WESTERN LANDS' INFLUENCE ON THE FORMATION OF POLISH SOCIETY'S POLITICAL CULTURE ; Wpływ Ziem Zachodnich na kształtowanie kultury politycznej społeczeństwa polskiego

The author aims at both reviewing the previous sociological studies devoted to the Western Lands as well as proposing the project for the future studies on this area. According to the author, the major drawback of the previous research is its strict focus to the region. The up to date research was primarily considering the two groups of factors: the ones contributing to the emergence of an integrated community at the Western Lands or the ones influencing the acceleration of the Western Lands' integration with the rest of the country. In these studies the key categories were normalization, stabilization, adaptation and assimilation. Yet, the author contends that by far more intriguing research agenda lies in the question of if and how the novel post-war shape of the Polish state has been internalized by the society. This research agenda is of particular relevance to the students of political culture. The research on the Western Lands has to be brought onto national level. In new research focused on political culture the issues of the transformation of historical consciousness and Polish national identity shall gain the prime importance.