he is clever ! [Ironical].
[Farm-stock, farm-work, crops, money loaned.] And now I beg you,
my children, economize in order to bring some token [money from
America], because my strength decreases. My eyes, hands and feet
begin to refuse obedience [ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
166 November 27 [1913]
DEAR SONS: We received the letter and the money from you.
Thanks to God that you are in good health, because in our house
everybody is in good health and in Pecia's house also. Franus is still
working on the ship. As to money, you [singular] have in the bank
600 roubles and with [loaned to] Pecia 50 roubles, but you told us to
give her 10 roubles, so only 40 are left with her. I told her that you
wrote me to lend her the whole 100 roubles, but on her note, so she
was very much offended and refused. But you are right, quite right,
because a note is necessary. Don't think that I am not good to her,
but she demands a little too much, for there are others also to take,
and only one to give, and it is right to remember them all alike. The
news: Wladzia, Walenty's daughter, got married. We were at the
wedding. She married Guzinski of Plock. The Swieckis' windmill
is burned. Maks [Przanowski] has not yet paid us the money back.
We have 3 stacks of seradella. We have 3 cows big with calves, one
bull, one young bull, one chestnut horse, one pig worth about 50
roubles, 12 turkeys, etc. The children have gathered [leaves for]
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 483
litter. Now they will bring wood Wincenty Przanowski died.
We have a little grinding, but not much As to Polcia, she
won't be surely glad [married] before carnival. We wait for Elzbieta
[to be married], but probably it will be necessary to give [permission ?]
to Polcia, because it is difficult for all of them to sit at home.1 ....
Your loving parents and family,
JOZEF and ANNA MARKIEWICZ
167 December 15 [1913]
DEAR SONS: .... We received your letter and 30 roubles, for
which I thank you heartily, for we had just been in Radziwi and gave
the sheep-skins to line the coat when the postman gave us the money.
.... I am glad, and Alfons also, for father always says: " Don't
make big expenses" .... and now we can buy what we need without
touching father's money You ask me how much money there
is in all. In the bank in Ga.bin there are 600 roubles of Wacus
[Waclaw] and 600 of ours .... and Fijolkowski has [borrowed] 200
[ours] and 400 of yours [Stasio] and 50 of Pecia. There is so much in
all We should have more money but for that trading of
Alfons. He lost 100 roubles on the mare, and then we had to give
152 for the horse. Well, but people say that if the horses are so dear
in the summer, he will be worth 200. Well, perhaps our Lord God
will comfort us. But stealing is developed beyond measure. From
Andrzej's brother-in-law they stole horses and a wagon. They did
a damage of 500 roubles Well, may God avert them. You
ask about the Americans. They earned well enough, but ....
most of them came back. Still, if they had had no work they would
not have brought such nice money But, dear children, mind
your health like the eye in your head. As to Elzbietka, Topolski
writes letters. Well, at carnival we shall do [something about it],
either to the left or to the right. And with Polcia we will soon make
an end [get her married]. [ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
1 According to a custom almost universal among the Polish peasants, the older
daughter should always marry before the younger one. The parents are therefore
very unwilling to give the younger daughter away before the older is married, and
if such a case happens, they often refuse to give her any dowry before the older has
received her part. And the younger daughter considers it a family duty to wait
until her older sister is married. In this case the situation is difficult because
Elzbieta is too particular in her choice. Therefore Polcia is tired of waiting and
angry, and the parents are half-decided to give her away before Elzbieta.
484 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
1 68 January 23 [1914]
DEAR SONS: [Question of getting a passport for Stasio, to cross
the boundary returning.] Rosa's son sent [from America] 650
roubles, and Seweryniak's son 600, etc., but is it true? I did not
count it. And you, Stasio, care for yourself. Dear children, we
have also wept on Christmas and we thought about you and we
talked [wondered] what you are doing there. But Alfons said,
"They are better there than I am here, because these 3 girls [sisters]
beat me and don't even let me cry." Such is the only son whom I
have now. At least when I had you, Stasio, it was possible, but now —
God forbid!1 Andrzej got a basket [the mitten], and there is some-
body else in his place Elzbietka has a young man from Plock,
a tailor, and his parents have a farm near Bodzanow. He claims he
has 1,000 roubles. He wished [to marry] at once at carnival, but we
postponed it until after Easter, in order not to burn ourselves [be
too hasty]. She has other boys still, and Polcia also
[ANNA MARKIEWICZ]
169 April 14 [1914]
[Generalities about health and letter-writing.] Here hi our papers
is [written], that in America there has been a very great storm and
terrible rains. We are very anxious what is the news with you.
Write us at once about your being saved, because here everyone
speaks differently Please answer, because we don't believe
these gypsy [cheating] papers. We shall probably get Polcia married
to that Andrzej. What do you say to it ? [Weather; crops; general
news about friends.] Your tfuly loying
[MARKIEWICZS]
1 Alfons evidently loves farming, and particularly horses, and helps at home
and is without any personal claims. There is almost no mention of him in the
letters written before Stanislaw went to America. After this, as the only son at
home, he begins to play some part. He is the least loved, as is evident from the
manner hi which the mother speaks of him. He is not at all stupid, as is shown by
his letter, but probably is rather unpractical and diffident outside of farming
matters. This may even be the result of the manner in which he is treated at home.
In almost every numerous family there is a child worst treated, least loved, and
most exploited. (Wladek and Bronii, in the autobiography forming the third
volume of this series, are cases of this kind.) Perhaps the source of it is some pre-
possession on the part of the parents against the child, assumed either because he is
not standard in his traits, or because he was not desired in an already too numerous
family.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 485
17° May i [1914]
DEAR SONS: .... We are grieved that you have no work, but
we are glad that you are in good health, because money is an acquired
thing, while health is an important thing. You wrote, Stasio, that
you would come; we expected you from day to day, but you did not
come. So we don't know whether you have occupation or not. We
are very curious, for a man without work has still worse thoughts
[sic]. Well, but nothing can be done. There is something for you to
come back to, [our] poverty is not yet so great. You can have bread
and more than bread, so don't grieve. [Description of the farm-stock
and the work.]
[MARKIEWICZS]
171 June 12, [1914]
DEAR SON: We received your 2 letters after the arrival of Stasio.
When he arrived, we thought that you would come also, but Stasio
himself regrets [leaving] those wages. He says that it is a golden land
as long as there is work, but when there is none, then it is worth
nothing. Earn, dear son, some hundreds [and come back] to your
fatherland. [Conditions bad; dryness; windmill ruined.] You ask,
dear son, what your father said about the goods [probably household-
goods or clothing]. Well, he rejoiced. He said that Stasio robbed
you too much. Still he is satisfied. You ask about this scoundrel
[probably Maks Przanowski, who owed them 100 roubles]. He does
not even show himself; we must take a complaint [to court]. As to
your grandmother, they all arrange this. Grandmother does not
think; they write [in her name ?]. Well, grandmother wants now to
move to us. But your father is honey and sugar, and your grand-
mother gall and pepper. Whoever has tried it knows the taste.
Oh, I have enjoyed during my whole life this honey with this sugar;
I have it often under every nail! But what can be done ? It is the
will of God.
Elzbietka is sewing beyond Bodzanow, for she is bored at home.
What she wants, a man that she could love, cannot be found, while
she does not want those whom she has a chance to marry. Surely,
Polcia will overtake her [marry first], Stasiek is weighing [his deci-
sion] as upon a scale. If he had a ready fortune, he would risk it.
But what if he has no health ? .
486 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
The heat is terrible Everything is burned upon the fields
and dwindles away while we look We just decided today that
[Polcia's] wedding will be at the end of August, but I don't know how
it will be with your father, because he always says so, "If anything is
not there, you can do without it." We cannot do without it, for it
must be [a good marriage-feast and bride's outfit], and this year is so
heavy for me, and so dry. The last was with water, this one is with
heat And I must buy many things, since I promised the
wedding for the end of August. So if you can, send me a few dollars.
But if you have none to spare, don't send them, for we are at home,
and you are outside
YOUR LOVING MOTHER
172 February 10 [1907]
DEAR BROTHER: Those 50 roubles which you sent have been
received, but not yet the 100. Dear brother, I have been every-
where [visited all the girls in the neighborhood], but I don't succeed in
finding anyone suitable. Probably I shall come to you in the spring.
.... Now I want to marry Andzia, Mlodziejewski's daughter; you
know her. Just today I sent an interceder [match-maker] to him, and
in a few days I will go myself. She pleased me very much, and our
mother also, only our whole family from Dobrzykow did not like her
at all. But you know that Mlodziejewski will give 6 morgs to Zych
and 12 to Andzia. Only it is said that he does not want her to get
married before he builds [new farm-buildings]. So I will now speak
with him; if he is willing to get her married in autumn, then I will
wait, but if perhaps only in 2 years, then I will go for this time to you.
If he willed her these 12 morgs, I would marry her and I would wait
even till autumn or even till carnival. You know her very well, so
write me what you think about her and how do you like all this
I was in the last week of the carnival at a wedding in the house of the
Bialeckis in Dobrzykow, but the wedding was not very good. She
[B's daughter] married Jozef Klosinski. I got acquainted with
Andzia at this wedding, for I did not know her before As to
the grinding, I have always grain to grind, sometimes 40 bushels lie
in reserve
Y[our] b[rother],
STA[NISEAW] MARKIEWICZ
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 487
*73 February 24, 1907
DEAR BROTHER: .... An awful multitude of people are going
from here to America. Uliczny from Wincentowo — you know him —
wants to send his boy, but he asks you how it is there. The boy
intended to go right now, but his father stopped him and won't allow
him to go until the letter comes from you. [Asks about the new
conditions of landing in United States.]
Dear brother, I will surely marry, but not until the autumn, that
Andzia, as I wrote you in my last letter
We gave Pecia her money back, but we have not yet paid the
interest
The farmers from Zazdzierz say that you were to send 15 roubles
for a feast [for them] ; but don't do it
STANISLAW MARKIEWICZ
174 [June 4, 1907]
[Following his mother's letter of the same date.]
And I have already left [the girl from] Dobrzykow, I go now to
Gostynno, to the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bukowski, to Mania. You
know her since you were called to the mobilization with Goszewski.
They speak about you, and even now you have a greeting from them.
They are all very favorable to me, but I don't know how it will turn
out. Our wedding is not to be celebrated until autumn. As you
know her, write me anything about her. I was pleased very much
with this Maryanna [Mania]. If they only keep their word, then it
will be at last the end with my marrying. Write such a letter as I
could read to them, and only a [separate] bit about Mania herself.
Well, you know yourself how to do. Our crops are average.
This Mania has nationalist ideas like myself, and through this she
pleased me much. And how beautifully she plays the accordeon!
