From the Intelligentsia to the Middle Class: The ‘History’ of the Ethos of the Intelligentsia in Polish movies after 1989
Mariola MARCZAK
Zakład Filmu, Telewizji i Nowych Mediów, Instytut Dziennikarstwa i Komunikacji Społecznej, Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski, ul. Kurta Obitza 1, 10-725 Olsztyn, Poland , PolandAbstract
In Western European societies the intelligentsia performs culture creating roles, advancing a set of values, or imperatives, derived from the Enlightenment (e.g. the pursuit of truth, the critical attitude, the mentality of intellectual and political independence). In Poland, the educated class, bound to transcend particular interests and assume the responsibility for the collectivity, was shaped during the period of Romanticism. At that time Poland was not an independent state, and the most significant elements of the ethos of the Polish intelligentsia derive from the cultural current of the ‘independence tradition.’ After the 1989 political transformation the Polish intelligentsia experienced pressures resulting in its multiway evolution and in the replacement of the ethos of the intelligentsia with that of the middle class. The article discusses the Polish movies of the period which in way have ‘documented’ numerous aspects of that process.
Keywords:
intelligentsia, intellectuals, middle class, ethos, image, the Polish cinema, film sociologyZakład Filmu, Telewizji i Nowych Mediów, Instytut Dziennikarstwa i Komunikacji Społecznej, Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski, ul. Kurta Obitza 1, 10-725 Olsztyn, Poland
