Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz | Polish Academy of Sciences (original) (raw)

Papers by Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz

Gender & History , 2023

This article explores gendered notions of modernity in late socialist Poland in the context of th... more This article explores gendered notions of modernity in late
socialist Poland in the context of the household. It exam-
ines the scenarios of modernity for the household that were
developed by various expert bodies and popularised by the
mass media, and women’s memoirs written as competition
entries that describe their everyday practices. The main aim
of this analysis is to examine how the memoirists responded
to expert discourses about gendered modernity at home. The
article shows that although they appear to have understood
how to produce their life stories to interweave their experi-
ences with official political discourse, the memoirs can be
considered a valuable source that describes how individu-
als understood modernity, and how expert discourses affected
their value system.

The Palgrave Handbook of Communist Women Activists around the World

Rocznik Antropologii Historii, 2014

Niebezpieczne związki. Macierzyństwo, ojcostwo i polityka, 2015

The paper analyses the changes of food behaviours in post-1945 Poland in the context of socialist... more The paper analyses the changes of food behaviours in post-1945 Poland in the context of socialist modernization. It is focused on both discourses and everyday practices. After 1945 Poland was a nearly mono-ethnic rural society which experienced fast modernization, industrialization and urbanization. The communist authorities who promised social justice and universal prosperity faced a problem of painful food shortages. This resulted from the aftermaths of war, and later was a by-product of the socialist economy. Thus, dietary education became an important strategy in the effort to feed the new socialist Poland. Special institutions and agendas were established to modernize eating habits according to the “rational”, “scientific” bases of the communist project of modernization. Up until the late 1970s, expert dietary advice promoted pre-prepared food, canned and frozen products, vegetables and meat consumption. Food columns in women’s magazines, advice books and adverts presented the ...

Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały

Antysemityzm jest w polskim dyskursie publicznym poważnym zarzutem, od którego odżegnują się nawe... more Antysemityzm jest w polskim dyskursie publicznym poważnym zarzutem, od którego odżegnują się nawet antysemici. A już na pewno trudno go połączyć z postawą pomocy Żydom w czasie Zagłady. Dlatego podtytuł książki Carli Tonini, włoskiej badaczki zajmującej się dziejami Polski, brzmi paradoksalnie. "Antysemitka, która ratowała Żydów"-to dwa pojęcia pozornie się wykluczające, ale dla Tonini stanowią one klucz do biografii Zofii Kossak-Szczuckiej. Klucz o tyle istotny, że na ogół przemilczany, wypierany, odrzucany. Pisanie tej książki oznaczało zatem dla autorki "nieustanną dekonstrukcję uników i pominięć zawartych w polskiej publicystyce". Rzeczywiście, zarówno opracowania biograficzne, jak i wypowiedzi publicystyczne starannie oczyszczają Kossak-Szczucką z zarzutu antysemityzmu. Władysław Bartoszewski dostrzegał w antysemickiej retoryce jej wojennej publicystyki zamierzony chwyt umożliwiający dotarcie do szerszego audytorium. Alina Cała widzi w niej ofiarę antysemickich tendencji polskiego Kościoła lat międzywojennych. Apologetyczna biografia pióra Barbary Pytlos, podobnie jak wspomnienia córki pisarki, Anny Szatkowskiej, ten kłopotliwy wątek w ogóle pomijają milczeniem. Carla Tonini nie oskarża ani nie broni Zofii Kossak-Szczuckiej. Wyraźnie określa jej poglądy jako antysemickie, cytuje odpowiednie fragmenty jej publicystyki i dzieł literackich. I nie poprzestaje na tym. Upomina się o poruszenie tego aspektu jej biografii intelektualnej, twierdzi, iż "wyciszanie uczuć antyżydowskich Zofii Kossak sprawia, że odmawia się wartości jej wielkiemu gestowi, jakim było stworzenie z jej inicjatywy Żegoty", a otwarte mówienie o tym winno stać się elementem "bardziej realistycznej i kompleksowej refleksji" Polaków na temat własnej historii. Dla Carli Tonini, nieuwikłanej w spory polskich historyków, zdanie o antysemitce ratującej Żydów jest stwierdzeniem dwóch faktów, a nie zapisem "polskiego paradoksu". W podobnym tonie wypowiada się Gunnar Paulsson, stwierdzając, że w Polsce uciekinierom z gett pomagali także "przedwojenni antysemici". W takim ujęciu antysemityzm jest nieskażoną jeszcze cieniem Zagłady postawą polityczną zakładającą wrogość wobec Żydów, nazwanie zaś kogoś antysemitą-określeniem światopoglądu, a nie oskarżeniem. Anna Landau-Czajka zwracała zresztą uwagę na inne znaczenie antysemickiej frazeologii sprzed i po wybuchu wojny. W takim kontekście przedwojenne słowa Kossak-Szczuckiej o stworzeniu "planu rozwiązującego zagadnienie żydowskie", o "rozwiązaniu kwestii żydowskiej" i "woli odżydzenia kultury polskiej", choć dowodziły myślenia w kategoriach szowinistycznych, nie miały jeszcze tak złowrogiego wydźwięku. Ona sama zaś zapewne nie odżegnywałaby się od antysemityzmu. I w żadnym razie nie znosił on dla niej nakazu pomocy