Every second Sunday she plays to me, and so we spend our time gaily
in Gostynno Your brother,
STA[NISLAW] MARKIEWICZ
175 [September 13, 1910]
DEAR BROTHER: When you notice that the conditions [in Amer-
ica] improve, inform me at once; then I shall go to America. Here
nothing succeeds. I have begun now going to Radziwie to a girl, but
488 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
I don't know anything, for here, as you know, none of us succeeds
in marrying at all, and what can be done? See here, Ignac came
from the army in the spring and he marries Andzia, Mlodziejewski's
daughter, while I don't succeed. I already intended to write you
to send me a ship-ticket, but wait still a little. When I learn that
there will be no result in Radziwie, then I will write you at once t
send me a ship-ticket, and I will work it back.
STA[NISLAW] MAR[KIEWICZ]
176 October 23, 1910
DEAR BROTHER: .... I don't know what to do, because if I
were as healthy as formerly I would have asked you for a ship-ticket
long ago and I should be there already, but I am afraid because of this
rheumatism. Just now I have lain in bed for 3 weeks. Now I am
a little better. I went to the doctor. It will be necessary to go more
than once, but our father does not want to give me money. He nags
me still worse than he did you, but not the other children, only me.
He simply drives me away. Since I came from the army and my
clothes and overcoat were bought, I have been walking in them up
to the present. Now winter is coming and I have no clothes for
winter warm enough, on account of my rheumatism. Father said
beforehand that he wouldn't buy any, and he drives me away to the
factory to earn for a sheep-skin coat while I am stih1 sick. And so
often I must go to town for goods. You know that nominally I own
the small shop in Wincentowo, though it goes lamely, because they
take everything home without counting, so whatever we earn, every-
thing will get into the household. Last year we put 60 roubles into
the business, now we have 120 in spite of such a big expense. But
I can take nothing from this. When I bought a cap once father told
everywhere that I would spend the whole shop-stock for my needs.
Every week I sell about 40 roubles of goods. Mostly Elzbietka keeps
the shop now. As soon as I recover, I will probably throw every-
thing up. I will draw the money [from the shop], pay my father the
debt back and go to America, because I am tired of the life with
father.1 If you only send me a ship-ticket I will most gladly work
1 The letter shows a total lack of understanding between the young and the old
generation. The father is not an egotist; he simply does not acknowledge the
personal interests of his son as separated from the interests of the family. And the
son has totally lost the old feeling of familial solidarity. Only, the father goes too
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 489
back whatever I shall owe you Why, there is not such misery
at home. There are about 600 roubles of cash, we bought a horse for
100 roubles, a cart for 40, we gave 100 roubles to Franus. Now,
indeed, we must give him more, because he has bought 6 morgs in
Tokary .... at 275 roubles a morg, and without buildings. She
lives as she did, and he sails as captain upon the ship of Mrs. Jaworska.
He earns 40 roubles a month hi summer, and we don't, know yet how
much in winter. Elzbietka has a suitor. You knew Stasiek
Well, it is the brother of his wife who is courting Elzbietka. He is a
butcher from Lubien; they have a cur ed-meat shop. They were here
on Sunday. Now he intends to come to us next week to buy our hogs.
We have 4 worth 120 roubles I will go to Lubien and learn
what reputation he enjoys. He has two sisters. They want me to
take one of them. They are two brothers; one of them is in America.
Their father and mother are dead. Their name is Topolski. We
know one another already, for his sisters were at our house. The
older is a beautiful woman, only there is nothing [no money]. When
I recover, I will try, but today I shall write a letter to Miss Plebanek
in Jaroslaw, asking for her hand. If I don't succeed there, I will
surely try in Lubien, but if even here nothing [results], then I will
write you, "Send me a ticket or money." ....
STANISLAW MARKIEWICZ
177 December 31, 1912
DEAR BROTHER: You must help me in this, because I must now
leave the home, for you know there better than we do what is going
on here in our country. Your answer will perhaps find me at home
and perhaps not. Father won't give me [money] for the journey, so
I must borrow from somebody. This is a shame indeed. Our
father, though there are 600 roubles cash at home and 400 lent to
people, says that he won't give me anything for the journey. So I
beg you, write father to give me from your money, then I will pay you
far in his group-attitude, because this attitude is connected in his character with a
stronger tendency to make his family rise than that found in an ordinary peasant.
And his tyranny is particulary unbearable because he conceives the progress of the
family's social standing in the strictly traditional peasant way and does not under-
stand that in the new social and economic conditions in which his children have to
live they need more independence than they would have needed forty years ago,
in a closed and isolated farmers' community.
490 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
back as soon as I get to you. If you don't, I shall be obliged to borrow
money from some stranger, but I must go If things don't get
more pressing I will wait for your letter, and if not, then I will borrow
from anybody and go. So write to father either to give money to me,
or to pay my debt As to my marriage, I have now an opportu-
nity, but because of all this I don't know myself what to do and prob-
ably I won't marry.1 .... 0 r
STA[NISLAW] MARKIEWICZ
178 May 4, 1908
DEAR WACIO : I inform you that you wounded my heart so much
with the word which you wrote in that letter, that I did not know how
to comfort myself [probably about his intention to stay in America].
I had never thought that you would write us such a sad word. So
comfort us at least hi your second letter. You ask us how we spent
the carnival. Merrily enough, only we grieved for you
And now write us how the work is going on, and when will you come
back . .
Your loving sister,
E[LZBIETA] M.
179 [November 4, 1909]
DEAR WACEK: We received your photograph and we are very
glad. We thank you for it and we rejoice that you are in good health
and look nice enough. And now you ask about the rose. It grows
nicely; it blossomed twice during the summer. None of the fruit
trees which you planted bore any fruit. You asked for a leaf of the
rose; I send you it. The rose put out a wild branch. I don't know
whether I shall cut it or leave it until you come ; write me. As to the
plum trees, remind me once more I will have it done. The
1 The boy's search for a wife lasts much beyond the usual time. It is not
because he cannot find a suitable girl, but the girls' parents refuse him. The reason
is perhaps less his personality than economic combinations. Stanislaw, acting here
in harmony with his father (or else he would complain about the latter) evidently
asks too much dowry, while he cannot himself have a corresponding fortune.
Even if his father gave him the farm, it would be impossible for him to pay the
brothers' and sisters' parts without mortgaging the farm, unless he got an exception-
ally large dowry. Therefore he would prefer to settle upon his future wife's farm.
But in this case his personality begins to play a r6le. If a farmer agrees to give his
farm to his son-in-law, he wants the latter to be strong, healthy, laborious, while
Stanislaw is the contrary of all these.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 491
nut tree does not grow very well, while the cherry trees grow nicely.
I thank you heartily for the 10 roubles As to Stasiek, write
him as [persuasively as] you can, not to leave off this party [girl] hi
Gostynno, because they are favorable to him, and he does not wish it
much, but would like rather to go to you. So write him as you can
and dissuade him from going. Only let him marry; I think it is time
to finish it. I have time today and therefore I can write you, while
when our mother wrote the last letter, I was with Pecia, and I was
sad that I could not write a few words. As to Teosia, no bad news is
to be heard here. She is sitting modestly after her travels. Grand-
mother is in good health. Write us whether the president has been
elected. I am very sad in thinking that we cannot see one another
for so long a time, but if you are longing in foreign countries, come
soon to our country
Your loving sister,
E[LZBIETA] MARKIEWICZ
1 80 [Date undetermined]
DEAR WACIO: I received your letter for which I thank you
heartily, I am healthy enough and I wish you the same. I am still
a maiden and I feel very happy that I did not marry him [probably
Topolski], for even his companions and my acquaintances approve me
for not having married him. I thank you also heartily for these few
words of good advice. I would beg you very much to write me who
told you all this about him. Indeed I can say that he has a mean
character; just on that account I did not marry him. In short, he
was not for me and I did not marry him. And now I don't know; if
I meet somebody according to my mind, I will get married, but if not,
I can remain a maiden for some time still. I work as before, I have
two girls [apprentices] and Zosia. We sew, we embroider, and so the
time passes away
ELZBIETA MARKIEWICZ
181 March 26, 1913
DEAR WACIO: I beg you very much, if you think that it might
be better for me, please send me a ship-ticket. Instead of both
paying for your board, you would have me as housekeeper if I went
there, and I could earn for myself during the free hours. So, please
1 All planted by the brother; thence their interest for him.
492 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
write me what you think about me, because in May some of my
acquaintances are to go from here to America, so I could go along
with them. .
ELZBIETA M.
182 March 30, 1913
DEAR BROTHERS: I received your letters I wrote you a
letter and now I am writing this postcard I beg you once
more, send me a ship-ticket. We are selling the shop to Kiszkowski,
so I have nothing more to do at home, to tell the truth. Why, I
have spent here 25 years! I hope it is enough. If you don't send me
the ticket, I will go for money ,
ELZBIETA MARKIEWICZ
183 [Exact date undetermined]
DEAR WACIO: You write us to lend money to Pecia. I tell you
truly, as to my brother, that even if we gave her the whole farm and
household, it would be not enough for her; even if we worked for her
from dawn to night, it would not be enough, because it is a gulf for
everything. We told her that you ordered us to lend her money, but
that she had to give a note. She is so unreasonable that she got badly
offended and said that she prefers to borrow from strangers. It is
true that he [Franus, her husband] is not sure at all [of living ?] and
in the case of his death you know what she would say. She has
become now quite changed. Well, you have Stas there. Ask him.
Although it is very bad when one [member of the family] writes
against the other, I must do it. I don't write lies; you are my
brother as much as she is my sister, but she is a woman without
character
Dear Stasio, I thank you also for having sent money for the
overcoat of Alfons. It is true that money is necessary for more than
one thing, while mother is so parsimonious But she is so for
the sake of us all
Your loving sister,
ELZBIETA
[Wishes and greetings.] And Franus has got his salary raised by
Mrs. J[aworska], but all this is not enough. When you throw any-
thing upon this flowing water [of Pecia's expenses], it floats away at
once. r.r .-
[YOUR MOTHER]
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 493
184 January 14, 1914
DEAR BROTHER: [Letters and money received; letters sent;
farm-work.] We have now grinding enough, because the windmill of
Swiecka burned down not long ago. We could have more, but you
know how our father grinds, a grain in two parts, and now everybody
has a smooth palate We work as much as we can, and for
this we have every day fresh "choleras" and "thunders" [swearing
from the father], as you know. But what can be done ? We must
bear it, because it is impossible to shorten one's own life or to go a
contrary way [sic?]. You ask how much money there is in all.
[Enumerates the sums in bank, etc.] Maksym. Przanowski has not
yet given the money back ; he says that it was to be for [building] the
church. Probably we shall be obliged to make a complaint [to the
court]. Wincenty Przanowski hanged himself. Such is the whole
nice species [Przanowski]. Wladyslawa Markiewicz got married.
Polcia was to marry that "cham" [Ham, the biblical person =
ruffian], but it goes on lamely. As to me, I have nothing to write you.
