Political Protest and Snobbery
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Political Protest and Snobbery Fashion among Cracow Students in the Early 1950s Leszek Dzi�giel D�i<;g-icl, Lcswk 1997: Political Protest and Snobbery. Fashion among Cracow Students in the Early 1950s. - Ethnol ogia Europaca 27: 67-77. The ethnolog-ical r·cscarch on the everyday life of' big Polish cities has only commenced. The author describe:; a ,;criesof' cuHtomary behaviours connected with the dress of the students of Cracow in the years 1945-1956. Basing on the newspapers of those times and on his own memories, the author discusses the fa shion of that period, the ways of obtaining the clothing and its alteration necessary since a considerable part of it came from the military stores of the Western armies. A proper haircut and a special way of bearing were chosen to match the dress. Jt was a demonstration in opposition to the uniform propagated by the Communist youth organisation, a manifestation of the philosophy of life. According to the author that fa shion was a conscious form ofthe protest expressed by the academic youth against the cultural unification introduced by the totalitar ian system limned in Poland in the period following World War II. Professor dr Leszek Dzieyel, Direct01; Instytut etnologii, Uniwersytetu Jagiellolisk iego, ul. Grodzha 52, PL-31-044 Krah6w, Poland. E-mail: dziegiel@grodzhi. phils.z4j. edu.pl For centuries the student community has been customs". This is certainly the case in Cracow, an essential component of Cracow's cultural where the favourite topics include the annual environment. The life and customs of old-time Emaus fa irs at Easter, the antics ofLajkonik (a students have often provided a rewarding field man dressed up as a Tartar rider during a of exploration fo r novelists, poets, playwrights popular fe stival in summer), solemn religious and scholars. The last-mentioned group has processions, parades of craftsmen's guilds etc. been exhibiting a particularly keen interest in Some attention has also been given to the city's the distant past, which has acquired a nostalgic market places, particularly in connection with patina of centuries gone by (Stepanova 1996:82- the contacts between Cracow and the neigh 93), undergoing an ever increasing mythologi bouring villages. Incidentally, the suburban zation and distortion in the process. On the village has sometimes offered a convenient and other hand, everyday life and popular customs "safe" subject of research for an ethnologist in more recent times have received much less venturing fo r the first time into the domain of scholarly attention, even though a lot of written "urban anthropology". sources and iconographic materials are availa The life of students and the young genera ble, to say nothing of the remembrances of tion of educated people in present-day Cracow people who began studies in Cracow less than is usually viewed in an artistic or hedonistic half a century ago. Ethnological and anthropo perspective (Godula (ed.) 1995:239-290). Other logical reflection on the everyday life of big aspects of everyday life have usually been ab cities in Poland in the 20th century is still at the sent from the literature, or at least fr om publi beginning stage. Scholars who deal with those cations about Cracow. matters have often relied so far on the popular The late 1940s and the first halfof the 1950s culture model and concentrated on the analysis present a particularly interesting period for a of various manifestations of so-called "plebeian historian of Polish culture or an ethnologist, in 67 view of the politicul circumstunces of those and observ ations made d uring his studies at days. The programme:;of fiH·ced "re-ed ucation" th e Jagel l onian University in the years 1950- of society took particularly drastic forms in big 1955 among a group of fe llow students of both cities, such a:; Crucow, Wu rsuw or Poznw1. The sexe�:�. Additional reflection was made possible generation of adolescents and young adults, by the author's field studies in ethnography being a category traditi on ally opposed to all carried out in those years in various rural forms of pressure and any attempts to impose regions of Poland. by decree uniform patterns of daily life, reacted In the early 1950s, fa shion - as well as by specific forms of protest, e�:�capisn1 and rejec entertainment - played a principal role in the tion of the oflicially approved way oflifc. Under bizarre war the object of which was to promote the peculiar circumstances of Stalinist Poland, an ideologically appropriate lifestyle. Today, this protest against ideo logical ly determined, after all those years, the oflicial attempts to fo rced uniformity did not lead to pl uralism in bring into uniformity the fa shion of trousers or preferences and tastes. At least in the field of skirts may seem ridiculous - reminiscent of popular fa shion and entertainment it gave rise those rare instances of crazy regimes where to a more or less uniform type of popular cul ideological totalitarianism still reigns supreme. ture, which was simply the negation of the One might wonder how the dogmatic official model officially professed by the simple-minded propagandists could fail to see the fu tility of social engineers. 