Forum Socjologiczne

Reading what was born out of disorder — a few examples of autobiographical narratives from the pe... more Reading what was born out of disorder — a few examples of autobiographical narratives from the period of the HolocaustThe paper is based on the textual analysis of a few chosen autobiographical narratives from the period of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. They were written by teenage girls and young women, mostly in Polish. “Reading what was born out of disorder” — category formulated by the French historian, Arlette Farge, has been applied as a basis for the analysis. According to Farge’s concept, the paper deals with the analysis of the authors attempts to document the disintegration of a well-known world of every-day experiences and their own suffering related to a lack of order in the world around them.

Reconstructing Minds and Landscapes. Silent Post-War Memory in the Margins of History, eds. Marja Tuominen, T. G. Ashplant and Tiina Harjumaa , 2021

Mental and material reconstruction was an ongoing process after World War II, and it still is. Th... more Mental and material reconstruction was an ongoing process after World War II, and it still is. This volume combines a detailed treatment of post-war cultural reconstruction in Finnish Lapland -a region on the geographical and historical margins of its nation-state -with comparative case studies of silent post-war memory from other European countries. The contributors shed light on key aspects of cultural reconstruction generally: disruptions of national narratives, difficulties of post-war cultural demobilisation, sites of memory, visual narratives of post-war reconstruction, and manifestations of trans-generational experiences of cultural reconstruction.

Teksty Drugie, English Edition , 2020

This article analyses personal diaries written by women during the martial law period in Poland ... more This article analyses personal diaries written by women during the martial law
period in Poland (1981–1983). It seeks to consider the authors’ relationship with
(the) history, how they situated themselves in the context of the events they
describe, and how their gender might have influenced such relationships. The
vision of history present in the diaries under analysis is directly associated with the
martyrological national messianism and Romantic emotionality. Thus, the diarists
were deliberately avoiding description of everyday life, prioritizing collective over
individual identity. They choose the position of (eye)witness and the annalistic
model of recording things, and considered their own experience important only
inasmuch as it conformed to what they acknowledged to be the historical truth.
As a result, the diaries under analysis are not only a record of martial law but also of
their authors’ own annalistic practice, which positioned an autobiographical self in
the shadow or at the service of (the) history.

Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 2020

The chapter is part of a larger project concerning various contexts of the production of knowledg... more The chapter is part of a larger project concerning various contexts of the production of knowledge on the so-called women’s issues in post-1945 Poland. The authors analyze development of sociology of gender from the late 1950s until the early 1970s., when topics such as women’s paid work and time budget, changing patterns of family life, power relations within family and in the workplace gained popularity. Moreover, there was a significant presence of women scholars in these research areas. The chapter analyzes careers of four Polish female sociologists, identifying them as not only academics but also discourse producers. The authors argue that “generational” perspective may contribute to the analysis of the discussed phenomena. Common biographical experience like the professional trajectory from social activism (journalism, medical professions) to academic research, as well as socio-political context, with its focus on modernity, progress, and emancipation, may be seen as crucial factors for the rise and development of the intellectual identity of Polish women scholars in the second half of the twentieth century.