The whole road of my life is sown with thorns The man
[probably, type of man] whom I could marry and even, if necessary,
eat my bread in the sweat of my brow, is not in a hurry to marry me,
while the kind not worth looking at obtrudes himself on me. And my
character is such that instead of 'marrying and suffering woe I prefer
to remain a maiden further. During my whole life I have been the
prey of bad fortune, and so my life is being spent.1
ELZBIETA MARKIEWICZ
185 June 28, 1912
DEAR BROTHER: .... Elzbietka is to marry in the autumn, and
I expect to do the same at carnival, for though I have still time, I am
tired of working, for I have worked honestly. And now I beg you,
dear Wacio, don't be angry, and send me money for a watch
APOLONIA [POLCIA] MARKIEWICZ
'The difference between Elzbieta and Polcia (see the letters immediately
following) is largely innate, but it must have been greatly increased by instruction
and by the fact that Elzbieta had probably had better company by working
outside of her home. The problem is important in a general way. To what
extent is instruction alone able to produce class-distinction ? And it may be noticed
that in Poland it is more effective in this respect than elsewhere, incomparably more
than in the United States. Independently of everything else, wherever instruction
is appreciated at all, it creates a class-distinction as profound as birth, and more
profound than money.
494 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
1 86 [No date]
DEAR WACIO: I thank you heartily for the postcard, for not
having forgotten about me. You ask me whether I have a betrothed
or not; yes, indeed, I have one and I had another. The one I wanted,
they did not allow me, and the one I don't want, they order me to
marry. But I won't marry anybody except a farmer from a village,1
and now hi fact I have 2 of them from Wincentowo. I don't know
whether they will allow me to marry one of them, but if they don't
allow me now to marry the one I intend to, I won't get married at all,
but I intend to go to America in a year
AFOLONIA MARKIEWICZ
187 April 14 [1914]
DEAR BROTHERS: For the first time I write also a few words to
you You write, Stasiek, about Elzbietka. So I beg you, forget
about it I joined the agricultural circle. Now they are
arranging a trip to the province Kalisz, to visit the farms hi the village
Zachowo. This village is the first in all the kingdom of Poland,
because not only the peasants there have good order in the fields and
at home, but they have in the village even telephones, and electric
light in houses and stables. So I want also to go and see it. Ten
years ago it was a village of first-rate thieves. The journey will cost
10 roubles; the departure at the end of May
[ALFONS MARKIEWICZ]
188 [December 2, 1912]
I think I never yet wrote to you, my Stas. Now before the
solemnity of Christmas I will also write to you, for God alone knows
whether we shall see each other any more. Do you remember ^what
we spoke once between us when going to Gombin about the mill of
Dobrzykow ? O my God! I always keep this mill in mind, for it is
like family property.2 I thought that Maks would think about it, but
1 This single phrase shows how perfectly and consciously Polcia is still a
peasant girl and does not want to be anything else. Her mother wrote that it was
she who kept the house. Evidently, she loves housework, farm-work, and country
life and would not sacrifice these to any career which would bring her outside of the
village. The type is frequent.
2 Ojcowizna, land-property handed down from father to son; particularly if
kept for some generations in the same family. Considered more valuable from
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 495
I cannot rely upon him. If you think about it, put money aside and
send it here. We will put it in the savings-bank, and perhaps God will
help us to buy it. There, near the church, it is a place the like of
which cannot be found in the whole province. The new priest had
the tavern abolished. Lis of Gorki bought it from Kowalska for a
joint-stock shop. They had set up the shop in the stone building
of Plebanek, but now they will transfer it here, where the tavern
was.1 ....
[Your father],
J[AN] M[ARKIEWICZ]
DEAR BROTHER: I inform you that we are threshing. When we
finish it I shall go to school, but there is no money. Now I inform
you that Maciek J. has beaten Ziolek [the grandmother's husband].
It is not bad, but he must pay 30 roubles and sit 2 weeks in
prison
IGNACY MARKIEWICZ
189 April 20, 1912
DEAR BROTHERS MAKS AND STAS: [Letters written and received.]
Then I describe to you the state of grandmother's health. After
Christmas first the right arm and leg began to swell .... then the
left arm and leg .... but grandmother still walks. She has grown
so quarrelsome that it is awful. And Ziolkowski [her husband]
abuses her from time to time: " Why does she groan ?" Well, if he
does not come to reason, and if his mouth gets looser we will shut it
up.2 (At present we live hi friendship with him.) I don't know, my
dear brothers, but this swelling of grandmother is probably nothing
else than a sign of death. Ostrowski the carpenter swelled also before
his death, and then he died after a little time. And Cichocki, the
the moral point of view than property individually earned or acquired as dowry.
Here the appreciation is particularly strong because some of the traditions of the
patriarchal noble family are preserved.
1 This letter characterizes the old man perfectly and is the only one he has ever
written to his son.
2 The grandmother married Zi61kowski at an age when she was no longer
supposed to marry. He cannot be assimilated, and she is also estranged but still
a member of the family. Properly she would retire and leave the management of
her property to the family, but her marriage hinders this because Zi61kowski has
no property himself, and cannot claim a support from his wife's children.
496 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
father of Tomasz, also swelled before his death. Do you know that
Switkoszanka died 8 weeks after her marriage? .... Dear Maks
.... you asked me to get the address of Jadzia L^czanka. Well,
evidently I could not get it otherwise than by asking her good man of
a father personally and he, of course, granted my request. Please,
Maks, tell me about your school, whether you are learning in it
already or when will you begin to learn. Nejman Felka's [husband]
was in our house on Sunday after Easter. He praises the writing of
your letters highly. He says that it is evident that you are improving
yourself. It is something very different from what it was. Send us
the form of a note, and the conditions on which you wish to send us
those 1,000 roubles
Your brother,
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
Maks, mother begs you, guard Stas against card-playing and
revelry
IQO August 2, 1912
DEAR BROTHER MAKS: .... Pardon me, please, for not sending
you your school-certificate for so long, for I see from your last postcard
that you need it badly. I guess that you want it to show it in the
school there, do you not ? But I don't know, dear brother, how you
will present it, because it is awfully dirty; it is disagreeable to take it
into the hand. Don't think that is the way I took care of it. It was
already in that state when I got it from that Russian hog.1 [Relates
in 3 pages how he invited a Russian post-official to go hunting, how
he treated him and got him drunk, and how he hoped to get permission
to keep a gun through this official's influence, because these per-
missions were very difficult to get.]
I am in a critical position this year. The orchard is bad, and so
I cannot earn money. The reserve which I had from last year was
exhausted on different purchases, such as clothes, shoes, etc. 0 my
God! how unhappy I am that our father is so indifferent to us in
matters of purchases, and particularly when he smells a rouble in your
pocket then he won't buy anything, and in that way he draws from
you the last grosz Dear brothers Maks and Stas, I don't
1 Either the teacher or some official, to whom Maks may have applied formerly
for a position, leaving the school-certificate with him.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 497
doubt that you love me sincerely, as my brothers, and that after
receiving this letter you will send me [money] for a nice gun. Well,
excuse me and don't be angry. It is only a joke .....
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
[August 2, 1912]
DEAR STAS: I received the papers for which I thank you heartily.
Further, to your continual questions about horses I answer that we
have sold all the horses except my chestnut mare, and instead father
bought one thoroughbred mare, of black color. Father is very well
satisfied with this newly bought mare, and he intends to sell my
chestnut mare also, because they do not fit together; the chestnut
is much smaller and slower. Father received 200 roubles for 3 horses
and paid 220 for one. The newly bought mare is 2^ years old. Then
I mention, dear Stas, that you sent 100 roubles to the address of our
father and you believe probably that the matter is totally settled.
Far from this, father has not yet given the money back to grandmother
and does not even think of giving it. When I asked him, why he
did not give the money to grandmother, he answered: "Your grand-
mother does not need it; has she not enough already ? "J Well, what
do you say to that ? Even grandmother said once to me that it is
strange you do not send the money back for so long a time. Probably
grandmother guesses that it has been sent back but there is nobody
to give it to her. And as to the money which Maks intends to send, it
is very well that our father has to send the notes first. Excuse me,
dear brother, for not writing carefully; my hand is still awfully tired
from mowing barley with a scythe. I will finish it and lie down to
sleep, because tomorrow the same work awaits me .....
WIKTOR
1 Sta§ has probably borrowed money from his grandmother for his journey to
America, the father refusing to lend. The father's unwillingness to give the grand-
mother her money and his open acknowledgment that he wants to keep it makes his
familial attitude still more evident. The same act would be dishonest if performed
by any of his sons; it would be simply dishonest of Sta§ not to send this money back,
because he would keep it for his personal use. But the father does not consider it
dishonest; he does not want it personally for himself, but for the family- fortune.
And the grandmother is still so much a member of the family that her interests
could be subordinated to those of the family as a whole, while on the other hand
she is, through her second marriage, half outside of the family and thus there is a
greater temptation to divert a part of her money to familial purposes.
498 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
IQ2 December 2, 1912
DEAR BROTHER STAS: [Thanks for money sent him.] Further,
I inform you that grandmother's affair] is already settled. She
thanks you also most heartily and wishes you every good. [A
page about the permission to keep a gun, which has not yet come.]
Then, I inform you that mother complains about pains hi her right
arm, so that she cannot sleep. But don't grieve, perhaps God will
grant her to recover slowly Michal serves [in the army], as
before. In his last letter he 'writes that he is trying to become an
orderly [assigned to the personal service of an officer]. O stupid
wretch! He wants to be appointed to keep a Moscovite's backsides
clean! I did not answer anything to this.1 Further, he writes that
if he is not appointed an orderly, he will try to get into a hospital
[as servant]. Well, you see, he does not try at all to return home
[by being pronounced unfit]. My advice is lost. Cieslak's son came
back 3 months ago. He says that they tormented him and tried to
frighten him, but he did not change his behavior until they let him
go. [Probably he pretended or exaggerated some illness.] You see,
that is a man. [Marriages; weather, crops, farm- work; wishes for
Christmas.]
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
I thank you for the poetry "At the Crossway" [probably copied
from some book or paper], and I beg you for more like this one.
193 February 15, 1913
DEAR BROTHERS MAKS AND STAS: .... Three times I began to
write letters to you, but I did not send you any of these letters,
because I did not want to cause you pain by these letters, informing
you about mother's illness, and at the same time about the slight
sickness of our dear little sister Weronika, to which at the beginning we
paid less attention. We waited for mother's health to improve, and
God the Merciful granted to our mother better health, so I started to
write you a letter. But alas! from the slight weakness of S.t P.
