The peasant issue in the Second Polish Republic in the conception by Franciszek Bujak

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to fully reproduce F. Bujak’s vision of the problems of the peasantry in the Polish state restored in 1918 on new foundations. At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that F. Bujak was the founder of Polish historical and economic studies, and also had experience in political activity as the Minister of Agriculture. The scientific novelty is that for the first time the materials of the journal “Wieś i Państwo” are included in the scientific circulation, based on which F. Bujak’s views on the relationship between the peasantry and the state in the interwar period are reconstructed. Conclusions. The view of the problem of the peasantry in interwar Poland by F. Bujak, a supporter of democracy and social equality, was distinguished by its integrity and depth of understanding. The researcher considered the peasantry not only the economic, but also the spiritual basis of the state. His attention was drawn to the issue of relations between the agrarian state, which was then the Second Polish Commonwealth, and its own most numerous social group - the peasants. F. Bujak presented quite balanced assessments of the real state of this problem, the solution of which he saw in the establishment of national solidarity between different social strata. For this, he considered the need for state regulation and the presence of socially significant laws to be justified. F. Bujak paid considerable attention to the problem of totalitarianism, in particular the possibilities and features of its introduction in the young Polish state. He also analyzed the threats that such an evolution of the political system could cause to the peasantry. F. Bujak considered the relations between the state and the peasants in historical retrospect as a confrontation between the peasants and the nobility. In this context, he considered overcoming mutual, historically determined prejudices to be one of the urgent tasks. And one of the main ways of this was supposed to be the effective participation of the state in raising the educational and cultural level of the peasantry

Keywords

• interwar twenty years, scientific press, polish historiography, “wieś i państwo” journal.