'l'heid eological war in the field their fierce and fr enzied attacks. Back then, of popular culture in post-war Poland that the however, things looked different. communist system waged against society and For many people, the defence of their indi lost constitutes an extensive area of exploration vidual tastes in the field of clothing became a for students of customs, not only in Poland, but surrogate battlefieldwhere they fo ught for their in entire Central and Eastern Europe. So far, right to privacy and to individual preferences. however, this area has been sadly neglected It was a struggle for personal liberty. (Dzi.,:giel 1995). Unimportant and trivial issues of hairstyle Issues offashion, clothes, entertainment and and clothing were often blown up out of all resistance to ideological pressure in daily life proportion. It was a strategy of the system to were dealt with by Leopold Tyrmand (who died provoke hysteria over matters ofno consequence. in the United States a couple of years ago) in his When, many years later, the system itself re columns, novels and essays (Tyrmand 1955, signed fr om some of its ideological incantations 1980). We owe him at least some fairly adequate and symbols, it leftbehind an often idolatrous accounts of cultural situations. His observa cult of the very lifestyle it had vainly tried to tions, however, were usually made fr om the eradicate. The artificiallymaintained isolation point of view of well-to-do or even elitist circles of millions of young people fr om everyday ele of Warsaw of the 1950s and the Warsaw under ments of the Western civilization left society in world, linked with that first group by various a state of infantilism. One of its manifestations kinds of dealings. Tyrmand's position in War was the attitude of young Poles - but also saw society did not exactly place him in close Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians or Russians - contact with the student circles ofWarsaw, with towards modern fa shion. The ideological war of all their social, financial and cultural differen the early 1950s in the field of entertainment tiation. He was, however, one of the few authors and fa shion has long since ended, but until now fascinated by this aspect of contemporary cul it remains an area where reactions of society ture. are devoid of all criticism and objective reflec 'l'he intention of the present essay is simply tion. This is highly typical of civilizationally to acknowledge the existence of a new research retarded neophytes who have lived in a state of area, using as an example the popular student cultural isolation. fa shion in an old, big-city academic centre. The Jazz, chewing gum, Coca-Cola - these were description of cultural elements presented be the symbols ofthe alleged corruption ofthe non low results from the author's own experience communist world and at the same time ele- 68 ments of' an extremely naively construed my that it was an impoverished and vulgari 1.ed thology of' the West. Having banned Western variety of the type of clothing worn in the year�; novelties, the regime forfeited the chance to 1939-1940 (Dziek011ska-Koztowska 1964:271- gain popu l arity even among the most primitive 296). groups of the youth, whose support it tried to Modern fashion would reach the cordoned win in the first place. The oflicially extolled off Poland of the 1950s slowly and selectively. drabness would soon lose any appeal, while The so-called "new look", which marked the things attacked by the state propaganda as reaction of the West against the wartime re manife�;tations of bourgeois, Western tastes strictions and military requirements that even were promoted to the rank offorbidden fruit. In women had had to comply with, came to Poland some young people, however, the authorities only much later, half-heartedly and, occasional managed to reinforce complexes and the sense ly, in highly distorted forms (Dziekor\ska-Ko of powerlessness. Those people had come to ztowska 1964:297-356). The witty, illustrated believe that stagnation, drabness and banality guide to modern dress by Barbara Hoff and Jan constituted a virtue. They let themselves be Kamyczek, Jak oni si� ma.i'l ubierac [The way persuaded that novelty and change in everyday they should dress) had yet to appear, in the life signified an attempt to destroy their world. wake of the fu ndamental political and ideolog The East, on the other hand, had little to ical changes of 1956 (Hoff & Kamyczek: 1956).