Social conceptions of rural culture at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries

Abstract

The article aims to present fundamental changes in the repertoire and the communicative circulation of "social conceptions" (mythical images) of Polish rural areas at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. "Social conceptions", (a notion developed by Bronisław Baczko), function as "ideas-images" which serve as symbolic representations and projections of reality, regulating and modelling its perception. The "social conceptions" of rural areas have recently lost their ideological aspect - they have transformed into myths of popular and consumer culture. What is more, they constitute an attractive material for a typically postmodern process of the aesthetization of culture. The still distinct rural countryside and its type of culture have become a place for animative activities and aesthetic experiences in the 21st century; a phenomenon perhaps best described by per formative ethnography. The significant transformation of the meanings of t Polish rural mythology harmonize with intensifying identity discourses and with a Polish version of post-colonialism, which portrays images of peasant "exploitation", and treats them as a characteristic trait of Polish history.