["Swi$tej Pamieci," "of sainted memory"] our dear little sister
1 The conception that personal service is humiliating is never found among the
Russian peasants (the position of orderly is much desired hi the Russian army) and
rarely found among the Polish manor-servants. Among the peasant farmers it is
frequent and among the peasant nobility almost universal. -The situation is
evidently aggravated in this case because the man whom Michal would serve is a
Russian.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 499
Weronika, some .... stronger illness developed. We called Doctor
Grzybowski. He said that inflammation of the lungs had developed,
and that there was, alas, no hope of recovery. Nevertheless he did
his best to give her health back to our dear sister Weronika, but all
this was useless, for the deadly illness grew. On January 31, in the
morning we asked the priest from Dobrzykow [to come] with our
Lord Jesus. He prepared S.f P. Weronika, who was conscious, for
death. The next day, on February i, she lost her consciousness. 0
my dear God, how fortunate it was that the priest, with our Lord
Jesus, came in time! From February i, she raved in fever up to
February 3. Then she recovered full consciousness, she ceased to
groan, she wanted to rise from her bed, saying so: "Mother, I will
get up, dress myself and walk a little, for I am so tired [of lying]."
Oh my God, who can imagine our joy in seeing such an improvement
in Weronika's health! But our joy did not last longer than until about
8 o'clock in the evening. Then she began to lose consciousness again.
She called despairingly "Maks!" "Stas!" "Indiana Harbor"
[where both brothers were], then again "Michalek!" and so she called
every one of her relatives and acquaintances more than once. So,
my dear brothers, we did not expect that before her death Weronika
would want to see all of us.1 About eleven in the evening she ceased
to call us, only from time to time she asked for the medicine to drink
which the doctor had prescribed. About i o'clock after midnight, on
February 4, 1913, she ended her life as calmly as if someone extin-
guished a light, in the presence of us all. The body of S.t P. our
sister Weronika was transferred to the church on February 5, at
10 o'clock in the morning, and buried on the same day, after the holy
mass. I mention also, dear brothers, that at the funeral there was
an extraordinary gathering of people. Then I ask you, did you
receive the mourning letters, informing about Weronika's death?
And I beg you very much, tell me, did you have any signs or fore-
bodings ? For we heard a terrible roar, but it was as long ago as June.
I wrote you about it at that time 2
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
1 The familial feeling is always manifested by the peasant at the moment of
death. Death is no more a purely individual matter than marriage or birth. In
this case we do not know the age of the child, and have a suspicion that the brother
reported what should have happened and what would be agreeable to the feelings
of the absent relatives.
3 The expectation of signs foretelling death is a remnant of the old naturalistic
religion. Cf. Introduction: "Religious and Magical Attitudes."
500 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
Dear Stas, I thank you for those few roubles which I received after
Christmas, and I beg you, care for yourself, don't play cards, don't
waste the money which you earn by work. I beg you heartily in God's
name. I am in a terrible sorrow after our beloved Weronika
YOUR MOTHER
194 April 8, 1913
DEAR BROTHER STAS: [Rumors of war; family has purchased
American wheat drill; farming conditions.] You ask me, dear Stas,
about this permission to keep a gun. First I mention to you, may
cholera strangle the Moscovites with their laws and their whole shop.
As you know, this cholera of a "stupajka" [nickname for a Russian
functionary, from the Russian words, "stupai-ka," "go at once,"
symbolizing the passive obedience of a subordinate] wrote bad
information about me, that in 1905-6 I was interested in political
questions. But they have no proofs at all. Opas is angry with us
for not being a mayor, and he gave such an opinion of me to the
constable, and the latter wrote it down. But I have proofs that it is
not true Now the whole affair is sent to the minister of the
interior .... and then the senate will judge it If not, we
shall write a complaint to the emperor, and I will beg Maks to be so
kind as to send it in my name from America.1
Grandmother groans, but walks With Ziolek we live in
good understanding. Ziolek's sister came to grandmother, to stay
with her. Grandmother is angry, for up to the present she has been
groaning alone, and now they will both groan. She is very brittle
already, that Ziolek's sister.
I went to Gostynin on a business matter, and I got acquainted
with the girls of Gostynin. They are nice and rich. If it doesn't end
well with the Kowalczyks I will try to get the favor of one of them.
[WIKTOR]
1 In order to get any governmental permission (to keep a gun as well as to get
a passport, to open a business, to teach, to pass an examination, to go to any
superior school, etc.) it is always indispensable in Russia to be politically "well-
thinking and reliable," and to present a corresponding certificate based upon the
opinion of the police and gendarmerie. The certificate may be refused even
without stated reasons, on mere suspicion that the individual has ideas which are
unfavorable to the "existing order of things," although he may never have acted
against the government or even talked against it.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 501
195 April 25 [1913]
Stas! We are very glad that you have such a lively interest in
everything. [News about friends, farm-stock, crops, weather.]
Frybra built a windmill, but he has nothing to grind. In our mill
there is more to grind. Frybra is almost raging; he loaf s around and
invites the farmers.1 Opas became a commune-assessor
Miackowski is a good mayor up to the present The parish of
Dobrzykow got another priest, a young and active one. He dislikes
liquor immensely, or rather drunkards; he hates them. So Mrs.
Kowalska is glad that she has sold the tavern, and the new purchaser
is tearing the hair from his head. The peasants keep far away from
the tavern, and whoever draws nearer looks toward the church, and
most often turns back, because evidently in his ears rings the powerful
voice of the priest saying from the chancel : " If I see you — God forbid !
— in the tavern, a great displeasure will befall you." And when a
peasant passes by the tavern, he only turns and looks at it.
Michal is in Smolensk. I don't know whether he will get off
[from the army], because the physician is evidently a scoundrel, and
Michal does not know very well how to look out for himself. Well,
but it pains him always just the same, and they cannot cure him.
Perhaps they will let him go. May God help him! Michal regrets
that he did not fly to America, but it is silly. [Because then he could
never come back.] (Write your letters to Michal carefully, so as not
to betray him, God forbid !) I think so, that if Michal perseveres they
will let him go sooner or later. [Sends photograph; describes farm-
work.] With Miss Kowalik, or rather with the Kowaliks, nothing is
sure as yet, but now within a short time some result will follow. I
will inform you at once. Miss Swat is now trying to be very pleasing.
After Kowalik, I put Miss Swat in the first line
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
196 May 24, 1913
DEAR BROTHER STAS: .... In your last letter you expressed
the wish to send to my address 700 roubles which you earned and put
aside. I am very glad that you economized such a nice bit of money,
and as these American banks are not so secure as the communal
savings-bank here, you had really better send it home, and I will give
1 Inviting customers is considered worthy only of a Jew.
502 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
it to the communal bank * I must add, that here in our country
rumors are heard that American money is to be equaled with the
Russian money [$i is to be worth i rouble]. Well, if this happened
more than one would lose the half of the money he has saved.2 In
view of all this I advise you, dear Stas, sincerely and truly, send your
money home. I assure you on my conscience that I won't lose it and
won't neglect it, i.e., I will put it into the bank. In case I needed it,
I would give you a written evidence, for if I am successful with the
Kowalczyks in Czyzew, this money will be a great help to me. It
would be necessary to show at least 2,000 there, so if you sent your
money, I would be that much bolder, because no stranger would know
that it is borrowed money. I say at least 2,000. It would be well
to show even more, for although they don't need money themselves,
there are [competitors] who have 5,000 cash of their own.* I don't
know, dear Stas, whether my efforts will bring me happiness or an
irretrievable loss. Oh my great God! I implore you to help me.
[News about orchards, crops, farm- work; marriages of friends.]
[WIKTOR]
197 [No date]
MY DEAR STAS: You ask me for my opinion about marriage, and
you ask about Swatowna [daughter of Swat], My brother, my Stas,
I don't know what lot awaits me. About this Swatowna, as you
1 The distrust in American banks is justified, as many bankers, most of them
Jewish, operating among the Polish immigrants have proved dishonest, while the
communal savings-bank is under the immediate control of the commune.
3 Rumors of this kind come from various sources. Sometimes they may come
from a misunderstood newspaper article; sometimes from the story of a returning
emigrant who, not understanding the conditions abroad and having no standard
for distinguishing the possible from the impossible, conceives and believes anything;
sometimes the agents or Jewish merchants spread such news intentionally in order
to profit by it. Often it is impossible even to guess their source.
3 This shows that the question of dowry brought by the man or the girl is not
exclusively economic. The girl Kowalczyk is rich enough to take a husband with-
out money, or at least not to care for the amount of money which he may bring.
And it would not be considered humiliating for a man without fortune to marry
such a girl so far as he is personally concerned, because he would give his work.
Nor would it be a humiliation for the girl to marry a man without money, provided
he were her equal in education. But since in marriage the man is not an isolated
individual but a member of a family, and since fortune has more importance for
the social standing of the family than for the social standing of the individual, the
man ought to have money, as it is a proof that he comes from a rich family.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 503
know, I tried so hard to gain her favor; I took so many hard steps,
and all this brought me nothing. I should have come out all right
there, for as this Miss Swatowna told me, she "gave a basket" [the
mitten] to Rudkowski because she loved me. But, finally, when I
expected to end the business, then they [my family] began to find
fault with it, particularly mother. Well, I gave up the game, I
stopped calling on her. How they must talk about me there now!
Swatowna is still a girl. I don't know what will be the end of the
hopes with which I still deceive myself about the Kowalczyks in
Czyzew. If God helped me, it would be the best there. All this is
in the hands of God. But it is a hard nut to bite, for there is a crowd
of various men around, and the Kowalczyks themselves look upon this
business from several sides. I hear that they prefer me, but there
was a time when things were so bad that I said to myself that I
wouldn't go there again. I was there a few times and I never found
her. Evidently she hid herself and she hid herself not because she
hated [disliked] me, but because different [marriage] brokers laughed
at her [for receiving attention from me].1 Worse still, I noticed that
the Kowalczyks began to treat me indifferently, particularly Mrs. K.
This observation pained me greatly; but what could I do? I gave
up my efforts, though I was sorry. But evidently Kowalczyk did
not want to part with me in this way, for he understood my wishes,
found some occasion and came to us with his brother Piotr.* He
pretended to come for quite a different business, but we guess that
he wanted also to look at our situation. Well, we tried to treat them
as well as we could, and it seems that it pleased them well enough, and
1 As the peasant is particularly susceptible to ridicule, this is often sufficient to
hinder a marriage. A girl will hardly ever marry a man if she suspects that for any
reason her choice may be ridiculed. The reasons are various. The most frequent
is the inferiority of social position, as in Wiktor's case. The occupation is also
very important. There are occupations which make a good marriage impossible
for the man. Among these are catching stray dogs hi the streets, sterilizing horses
and cattle, serving in Jewish houses, and in general occupations having a con-
nection with a Jewish business. (This last prejudice tends to disappear except hi
connection with personal service.) There are other occupations to which only a
slight ridicule is attached, such as shoemaking, tailoring, peddling. Another
source of ridicule is a physical defect, however slight. Similar prepossessions are
found against girls, but the lack of variety in woman's occupations makes them less
pronounced except as against servants in Jewish houses.
2 It is a bad policy to dismiss an unacceptable suitor too hastily, for the more
suitors a girl has the greater her value for each of them, and this influences the social
standing of the family. Cf. Introduction: "Marriage."
PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
when I meet them they treat me quite differently. Well, now I went
also to them in the evening, on April 2, and called upon them as if
passing by. They received me well enough, and Miss Mania with
such a bashfulness came to the room where I was and we greeted each
other very heartily. However, we spoke little together for her uncle
was in a very good humor and tried to treat me well, and moreover it
was rather late. So I have described to you briefly my whole passage.
.... Now I mention that I met Bankowna. She asked me about
you, when you will come. I fibbed and said that you will come after
Pentecost. She told me to greet you politely and begs you to write
her a letter. If you want to, write, but fib cleverly. [News about
marriages and deaths.]
About Jan Ziolek [probably the son of their grandmother's second
husband] we don't know anything. He has not come yet. And
perhaps he went farther inside of America with a whore
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
198 August 24, 1913
MY DEAR BROTHER MAKS: .... In August 14, 1 was in Warsaw
and I asked the editors of Lud Polski to send you a few copies of the
paper. They sent it to the College in Cambridge Springs, Pa. You
had asked for Pan Tadeusz of Mickiewicz: I bought you the whole
collection of his poems You wrote a letter to the Kowalczyks
[in my favor]. Waste of time and paper
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
199 POPLACIERZ, April 13, 1914
DEAR BROTHER STAS: When I was in Grabie father got a letter
just then from you in which you complain that you have no news
from me. In my last letter I told about my wedding which was to be,
and it was performed on February 1 8 at 12 o'clock, at noon.1 A few
days later .... I sent a letter to our dear brother Maks .... and
I expected that you would meet him Still, I don't consider
myself excused, but I beg you, my dear brother, understand my situa-
tion, how many different indispensable affairs are to be settled, and
1 He married neither of the girls mentioned before, but a new acquaintance, an
orphan girl living at some distance. The girl's dowry is very large, as 30 morgs of
land are worth at least 6,000 roubles.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 505
they absorb all the time and cause trouble, until one comes to the steps
of the altar and gets married. And do you believe that all this trouble
and turning around and hurrying are over when one has performed
the wedding-ceremony? Oh no, my dear brother, it was only a
beginning of all this. Now I have whole series of these affairs and
troubles before me. I won't mention to you my important affairs
before the wedding, because I am sure that you imagine them; I
describe only part of my actual troubles. On March 28, the family-
council turned over to me the whole farm, and I received it in the
communal court of Gombin. I received only 30 morgs of land with
the winter grain sown, well, and 15 korcy of potatoes and a part of
the barn filled with straw. Well, how is one to begin farming now,
when he has nothing to take into his hand, neither cow nor horse,
neither cart nor rope, nothing at all ? The roofs upon the building,
dear Stas, are so to speak, in a deplorable state; when rain comes, it
rains in the courtyard and it rains in the barn, it rains in the stable
and it rains in the cellar — it rains everywhere. The fences near the
house are ruined, for there are none except near the house. Wherever
you look and whatever you look at, you must repair. In short, it is
as tenants usually leave it. And here even the smallest thing, whether
for household or for cultivating the soil, must be bought. Is my
father able to buy me everything, from A to Z, in spite of his sincerest
wishes ? Already my father has given me in all this more than once
the proofs [of his good wishes], and I am and will be grateful to him up
to my death.1 My small savings were exhausted for my wedding, and
only now I understand what it is to begin farming when you have
nothing ready So, please, don't be angry with me for not
writing.
As to the wedding, I mention first, that the weather was splendid
on this day The ceremony was very nice, the church was
beautifully adorned with green and lights; as many people came to
look as on Sunday. In short, it was imposing. The priest from
Radziwie demanded 25 roubles for the wedding, to be paid beforehand,
but he did it splendidly, and I am very much satisfied. We did not
1 The father's change of attitude toward the son is perfectly clear. The son's
marriage is a familial matter, and thus there is no place for parsimony. The
wedding must be splendid, because of the family's standing; the son must be helped
in establishing himself upon his wife's farm, because it is to the family's interest
that he should become a prosperous farmer. This investment of money is pro-
ductive from the familial standpoint.
506 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
make a big feast; my father paid for the whole festival, because it
was so agreed. [Enumerates the guests, "only the nearest friends
and relatives," about 50 persons.] The guests were richly entertained
and abundantly feasted, so the satisfaction was general. We did not
collect for a caul T
Now I describe to you, what I have already upon my farm. A
harrow, a plow, a cart, everything new, one cow which my father gave
me. Antosia's [the wife's] grandmother gave her one young cow big
with calf, and 10 hens. My little old grandmother has given me
nothing up to the present except one small cheese for the holidays and
half a pint of butter. Well, may God reward little grandmother even
for this.2 But my father and mother help me the best they can and
in whatever they can. Perhaps our Lord God will help me in the
future also, then I will always remember this. Meanwhile I pray to
Him for health and long life for them. I mention further that with
the help of God we shall be able to live here pretty well. I have
many plum and cherry slips, so it will be possible to enlarge the
orchard, which is one of the sources of the welfare of a farmer
My father and mother are very much satisfied with their daughter-
in-law and with all this marriage in general
I come to the end of this letter as speedily as I can, because as soon
as I put the pen aside I must prepare myself to catch the steamer in
order to go to Grabie, to my dear parents, to look once more at the
old corners
WIKTOR M.
20O GRABIE POLSKIE, July 5 [1914]
MY VERY DEAR SxASiECZEK [STAS]: .... I came today to our
parents for business, and on this occasion I write to you
They complain here at home that it is hard for them to provide for all
the work, and there is nobody to help them. We learn that you also
have to work very hard there, and that moreover you have lost your
health. They ask you therefore to come back. Evidently, if you are
getting on badly, come at once; if well, remain still for some time.
1 Old habit of collecting money among the guests for the bride's dresses. Cf.
Introduction: "Marriage."
2 The grandmother, by her second marriage, has lost the familial feeling and
feels no obligation to help Wiktor.
..
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 507
We are about to have a terrible lawsuit with the priest of Dobrzykow
and those Hams [ruffians] beyond the range. Oh, thieves, thieves!
Those Hams and the priest and the judge are going hand in hand. My
brother, what things are going on here!
Your brother,
WIKTOR MARKIEWICZ
201 SOUTH CHICAGO, August 7, 1906
DEAR BROTHER WACLAW [really cousin] : Fortune arranged it so
that unexpectedly we both became pilgrims in America. So I feel
my brotherly attachment to you, and that it is so, let it be proved by
my letter addressed to you, whose address I got from home.1 I dare
say that perhaps you care less to establish a regular correspondence
with me here in America, but it is only a supposition. How it is in
reality the future will show.
So I inform you that I came to America, i.e., to New York, on
February 13, and then I went to my friends hi New Kensington
There I worked up to May 26. I worked in a glass factory 8 hours a
day. The work was not heavy, but hot. I earned $12 . 50 to $14 . oo
a week; it depended on how much glass was made.
I left because the factory closed I went to Chicago.
There I found my acquaintances and my cousin Leonard Krol, my
mother's uncle's son, with whom I am living up to the present. Since
I came to South Chicago, I am working with Polish carpenters 8 hours
a day. I am paid 35 c. an hour. And naturally, while it is summer, I
am very busy with this work, but in winter it will surely stop. Then
I hope to get into a factory .... or carshop for the same work. On
the 2d of this month I received a letter from home, favorable enough,
and at the same time your address. So I want to learn about you,
what you are doing, where and with whom you live. And in general
inform me about your success. Whatever you ask me, I will gladly
inform you about I send you hearty wishes of happiness,
health and good success, I embrace you and kiss you.
Your brother,
MAKSYMILIAN [MAKS MARKIEWICZ]
1 Typical, disinterested revival of family feelings. It is not the mere result of
loneliness, for Maks lives with another cousin.
508 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
2O2 March 27, 1907
DEAR BROTHER: Your letter satisfied me very much, for you have
good work. I remember the letter which you wrote to me last
summer; I pitied you then, when you described how you worked in a
glass factory for $i . 50 a day. My hearty advice to you would be to
hold steadily to carpenter's work, particularly in carshops, for though
they pay better in other works, it is not so steady as in a carshop.
Moreover, if you know how to work about cars you can find this work
in the whole of America. I intend also in the future to get into a
passenger carshop, for not far from me there is a big carshop in which
thousands of carpenters are working. It is, I have heard, the main
carshop for whole America, called "Pullman." From there come the
most splendid cars for all lines. Look carefully, then you will surely
see these cars with the inscription, "Pullman."
When Stasio comes, if there is nothing favorable for him where you
are, let him come to me, then I will help him as much as I can. But
you know that a man who comes fresh from our country can with
difficulty, find good work, for he is not acquainted with the American
habits and does not understand the language. Therefore I warn you,
let Stasio not be very capricious in the beginning. I wish [advise] him
also to try carpenter's work 1
MAKSYMILIAN
1 The problem of work, predominant in this letter and important in all the
letters of American Poles plays no such role in the life of the Polish peasant-farmer.
With him work, that is work for others, is only an additional means of existence, and
property is his main interest. There is in the old country no hope of advance
through work. It is undertaken only as a means of supplementing an otherwise
impossible existence, and is miserably paid. In this respect American emigration,
with its many possibilities and its relatively vast range of good and bad chances,
effects a profound revolution in the psychology of the peasant, and the problem
of work becomes at once the central problem. Interests of the city-workman are
added to those of the peasant, without supplanting them, and the result is that the
workman of peasant origin differs from the hereditary city- workman in two respects:
(i) He has no interest in the work itself but considers it exclusively with regard to
the wage; (2) he looks upon his labor, not as a means of organizing his life once and
forever, but as upon a provisional state, a means of attaining property, which is
for him the only possible basis of a steady life-organization. The good job, particu-
larly in America, is for the peasant nothing but a good chance from which he must
get as much as possible, while for a man with a workman's psychology and with the
same tendency to rise, the good job will be either an end in itself or a means of
getting a still better job. From this results also the apparent stinginess and low
standard of life with which the American workman reproaches the Polish immigrant.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 509
203 September 5, 1907
DEAR BROTHER: .... I see that you did not receive my last
letter .... and you probably think that I have forgotten you.
But in this respect you are mistaken, dear brother, for I don't intend
ever to forget anybody, and particularly you. As to your supposition
that some woman turned my head, you almost guessed it. But I
know also how to turn women's heads. Only I keep always in mind
the severe American laws in this regard.1 [Was slightly hurt in his
left hand; expects to get insurance money.]
MAKSYMILIAN
204 INDIANA HARBOR, April 30, 1908
DEAR BROTHER WACLAW: .... I inform you that I moved
from South Chicago to Indiana Harbor, nearer my work, so that now
The man with a workman's psychology, considering hired work as his more or less
permanent condition, will try to live as comfortably and pleasantly as his means
permits, for this life is normal for him. The man with the peasant psychology,
considering hired work as a temporary chance, will reduce his actual needs to a
minimum, postponing every pleasure of life until the end of his work, for this life
is for him provisional and abnormal.
The letters of Maks give us a good example of the evolution of this attitude.