„The Polish Review”, 2020

This article seeks to show how the economic, political, and social crisis of the 1980s in Polan... more This article seeks to show how the economic, political, and social crisis of
the 1980s in Poland was experienced, understood, survived, and managed in
the micro-scale of individual households. Keeping in mind the inner dynamic
of the period, I focus on the first years of the economic collapse (1980–1982),
when supply shortages were extremely painful. The text contributes to the
current interest in every-day life practices under communism. It intends to
take a closer look at the adaptive strategies undertaken by individuals, pre-
cisely by women. It is based on the critical analysis of the first-person women’s
narratives: memoirs, personal diaries and letters to the editor published in
popular women’s magazines

This essay seeks to show the Polish household in the communist time as a space of modernity and m... more This essay seeks to show the Polish household in the communist time as a space of modernity and modernisation activities. The chronological framework is set between 1957 -the date the Home Economics Committee affi liated to the League of Women was set up to contribute to, and be a mouthpiece of, the everyday life modernisation policy -and 1980, being the symbolic borderline between the modernity discourse and the Polish 1980-1 crisis discourse about household. In this context, the article reconstructs both the activities of social actors who created the 'scenarios of modernity' for the household and the reception of the messages in question in the village of Bogate in the District (powiat) of Przasnysz.

Gender & History , 2023

This article explores gendered notions of modernity in late socialist Poland in the context of th... more This article explores gendered notions of modernity in late
socialist Poland in the context of the household. It exam-
ines the scenarios of modernity for the household that were
developed by various expert bodies and popularised by the
mass media, and women’s memoirs written as competition
entries that describe their everyday practices. The main aim
of this analysis is to examine how the memoirists responded
to expert discourses about gendered modernity at home. The
article shows that although they appear to have understood
how to produce their life stories to interweave their experi-
ences with official political discourse, the memoirs can be
considered a valuable source that describes how individu-
als understood modernity, and how expert discourses affected
their value system.

The Palgrave Handbook of Communist Women Activists around the World

Rocznik Antropologii Historii, 2014

Niebezpieczne związki. Macierzyństwo, ojcostwo i polityka, 2015

The paper analyses the changes of food behaviours in post-1945 Poland in the context of socialist... more The paper analyses the changes of food behaviours in post-1945 Poland in the context of socialist modernization. It is focused on both discourses and everyday practices. After 1945 Poland was a nearly mono-ethnic rural society which experienced fast modernization, industrialization and urbanization. The communist authorities who promised social justice and universal prosperity faced a problem of painful food shortages. This resulted from the aftermaths of war, and later was a by-product of the socialist economy. Thus, dietary education became an important strategy in the effort to feed the new socialist Poland. Special institutions and agendas were established to modernize eating habits according to the “rational”, “scientific” bases of the communist project of modernization. Up until the late 1970s, expert dietary advice promoted pre-prepared food, canned and frozen products, vegetables and meat consumption. Food columns in women’s magazines, advice books and adverts presented the ...

Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały

Antysemityzm jest w polskim dyskursie publicznym poważnym zarzutem, od którego odżegnują się nawe... more Antysemityzm jest w polskim dyskursie publicznym poważnym zarzutem, od którego odżegnują się nawet antysemici. A już na pewno trudno go połączyć z postawą pomocy Żydom w czasie Zagłady. Dlatego podtytuł książki Carli Tonini, włoskiej badaczki zajmującej się dziejami Polski, brzmi paradoksalnie. "Antysemitka, która ratowała Żydów"-to dwa pojęcia pozornie się wykluczające, ale dla Tonini stanowią one klucz do biografii Zofii Kossak-Szczuckiej. Klucz o tyle istotny, że na ogół przemilczany, wypierany, odrzucany. Pisanie tej książki oznaczało zatem dla autorki "nieustanną dekonstrukcję uników i pominięć zawartych w polskiej publicystyce". Rzeczywiście, zarówno opracowania biograficzne, jak i wypowiedzi publicystyczne starannie oczyszczają Kossak-Szczucką z zarzutu antysemityzmu. Władysław Bartoszewski dostrzegał w antysemickiej retoryce jej wojennej publicystyki zamierzony chwyt umożliwiający dotarcie do szerszego audytorium. Alina Cała widzi w niej ofiarę antysemickich tendencji polskiego Kościoła lat międzywojennych. Apologetyczna biografia pióra Barbary Pytlos, podobnie jak wspomnienia córki pisarki, Anny Szatkowskiej, ten kłopotliwy wątek w ogóle pomijają milczeniem. Carla Tonini nie oskarża ani nie broni Zofii Kossak-Szczuckiej. Wyraźnie określa jej poglądy jako antysemickie, cytuje odpowiednie fragmenty jej publicystyki i dzieł literackich. I nie poprzestaje na tym. Upomina się o poruszenie tego aspektu jej biografii intelektualnej, twierdzi, iż "wyciszanie uczuć antyżydowskich Zofii Kossak sprawia, że odmawia się wartości jej wielkiemu gestowi, jakim było stworzenie z jej inicjatywy Żegoty", a otwarte mówienie o tym winno stać się elementem "bardziej realistycznej i kompleksowej refleksji" Polaków na temat własnej historii. Dla Carli Tonini, nieuwikłanej w spory polskich historyków, zdanie o antysemitce ratującej Żydów jest stwierdzeniem dwóch faktów, a nie zapisem "polskiego paradoksu". W podobnym tonie wypowiada się Gunnar Paulsson, stwierdzając, że w Polsce uciekinierom z gett pomagali także "przedwojenni antysemici". W takim ujęciu antysemityzm jest nieskażoną jeszcze cieniem Zagłady postawą polityczną zakładającą wrogość wobec Żydów, nazwanie zaś kogoś antysemitą-określeniem światopoglądu, a nie oskarżeniem. Anna Landau-Czajka zwracała zresztą uwagę na inne znaczenie antysemickiej frazeologii sprzed i po wybuchu wojny. W takim kontekście przedwojenne słowa Kossak-Szczuckiej o stworzeniu "planu rozwiązującego zagadnienie żydowskie", o "rozwiązaniu kwestii żydowskiej" i "woli odżydzenia kultury polskiej", choć dowodziły myślenia w kategoriach szowinistycznych, nie miały jeszcze tak złowrogiego wydźwięku. Ona sama zaś zapewne nie odżegnywałaby się od antysemityzmu. I w żadnym razie nie znosił on dla niej nakazu pomocy

Forum Socjologiczne

Reading what was born out of disorder — a few examples of autobiographical narratives from the pe... more Reading what was born out of disorder — a few examples of autobiographical narratives from the period of the HolocaustThe paper is based on the textual analysis of a few chosen autobiographical narratives from the period of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. They were written by teenage girls and young women, mostly in Polish. “Reading what was born out of disorder” — category formulated by the French historian, Arlette Farge, has been applied as a basis for the analysis. According to Farge’s concept, the paper deals with the analysis of the authors attempts to document the disintegration of a well-known world of every-day experiences and their own suffering related to a lack of order in the world around them.

Reconstructing Minds and Landscapes. Silent Post-War Memory in the Margins of History, eds. Marja Tuominen, T. G. Ashplant and Tiina Harjumaa , 2021

Mental and material reconstruction was an ongoing process after World War II, and it still is. Th... more Mental and material reconstruction was an ongoing process after World War II, and it still is. This volume combines a detailed treatment of post-war cultural reconstruction in Finnish Lapland -a region on the geographical and historical margins of its nation-state -with comparative case studies of silent post-war memory from other European countries. The contributors shed light on key aspects of cultural reconstruction generally: disruptions of national narratives, difficulties of post-war cultural demobilisation, sites of memory, visual narratives of post-war reconstruction, and manifestations of trans-generational experiences of cultural reconstruction.

Teksty Drugie, English Edition , 2020

This article analyses personal diaries written by women during the martial law period in Poland ... more This article analyses personal diaries written by women during the martial law
period in Poland (1981–1983). It seeks to consider the authors’ relationship with
(the) history, how they situated themselves in the context of the events they
describe, and how their gender might have influenced such relationships. The
vision of history present in the diaries under analysis is directly associated with the
martyrological national messianism and Romantic emotionality. Thus, the diarists
were deliberately avoiding description of everyday life, prioritizing collective over
individual identity. They choose the position of (eye)witness and the annalistic
model of recording things, and considered their own experience important only
inasmuch as it conformed to what they acknowledged to be the historical truth.
As a result, the diaries under analysis are not only a record of martial law but also of
their authors’ own annalistic practice, which positioned an autobiographical self in
the shadow or at the service of (the) history.

Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 2020

The chapter is part of a larger project concerning various contexts of the production of knowledg... more The chapter is part of a larger project concerning various contexts of the production of knowledge on the so-called women’s issues in post-1945 Poland. The authors analyze development of sociology of gender from the late 1950s until the early 1970s., when topics such as women’s paid work and time budget, changing patterns of family life, power relations within family and in the workplace gained popularity. Moreover, there was a significant presence of women scholars in these research areas. The chapter analyzes careers of four Polish female sociologists, identifying them as not only academics but also discourse producers. The authors argue that “generational” perspective may contribute to the analysis of the discussed phenomena. Common biographical experience like the professional trajectory from social activism (journalism, medical professions) to academic research, as well as socio-political context, with its focus on modernity, progress, and emancipation, may be seen as crucial factors for the rise and development of the intellectual identity of Polish women scholars in the second half of the twentieth century.

„The Polish Review”, 2020

This article seeks to show how the economic, political, and social crisis of the 1980s in Polan... more This article seeks to show how the economic, political, and social crisis of
the 1980s in Poland was experienced, understood, survived, and managed in
the micro-scale of individual households. Keeping in mind the inner dynamic
of the period, I focus on the first years of the economic collapse (1980–1982),
when supply shortages were extremely painful. The text contributes to the
current interest in every-day life practices under communism. It intends to
take a closer look at the adaptive strategies undertaken by individuals, pre-
cisely by women. It is based on the critical analysis of the first-person women’s
narratives: memoirs, personal diaries and letters to the editor published in
popular women’s magazines

This essay seeks to show the Polish household in the communist time as a space of modernity and m... more This essay seeks to show the Polish household in the communist time as a space of modernity and modernisation activities. The chronological framework is set between 1957 -the date the Home Economics Committee affi liated to the League of Women was set up to contribute to, and be a mouthpiece of, the everyday life modernisation policy -and 1980, being the symbolic borderline between the modernity discourse and the Polish 1980-1 crisis discourse about household. In this context, the article reconstructs both the activities of social actors who created the 'scenarios of modernity' for the household and the reception of the messages in question in the village of Bogate in the District (powiat) of Przasnysz.

2020, TAiWPN Universitas, 2020

Książka śledzi losy kobiet w Polsce lat 1945-1989 na szerokim tle komunizmu i historii powojennej... more Książka śledzi losy kobiet w Polsce lat 1945-1989 na szerokim tle komunizmu i historii powojennej Europy. Oparta o obszerną i najnowszą światową literaturę przedmiotu oraz kwerendy różnorodnych źródeł historycznych, zainteresuje czytelniczki i czy-telników pragnących zapoznać się z historią kobiet w komunizmie i historią Polski, szeroko rozumianymi studiami nad problematyką genderową, historią feminizmu i historią społeczną. Przybliża naj-ważniejsze badania i ukazuje znaczenia historii gender/kobiet dla Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej. Porusza zagadnienia aktywności kobiet w polityce, doświadczeń kobiet pracujących w mieście i na wsi, gospodarstwa domowego, ról kobiet w rodzinie, dorastania i awansu edukacyjnego, biopolityki oraz kultury urody. Zostały one zaprezentowane w kontekście tytułowych pojęć nowoczes-ności i równouprawnienia, aby ukazać komunistyczne projekty kierowane do kobiet na tle doświadczeń drugiej połowy XX wieku w innych krajach. Z pewnością książka ta ma wszelkie szanse na miano kanonicznej historii kobiet powo-jennej Polski i nie dlatego, że dostarcza go-towych odpowiedzi, ale właśnie dlatego, że wskazuje na konieczność stawiania nowych pytań, kwestionowania utrwalonych sche-matów myślowych, rewizji dotychczasowej wiedzy. [Z recenzji dr hab. Dobrochny Kałwy] Książka jest świetnie napisana, lekkim języ-kiem dyskutuje czasem bardzo skompliko-wane tematy. (…) Bardzo interesujące są analizy źródeł, które pozwalają prześledzić myślenie autorów oraz ich metody pracy ze źródłami. Dużym atutem tej pracy jest bo-gactwo cytatów i indywidualnych historii, które pozwalają zrozumieć życiowe dylematy czy problemy.