Socio-Economic Changes in the Village of Przybyszew from 1918 to 2018

Abstract

In this paper, the socio-economic changes that took place from 1918 to 2018 in the village of Przybyszew located by the Pilica river in the municipality of Promna are presented. The analysis of a descriptive character covers both the rural community itself and the rural economy (including agricultural and non-agricultural economic sectors). An important section of the paper is a description of the changing role of rural institutional environment based on trends observed from before the Second World War until now. The transformations that have occurred in the village of Przybyszew reflect, in a nutshell, various socio-economic processes taking place in the Polish countryside in the period in question. Among these processes one can, for example, point out local community ageing the decline in the number of rural permanent residents as well as the concentration of agricultural land in a few flourishing farms, the growing number of informal farmland leases, changes in the social and occupational structures of the rural community society in favour of a population working outside agriculture and the growing demanding attitudes of local people towards the public social aid. The study also shows the changing nature of multifunctional rural development, starting from a multifunctionality caused by economic conditions at the time, somewhat compelled by the necessity for self-sufficiency, to the present “rational multifunctionality”. The rapid development of both the municipality of Promna and the village of Przybyszew occurred, in the last two decades due to the EU and EU pre-accession funds. It should be noted, however, that the current level of socioeconomic development of the village of Przybyszew and the increasing prosperity of its residents is not permanent. There will be fewer and fewer EU funds assigned for these purposes. The future level of local socio-economic development will therefore greatly depend on the rural community itself, its social activeness, willingness and ability to cooperate, and the confidence of the community members.