In the beginning Maks is an instructed peasant, economizing, putting money aside,
thinking of returning and probably of acquiring some property at home. Then
he hesitates, and is half-decided not to return; he is not yet decided to remain a
workman, but he already makes expenses which only a workman, never a peasant,
would make, such as buying a watch for $60. He nevertheless still thinks of prop-
erty and writes about buying a house. And finally, he does something which is
absolutely contrary to peasant psychology; he decides to spend all his money on
instruction, and goes to a college. This proves, that no longer property, but hired
work has become his life-business, and that his peasant attitude in economic
matters has changed into a typical workman's attitude. Cf. Introduction:
"Economic Life."
1 The attitude of Maks toward the problem of love is already to some extent
that of the middle class. In the peasant class love is always related to marriage,
even if there is much flirting before making the definite choice; in the middle class
it becomes an end in itself, a kind of a sport, of which marriage in each given case
may be the result, but is not necessarily the acknowledged aim. Of course, as
sexual intercourse between unmarried people is normally excluded in the middle
class, there must be a sufficient degree of culture in order to make the relation
interesting in spite of this limitation and in spite of the lack of an immediate refer-
ence to marriage, and it is also usually possible only when the individual is no
longer dependent upon the family. Cf. Introduction: "Marriage."
510 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
I can go on foot to the factory and I don't need to pay 15 c. a day for
the railway-passage.1
I was much pleased with your intention to learn English, and even
higher [subjects], for if you have some instruction, you will have an
assured existence in this country. I guess that you regret that you
did not come to America a few years sooner [before his military
service], and did not learn English instead of learning Russian [in the
army], you could say today boldly that your existence is secure.2
I got a letter also from our country, from father, mother, and
brother Wiktor. When Wiktor was still in Petersburg I wrote him
that I intended to marry in America, and that I would therefore never
come back to our country. I asked him to repeat to my parents my
decision wholly [as I wrote it], but, instead of sending it by letter, he
told it himself to my parents when he came back home. This is
what he wrote me, that he was able to notice: My mother was very
much troubled about it and began to cry, longing for me, while my
father cared about it very little, and Wiktor noticed that father cared
little about it. Then, my mother begs me much, in her first letter to
me, to remove these thoughts from my head, to come back to our
country, while my father does not mention a word about my returning
home, only informs me with joy, that Wiktor came back healthy from
the army. And when Wiktor was to draw the lot, my father, as I
heard, exerted himself [to get him free], and even gave to some official
200 roubles to this effect, so that if the commission in Gostynin
exempted Wiktor from the military service, it would cost my father
200 roubles, but if not, then the official would pay the money back.
Well, the commission did not exempt him, and my father got the
money back. Therefore he writes me now [when Wiktor, because of
bad health, has been sent back from the army], that Wiktor is there
and the money is there. From [hi spite of] his joy, as my brother
writes me, father would not even buy him clothes for Easter. In a
word, dear brother, I don't see in my father any heart for me, now no
more than formerly.3 At the same time I got a letter from my
1 He had lived for a year as described in order to be with a remote cousin.
2 We find here already a standpoint very different from that of the peasant
tradition. The question of "existence" is put upon a purely individual basis.
But this standpoint is not yet definitely accepted, as the following paragraph shows.
* Maks evidently had his father sounded with reference to determining what
were his chances of receiving the farm or of being established on another if he
returned, and the uncordial attitude of his father perhaps had an effect in determin-
ing the individualistic sentiments in the earlier part of the letter.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 511
mother, written with her own hand. She weeps for me and she asks
me with tears to come back to our country. My heart grieves at
the words of my beloved mother, and I am ready to satisfy her wish
in the future.
As to the question how I look upon religion and socialism, dear
brother, I don't bother myself profoundly with either the first or the
second. Not with the former, because I know this much, that I am
a Catholic, and I perform the duties of a Catholic as far as I can. I
am not devout, for I have no time to pray, because every Sunday I
must work, and — I confess it to you alone — I worked even on Easter
from 7 until 2 But nevertheless I desire to remain a Catholic
up to my death.
As to politics, I am very little interested in any questions or
parties; when I have a little time, I buy a paper for i c., I read it, and
there it all ends < M MARKIEWICZ
205 September 22, 1908
DEAR BROTHER: .... After waiting for 6 months I received at
last a letter from my father, with rather favorable news They
are succeeding pretty well, for my father intends to buy in Dobrzykow
the "murowanka" [farm with stone buildings] from Mr. Plebanek for
3,300 roubles, but he has not this whole sum, so he addressed himself
to me for some help. I did not refuse him help in this affair, but it
seems to me now that perhaps I acted impolitely. I asked my father
to send me first notes for 1,000 roubles or more, and promised to send
money at once after receiving these. (Tell me your opinion about
this question of notes and sending money in general.) I add that if I
asked for notes it was because my confidence in my father has been
ruined during my stay in America. If you wish, I can tell you about
f M. MARKIEWICZ
1 In comparison with Maks, Waclaw remains more of a peasant, in spite of his
socialism. Instruction is not for him a means of getting a position on a higher social
level. He is enough above the peasant to appreciate instruction in itself inde-
pendently of its immediate practical application, but not enough to make of it a
new basis of life. Economically he is satisfied to belong to the lower class, and
wants to rise only socially, like Elzbieta, his sister. Maks, on the contrary, is not
interested in instruction and theoretical problems as a matter of distinction, but
he gets further from the peasant ideology than Waclaw, and is able to make instruc-
tion a new life-basis which will allow him to get totally outside of the peasant class
economically as well as socially. Waclaw expresses his desire to do the same as
Maks, but it does not seem that he fulfilled it.
512 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
206 December 14, 1908
DEAR BROTHER: I am very much grieved that you are in so bad
a position. I can well imagine your painful situation, and I should
be glad to help you, dear brother, and at the same time I would reach
the object of my wishes to live together, or near each other in this
foreign land. But now it is simply impossible. In the factory
where I am working very few men have good work — only the engineers
and we three carpenters. As to the ordinary workers in the mill, may
God pity them, so bad is their work I would not wish it, not
only not to my brother, but not even to the Russian [tsar] Nicholas to
get it by my protection [assistance]. Perhaps in the future you will
have occasion to see it yourself; then you will agree with me that I was
right As to the carshops, they are not here, but near Chicago,
but I hear that even they don't work with full speed, as the papers
have drummed it after the election of Taft. If you want money,
write to me and I will send you some r With me everything is
good. I am healthy, I work steadily, only I am bored here, because
in this small town I am as solitary as in a forest Write me
what do you think about the Polish National Alliance and the Polish
Sokols
M. MARKIEWICZ
207 August 16, 1909
DEAR BROTHER WACLAW: .... I received a good letter from
my parents, and besides the letter I received beautiful gifts from my
parents, brought by Witkowski's brother — a gold watch chain, my
monogram sewed with gold and silver threads and six fine handker-
chiefs, marked. I am very much pleased with these tokens, and
from joy I bought a gold watch for $60 . oo.2 I won't write you more,
for I intend .... to come to you next Sunday
MAKSYMILIAN
208 October 5, 1909
DEAR BROTHER WACLAW: .... I inform you about an offer
from which you will perhaps profit. My old boss told me today that
he had much work, so perhaps I knew some carpenters, and if so I
1 He kept this promise, but without taking money from the bank.
2 Cf. No. 202, note.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 513
should send them to him. I told him that I had a brother carpenter
(i.e., you) who was working, but if the work would be steady, I could
bring him. He answered that he hoped to have steady work. So
I advise you to come, dear brother .... we would live here in the
foreign land together We could meet him in South Chicago
and speak about the business while drinking a glass of beer
MAKS
209 ISLAND CITY, November 18, 1911
DEAR BROTHER: .... I am glad to hear that you want to send
me your money for keeping. I see that you smother [hoard] it well.
So send it and don't ask whether I will accept it. Describe how long
the work there can last, what are you building, and how do you live
there. I think there are probably colds and snows Take
care not to catch cold and not to journey thence [into the other
world]. Write more about yourself and the country. Are you
satisfied with your success ? With me there is no news
M.
Finally, I shall inform you that I learned something which you
supposed I would never learn. You were mistaken. Well, and
because of this I have lost in you something forever. First, I confided
you this [secret], as to a brother. Then, when I noticed that I had
done badly [imprudently] I begged you [not to repeat it, saying] that
if it comes through you to the daylight, I should have to pay with
my good name. And so it is. But you did not care about anything,
and you betrayed me. Be your own judge. I owe it also to the good
memory which you have, for you repeated everything very exactly.
MAKS
210 December i, 1911
DEAR BROTHER WACLAW: We received today a letter for you
from our country and I send it to you. Excuse me please for its being
opened, but you know how everybody is curious when anything comes
from our country, so we [Stasiek and I] tore the envelope and satisfied
our curiosity. Your parents write about a whole series of accidents
which they had lately. The most important is the news about that
horse. It is a pity to lose such big money as he was worth. Stasiek
says that it was a nice horse. We received also a letter from home,
514 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
but there everything is well. First, everybody is in good health, and
my father bought 5 morgs of land from our neighbor Switek, near
ours, for 1,100 roubles. Further, my brother Wiktor intends to
marry during the carnival a Miss Kowalik from Czyzewice. Stasiek
says that it would be a splendid business. The girl is young, educated
well enough, the only daughter, and her parents have a farm worth
about 15,000 roubles. Wiktor hopes that he will reach his goal there,
because those people are even some remote relatives of my grand-
mother Ziolkowska, and this means something too. Further, Wiktor
asked me to send him about 1,000 roubles, for our father has spent
most of his money on that land which he bought. Probably I ought
to help him for some time. What do you think ?
Now, you wished so well to Miss H. G. ; but I learned that, as it
turns out, she seeks herself the same [danger] against which you
warned her.1 A proof is the fact, that not long ago she wrote a letter,
such a fawning one, to that "priest" [seminarist], and asked him to
accompany her [to walk with her] again. So if she knows everything,
how she was betrayed, and dared to address herself to him with such
an oration [sic], it is enough to give us an idea of her virtue. But he
gave her, I heard, a rather sharp answer, owing to the occupation
which she had, that is, she works in a larger sort of a shoemaker shop,
just opposite the St. Stanislaus College. She sews buttons on the
shoes, puts laces in, and so on. With a lady who has such a position he
won't have anything to do — so this student answered her. Enough
for the present about this Miss H. G. At the first opportunity we can
speak more I have somewhat important business to speak
about, concerning the purchase of a certain house here in Indiana
Harbor 2
Your brothers forever,
M[AKS] and S[TANISEAW] MARKIEWICZ
211 VALPARAISO, August 21, 1912
DEARWACLAW: .... I shall be in Chicago probably on the 31 st
of this month. I must make a few purchases before going to Cam-
bridge Springs, Pa. Among many others, I must buy Webster's
Dictionary, which costs $18.00 edited in 1912. An older edition can
1 Refers probably to the content of his preceding letter. Waclaw probably
warned the girl against Maks and told her of some previous love story of his cousin.
2 A recrudescence of the peasant property interest.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 515
be bought for $12 . oo. It is an indispensable thing in the school. As
to my leaving the school of Valparaiso, it is not an unexpected occur-
rence, for I planned beforehand to do it. As to the English language,
I shall have time enough to learn it in 5 years, and in the school of
the Polish National Alliance a year can be spent for $150 while here
in Valparaiso it would cost me $300; so it is worth doing, if only for
this reason Before I come, be so kind and try to learn from
somebody about second-hand bookstores, so we can both go and buy
this book
MAKS
212 SMOLENSK, January 9, 1912
DEAR BROTHERS: "Praised be Jesus Christus!" My pen wrote,
and my heart wept that it did not see you for so long a time. [In verse.]
Now I send you the sad news that I have been taken to this accursed
army. [Describes how he was sent with other recruits to Smolensk.]
The physician sent me to the hospital where I am lying the third week
already and I don't know how long I shall lie and what will happen to
me further. God knows it. In the hospital they give bad food, or
rather not so bad as little, but for the work which we have it is enough.
There are 23 of us here with ear disease. There are 10 Poles, but they
are all from the province of Lublin; I am alone from the province of
Warsaw. I am not bored, for I have a good companion who was for
a whole year in the agricultural school at Pszczelin. He tells me about
this school, and time passes. We have a good physician in the
hospital, but only few men are let go, so I don't know what they will
do with me. Perhaps only a miracle of God will tear me away from
this jaw
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
213 May 26, 1912
.... DEAR BROTHERS: .... I am waiting now for a letter
from you, because I received six roubles, sent by you, for which I
thank you heartily. They will be very useful for different expenses,
for up to the present I had not even money for buying tobacco,
because I have not received anything sent from home. And here in
Smolensk everything is expensive, average boot-soles cost 3 zloty
.... a loaf of wheat bread, which in our country can be bought for
3 copecks, here costs 5 copecks.
5i6 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
I never expected that such a bad lot would befall me, as it proves
now, for if I had known that I should serve,1 1 should never have come
here, to this muddy and dirty Smolensk. I should have done much
better if I had gone to America instead of you, dear brother Stanislaw.
They plague us, God forbid! We hoped that after the oath [of
fidelity] they wouldn't plague us so much, but it is still worse. Till
noon they make us run [exercise] near the barracks. Afternoon they
send us to work They expect the tsar to come to Smolensk
this year, and they plague us the more for it. I write home that I am
getting on not badly, but if mother knew what conditions I have here,
she would shed many tears.2 I shall probably expiate for you and for
myself.3 I am walking like a dead man, for it is so painful to serve.
You have extricated yourself, but I shall hardly succeed. I go often
to the medical office, but what is the result ? We have a physician
who is simply a thief, an old dog. Whenever I go to him, he seals
my ear and writes something He says that I am spoiling my
ear myself. He says that he is writing a report and that he is sending
me to the court-martial, but there is nothing to this court. He only
tries to frighten me, or the devils know what he thinks He
did not do anything bad to me up to the present, except that he won't
send me to the hospital. I beg our Lord God and God's Mother for
it, because, although in the hospital they gave little to eat, yet it
was possible to sleep and to rest enough. I often see all the men with
whom I lay in the hospital Only one, from the province of
Lublin, has been set quite free Another, about whom I
know .... whose hair fell out and whose head was left as bald
as your knee, or as the head of Korzuszek, was not set entirely
free, but only sent home for 6 months to recover. [Describes
1 He expected either to draw a high number which would exempt him or to be
sent home by the recruiting commission on account of his artificially provoked ear
trouble.
3 This regard for the mother is typical. It seems somewhat a custom not to
complain to one's parents about the military service. Cf. No. 218; also No. 72,
and other series containing soldiers' letters.
3 Stanislaw, like Wiktor, was set free on account of sickness, after having
served a short time. Therefore he did not need to go to America in order to avoid
military service, and for this reason Michal regrets that he did not go himself
instead of his brother. "Expiate" means here "suffer the predestined amount of
misery."
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 517
weather, exercise and work.] O, God's Mother, deliver me from
this Moscovite jaw ! . . . .
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
Please don't write home about my "luxurious" life in the army,
for mother will grieve.
214 July 14, 1912
DEAR BROTHERS: .... As to my illness, I don't go to the
medical office now, but I await the winter and the cold. It is true
that I am afraid of these dogs the physicians lest they send me to
the court-martial, because he decided at once that I had done it
intentionally Whenever I went there, he always told me not
to irritate it, and always put gauze and cotton inside. If he put it
loosely, it leaked, but if he put it tightly, so that I was not able to
, then it did not leak. Now I am waiting for the cold; I will
complain of the cold [as irritating my ear] and go often to the medical
office. If the physician knew with certainty that it is spoiled [inten-
tionally], he would have sent me to the court-martial, and long ago,
because he is a bit of a dog's brother. Now I won't write you more
about it .... but when you answer, brother Stanislaw, do it
carefully, that you may not betray me. During June we looked here
at the flying of beautiful aeroplanes It was like a bird with
wings, and when it rose, it twanged like a threshing machine
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
215 August 19, 1912
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I inform you about my military service,
that it is going on slowly, day after day, further and further. We
have ended already our duties in the summer camps, amid heat which
reached 40° [Reaumur or Centigrade], .... and now the weather has
changed; it is cold and it rams every day. They plagued us in the
camp, it is true, but it will be still worse, because we are to go to
Moscow in a few days for maneuvers which will last for 2 weeks, and
then for a week there will be military review by the tsar. It will be
hard if it rains then, dear brother. God forbid! To get into this
accursed army and to serve — what for? To waste in vain your
health and youth ! Dear brother Stanislaw, I am so weary and home-
sick, God forbid! Whenever I remember anything, my heart almost
5i8 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
bursts open with grief. Why did I not go instead of you to America ?
I regret it always, but it is too late. Well, even now I don't lose hope
in God. Perhaps our Lord God will grant to me such time and
desirable moment, as we both desire, you and I. Meanwhile, I don't
go to the medical office, but I plan to get sick during the maneuvers,
when we are in Moscow. There perhaps they will leave me in the
same hospital where you were, for, as people say .... there it is
easier to be set quite free. Here in Smolensk it is very difficult;
they let only the men go who have been operated, or those who are
dying, and even those are not set totally free, but only for some time,
until they recover
When I had written up to this passage, I was told that I shall be
left here .... because they consider me unhealthy But
although I remain here, I shall still have a bad tune. Every day I
shall be obliged to keep guard at the post. But it will be better than
at the maneuvers. It is bad in the army, nothing good ever happens.
Dear brothers, you ask me whether I need money. I need it really,
because if I wanted to satisfy all my needs I ought to have 10 roubles
a month; only then could I be a little free. But when I got those few
roubles, they were spent I don't know where. I don't demand of you
to send me as much as I ought to have, for you must work for it.
You don't receive anything for nothing, but it is easier for you to get
a rouble there than for me a copeck here, so be so kind and send me a
few roubles
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
216 January 26, 1913
DEAR BROTHER STANISLAW: .... I inform you that I received
the money, 9 roubles 72 copecks, long ago, in October, and I thank you
very much for so large a help in the military service I wrote
you then a letter at once I had also a letter from home
yesterday in which they inform me that everything is good except
that our sister Weronika is sick. They write also that a Russo-
Austrian war is likely to come. Indeed, people speak much about
war, and just because of this they held up the soldiers from the
[i9]io year, who ought to have gone on November i; they don't let
them go now If the war with Austria began — God forbid!
It would be upon our Polish land. It would be dangerous to live in
our country. As to me, it would be also bad, because who knows
MARKIEWICZ SERIES
519
whether I should not be obliged to go to the war Up to the
present there is nothing terrible, only we hear that Austria held the
reserves, as if she were preparing for war, and here the reserves are
also held. The whole question is about the Black Sea. But every-
body says that there won't be war God forbid! If I had to go
to the war, dear brother Stanislaw, who knows what would happen
with us, perhaps we should never see one another again. I regret
very much that I did not go to America; there I could live and earn,
as you do, dear brother. Well, I beg your pardon, Stas, for writing
so. Don't think that I envy you; on the contrary, may our Lord
God help you. But I am so worried, and I think that I should have
done better in going to America They won't let me go. I
don't go now to the medical office, because it [ear] won't leak much,
but I will go once more MlCHAl MARKIEWICZ
217 March 16, 1913*
DEAR BROTHER: .... No news is to be heard. I live as in a
forest; among this savage Moscovite horde nothing can be learned.
[Rumors about the war.] I got a letter also from home, such a one as
I saw for the first time in my life, such a terrible mourning letter.1
I had not even read it and I did not know what had happened at home,
and the first look made me terribly afraid, down to the bottom of my
soul God guard us from more such letters! They wrote me
in their last letter that our grandmother is also ill, that her legs are
swelling. They wrote that they are overwhelmed with sorrow after
the death of our dear sister Weronika. And of the farming they wrote
that everything succeeds well, and the grinding is average
Dear brother Stanislaw, you ask me whether our parents are angry with
you, that they don't write to you God forbid! They never
wrote to me anything like that, only the letters don't reach you
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
218 April 8, 1913
DEAR BROTHER: .... I received the money, 6 roubles, for which
I thank you heartily. I know, dear brother, that you feel the need
which I suffer in the military service, for you know yourself what
goodness is in this accursed army. They don't send me money from
1 The letter was a printed death-notice, seldom used among the peasants.
520 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
home, because I write them such letters that they may not grieve
about me. I write them that I don't feel ill in the army, and they
believe that I feel really better in the army than at home. As I don't
write for money home they don't guess themselves [my need] and they
don't send me any, for they don't know well how it is in the military
service.
May God keep even my worst enemy from such a goodness, may
not a dog ever serve in the army! [Sends his photograph and asks
for photographs.] Now I inform you that the recruits of 1910 have
been set free and went away on March 26; even we were more
cheerful If only tune passed more rapidly! ....
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
2IQ May 20, 1913
DEAR -BROTHER: .... We celebrated here the Easter holidays
together with the Russians, i.e., on April 27. Here all the holidays,
even for free people [civilians], go together with the Russian.1 We
were at the "Resurrection"- in the church during the night from
Saturday to Sunday. It was celebrated very beautifully. They let
off fireworks, shot as if with guns; for the first time in my life I saw
such queer fireworks. The holidays have not been bad, as good as
they can be in the army. They gave a little of everything, and of
beer everybody drank as much as he wanted. And now for 4 days
we have been going to Easter confession. It is not very far to the
church from here, as far, for example, as from our house to Dobrzykow.
The church is not very big, but nice, built of bricks. It has stood
only 19 years. I have had no letter from home for a long tune. I
don't know what is the news at home. A farmer from near Warsaw
writes to his son in the army that it is not very well in our country;
there was a big frost so that all the oats and barley have frozen
As to myself, everything is going on slowly In these days we
are camping. When this summer has passed, less than a half [of
the time] will be left. There are rumors that service will be reduced
2 months to the recruits of 1911 and to us, because they kept those
of 1910 four months overtime and they will want to get these expenses
ba MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
JThe Catholics in Russia outside of the limits of the so-called "Congress
Kingdom of Poland," keep the dates of the old or Julianic calendar, which is
official in Russia.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES
521
220 June 24, 1913
DEAR BROTHER STANISLAW: .... My service is going on slowly.
We went into camp on May 20 .... but God forbid to live in these
camps! Every day some task, some hard task. It is true that we
don't work here, but these tasks [drill] are more annoying than any
work. I am worried, I have no wish to do anything, all this because
every day it is the same. And if somebody looked from outside it
would seem as if it were not so bad in the army. Well, you, dear
brother Stanislaw, I see that you feel my need the best, for you are
the best persuaded how well it is in this accursed Moscovite army.
Thanks to God the Highest, dear brother, you did not serve these
Moscovites long, while I shall surely be obliged to remain for all these
3 years, unless God's mercy comes. Happy the man who does not
serve! More than once have I been convinced of this. Well, what
can be done, if such is the will of God that I must serve. Happily one-
half of my service has passed; perhaps our Lord God will grant that
the other will pass also. This year, if our Lord God keeps me alive,
I shall go home on leave, and thus slowly things arrange themselves.
.... I am glad that you are satisfied with my photograph. The
man who is with me in this photograph is my best companion, a Pole
from near Warsaw, but he goes to the reserves, i.e., home, in autumn.
Send me the soonest possible your photograph and that of Maks. If
it is possible, please send me a silver watch and a good razor. But
perhaps this will cost much there; if so, don't send. It would be very
agreeable to receive such a gift from one's brothers; I should have a
remembrance for my whole life. I beg your pardon for daring to
write for such things to you. I say only, dear brothers, if it is not
expensive and if you think that it is possible, send it Brother
Wiktor did not write me that he intends to marry in Czyzew, but I
know it, for already when I was at home Wiktor drank more than once
with her parents and went to them sometimes with his chestnut mare.
Indeed it would be a happiness if he could marry there. You can
send money [home], for our parents spent their own upon land, and
in such a business [as this marriage] money is useful. Write how much
you can send him. Did brother Wiktor not write you whether there
is anybody to be paid off, and why they need money ? . . . .
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
522 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
221 September 26, 1913
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I received the money from you, 10
roubles i copeck; just before the maneuvers it was paid to me, and it
was very useful during the maneuvers. I thank you heartily, and
particularly you, dear brother Stanislaw. If it were not for your help
I should have suffered much want and misery, while so, thanks to God,
the second maneuvers passed neither good nor bad. Thanks to God,
there was no rain and no cold But, as soldiers say, last year
it was terrible; it rained the whole tune, and nothing is worse than
to be wet during such a wandering. We have wandered like Jews in
the desert, all this in memory of the Napoleonic War, and through the
same ways as the French in 1812-13. We passed many different
villages, and nowhere I have seen any good house or barn, only every-
thing like henhouses. It is easy to notice that these "Kacapy"
[nickname for Russians] farm exceedingly badly. What is worse, they
have no draw-wells, only the women go for water far away, to some
ditch or pit. And they sow whole fields with flax, as in our country
with rye, for example.1 I won't write more about these " Kacapy," I
only say that nowhere is it so well as in our country, in the beloved
Poland
MICHAL
As to the watch and razor, you were right in not sending them
[probably because of the tax].
222 November 22, 1913
DEAR BROTHER: .... I received a letter from home, in which
they inform me that our father received the money sent by you,
precisely that about which you wrote me in your last letter, the 1,000
roubles, and moreover mother received 10 roubles. Father deposited
your money in the savings bank of Gombin. Wiktor evidently could
not conclude the business in Czyzew, for he wrote that now he is
calling upon the Jankowskis in Kielniki, and had even asked already
the favor of their daughter. They invited him to call upon her.
Very well, but they put off the question of marriage, I don't know why
— whether they want to get their sons married first or for some other
reason They [at home] wrote also that this plague of a Ziolek
[second husband of their grandmother] nags our house [family]. For
1 Cf. Osinski series, No. 131, note.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES
523
example, Chojnacki's boy tends his cattle [to graze] and once he
pastured them near our windmill. A cow, precisely that of Choj-
nacki, damaged a wing of the windmill, and brother Ignac beat the
boy for it. This " berry " [" peach "] of a Ziolek persuaded Chojnacki
to make a 'complaint against Ignac. The court condemned the
latter to 2 weeks of prison, but father appealed, and we don't know
what will result. Father in turn lodged a complaint against Chojnacki
for damaging the wing How do you like our dear grandfather ?
May — [the devil take] him — ! Our brother Wiktor wrote that he
slanders and blackens our house before people, and Wiktor intends to
reward him for his bad muzzle.
They write to me to come on leave, particularly our dear mother.
I have certainly promised to go, but the leave does not depend upon
me alone I asked the captain here and he promised to let me
go, but whether he will or not, I don't know, although I have the full
right May God grant me to get, for a few days at least, out of
this true hell upon earth, this Moscovite's jaw, because I am very
worried and longing for my family. And what is worse, they say that
the service will be made longer People say that in the duma
of Petersburg the question is going on
Please send to Maks from me my best wishes. May God allow
him to attain as soon as possible his noble end [to finish with the
college].
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
223 January n, 1914
DEAR BROTHERS: .... I have been on leave. I got home on
December 6, and I left on December 30. Our dearest mother was
very glad about my coming and greeted me very tenderly. I am
sorry that our dear mother was ill twice during these two years since
I have been in the army Well, thanks to God the Highest,
everything passed off and now mother is healthy, although she still
suffers constantly from stomach catarrh. Oh, may God grant our
dearest mother to recover fully, for our whole happiness, our whole
hope and our good rely upon her. As to our father, he complain,
now as he always did, but he has not been ill for these two years.
When I was at home we received your letter, dear brother Stanislaws
in which you abused father for the question of this land from Swit-
kowski. Maks was right in writing to father that he had even less
524 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
confidence in him than in the worth of a Russian rouble. Father
justifies himself, but what he thought was really nothing else than
that which mother guesses. Father excuses himself for doing so on
the score that it cost less, but in reality I think that it would have been
as mother says.1 As to brother Wiktor, he is neither upon water nor
upon ice [insecure]. He calls upon the girl every Sunday, but there
is nothing certain. But he excuses himself on the ground that there
is nobody to work at home, and that he won't marry until I come back
from the army. He is partly right. Well, but nobody knows how
God will direct his lot. If he had a good chance he ought not to wait
until I come. As to Ignac, Julka and Mania, you would not know
them, dear brothers, they have grown so. Ignac is perhaps the biggest
among us — a boy like a ladder. May our Lord God give him health !
I pity him for falling a victim for the sake of this [Chojnacki] boy's
skin. When I came, he had sat in prison, for two weeks. [Farm-
work, weather and crops.] Grandmother is also bad, she looks
sickly. As to Ziolek, he is healthy like a horse, only he has grown a
little older
MICHAE MARKIEWICZ
224 April 20, 1914
DEAR BROTHER: .... You look very nice and young in the
photograph. It is somewhat difficult to know you in the photograph,
for you have grown so fat; you are not quite like yourself
W. Borek looks well also. Evidently you are in good companionship
with each other, and it is very right and good to have a companion
from one's own neighborhood and well known. Do you live together,
or do you perhaps work together ? . . . . Please write me, and give
him my best wishes and greetings At home brother Wiktor
got married. The wedding took place on February 18, in the church
of Radziwie. He married Miss Antonina Oliszewska from Poplacin.
I don't know her, but Wiktorek writes that she is a pretty girl, of
middle height, 19 years old. She has a sister 17 years, and a brother
10 years old. Both her parents are dead .... and left a fortune,
i wloka [30 morgs] of land and moreover 1,500 roubles cash for the
farm-stock, sold after Oliszewskis' death This farm lies quite
near the Vistula, and a part of the river belongs to this land
1 The father probably bought or planned to buy the land in his own name.
The "lesser cost" probably refers to notarial expenses.
MARKIEWICZ SERIES 525
The place is very good, Wiktorek writes, and he praises the fortune
highly enqugh. I hear that he made indeed a good match, and so
unexpectedly. When I was on leave at home, Wiktorek had no girl
at all, and then suddenly he writes that he is marrying. May God
bless him in his new household. But at home conditions have grown
worse, for there is nobody to work. Father wrote me to come "for
recovery," at least for half a year. Well, I should be glad to come
back once and forever and to get free from this accursed service,
but it is not in my power, I guess that things are bad at home without
us, but what can I do since I must serve ? But you, dear brother
Stas, since you have no work now and since there is likely to be war
[with Mexico], I would advise you to come home. Please write me,
how long do you mean to remain in America? Wiktorek intended
before to take [father's] farm himself.1 ....
MICHAL MARKIEWICZ
225 July i, 1914
DEAREST BROTHER: .... I received 10 roubles and i copeck
for which I thank you most heartily. I intended to write home for
money, when unexpectedly I received 10 roubles. For me it is a big
sum of money May God grant me .... an occasion to
prove to you my gratitude for your well-doing, and your brotherly
heart, dear brother Stas. And now, in the last year of service money
is very necessary, for we must dress ourselves a little better. For it
is impossible to go in the clothes which they give, because people
would say that such a man came from some prison or some desert, not
from military service You ask about the service [how long it
will last]. I cannot write anything with certainty They
kept the recruits of 1910 longer because there was war in the Balkans,
the Bulgars with the Turks .... and Russia wanted to benefit from
this war He [the Moscovite] likes to make war against the
Turks, for they are not Japanese May our Lord God and
1 This last must be understood with reference to the unexpressed question,
" Who will take the father's farm, Stai or Michal ? " Evidently, Michal would like
to have it, for since Wiktor is already married and settled the brother who takes
the farm will be favored, particularly so because of the father's attitude. Therefore
he tries to learn discreetly whether Sta§ (who is older) intends to return, and
whether he would oppose Michal's taking the farm. There is at the same tune a
cunning endeavor to learn his brother's intentions, and a mixed feeling, for he
evidently loves his brother and would like to have him come.
526 PRIMARY-GROUP ORGANIZATION
God's Mother grant me to get free from this Moscovite jaw
Believe me, when I went with the recruits, I was not so sad as now,
since I returned from the leave. I even wept, I was so sorry to return
.... among these beasts and wolves the "Kacapy. " .... From
home they write .... that they have a lawsuit about the trees
which grow upon the range between their field and the priest's. They
won the first time, but they lost the second time, for the court did not
call our witnesses. The lawyer says that we must win. It would
be better if they made peace instead of lawsuits, which take money
and time
MICHAL M.
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/t.1 1. The Polish peasant in
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