It is the village. Cities tend to be similar. But examine the villages in both countries, and you will see the core of what makes Poles different to Brits.
In England, the village is the central repository of essential English values; decency, politeness, community - and privacy.
It is here in Hambleden that W.H. Smith, newspaper vendor and bookseller - who made his fortune placing kiosks in stations as Britain's railways boomed - retired to. The village - like many around it - Fingest, Turville, Skirmett, Frieth - is extremely picturesque (it often appears in films and TV series). Its topography bears some examination, for it is here that lies the heart of the difference between Poland and England.
Hambleden is a largish group of cottages and a manor house clustered around a village green, a village church, a village hall, a village store and a village pub. Fields are regular in shape, interspersed by woodland and divided by hedgerows. Roads run off in all directions - down towards the river, up into the wooded heights, east and west to neighbouring villages. The terrain undulates; villages nestle cosily in the folds of hills. Below: the Village Hall, Hambleden.
It's a Sunday lunchtime, and the Stag and Huntsman is packed. Poles would look through the window, and remark that these people would be better off saving money by cooking their own food and eating it in their own homes - it's cheaper. It occurred to me that what these English rural folk are doing as they spend their money on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is investing in their community. It's not just about creating local jobs for bar staff, kitchen staff, farmers and brewers. It's about building trust and friendships between people in the village.
Below: beyond the butcher's shop, Hambleden's village inn, the Stag and Huntsman. Note how all cars are obediently parked on one side of the road. Porządek, Panie.
The Polish village, in contrast, is typically strung out along a long, straight road, with no discernible centre. This makes sense as the landscape's table-top flat. Ideal for mobile warfare. Left: ribbon-thin strips of land run off at right angles from this road, each farmed by different farmers (click to enlarge), the sons of sons of sons who had too many sons. I've also mentioned the importance of primogeniture in defining the difference between Poland and England - and in particular the countryside. In England, custom and law had it that the eldest son inherited the entire landed estate - as a whole. Younger sons joined the army, the church, the civil service. Or went off to conquer an empire, invent steam engines or football. In Poland, a father would divide his estate between sons, with each son ending up with ever-smaller strips of land, just enough to subsist on.
Other than the church on Sunday, there's no social focus. Yes, there's the shop, and outside it Pan Heniek and Pan Ziutek will while the afternoon away supping tins of Warka Pstrąg. And indeed, they bring with them to the UK the habit of outdoor drinking and depositing their empty tins of Lech, Tyskie and Żywiec around Britain's parkland, rather than paying the premium for sitting down in a pub to imbibe one's ale, as is the British wont.
And so, roaming around the Polish countryside, I yearn for those village hostelries where a pork pie (what's that in Polish!?) and a pint can be consumed in agreeable surroundings while resting weary legs.
The result of primogeniture is that the British aristocracy is numerically a minute percentage of the population. The Polish szlachta, or nobility, watered down by split inheritance, numbered some 8%-10% of the population at its peak. Better to be a somebody with a tiny parcel of land and a noble surname than a nobody forced to invent stuff like steam engines, telegraphs, mechanised looms, or blast furnaces.
As I have written before, the English countryside is where one wants to retire to, the Polish countryside is where one wants to escape from. The Polish wieś seethes with zawiść - jealous hatred or hateful jealousy - neighbours cannot countenance the fact that others are doing better than they through harder work, more judicious crop rotation, earlier (or later) planting (or reaping) - or just better luck.
But back to Hambleden. I doubt if all but the smallest number of villagers living here actually makes a living from the land. The large landholdings are efficiently and industrially farmed; here and there some organic farming takes place, but generally this is arable and livestock country, well maintained and managed. The majority of its 1,500 villagers are recent arrivals who have bought picturesque properties with monies earned or inherited or both; I'd guess the village is 50%+ retired City folk, entrepreneurs who've exited their businesses or inherited wealth, with the minority being people connected to the village through their kin. The influx drives up property prices.
Hambleden is a largish group of cottages and a manor house clustered around a village green, a village church, a village hall, a village store and a village pub. Fields are regular in shape, interspersed by woodland and divided by hedgerows. Roads run off in all directions - down towards the river, up into the wooded heights, east and west to neighbouring villages. The terrain undulates; villages nestle cosily in the folds of hills. Below: the Village Hall, Hambleden.
It's a Sunday lunchtime, and the Stag and Huntsman is packed. Poles would look through the window, and remark that these people would be better off saving money by cooking their own food and eating it in their own homes - it's cheaper. It occurred to me that what these English rural folk are doing as they spend their money on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is investing in their community. It's not just about creating local jobs for bar staff, kitchen staff, farmers and brewers. It's about building trust and friendships between people in the village.
Below: beyond the butcher's shop, Hambleden's village inn, the Stag and Huntsman. Note how all cars are obediently parked on one side of the road. Porządek, Panie.
The Polish village, in contrast, is typically strung out along a long, straight road, with no discernible centre. This makes sense as the landscape's table-top flat. Ideal for mobile warfare. Left: ribbon-thin strips of land run off at right angles from this road, each farmed by different farmers (click to enlarge), the sons of sons of sons who had too many sons. I've also mentioned the importance of primogeniture in defining the difference between Poland and England - and in particular the countryside. In England, custom and law had it that the eldest son inherited the entire landed estate - as a whole. Younger sons joined the army, the church, the civil service. Or went off to conquer an empire, invent steam engines or football. In Poland, a father would divide his estate between sons, with each son ending up with ever-smaller strips of land, just enough to subsist on.Other than the church on Sunday, there's no social focus. Yes, there's the shop, and outside it Pan Heniek and Pan Ziutek will while the afternoon away supping tins of Warka Pstrąg. And indeed, they bring with them to the UK the habit of outdoor drinking and depositing their empty tins of Lech, Tyskie and Żywiec around Britain's parkland, rather than paying the premium for sitting down in a pub to imbibe one's ale, as is the British wont.
And so, roaming around the Polish countryside, I yearn for those village hostelries where a pork pie (what's that in Polish!?) and a pint can be consumed in agreeable surroundings while resting weary legs.
The result of primogeniture is that the British aristocracy is numerically a minute percentage of the population. The Polish szlachta, or nobility, watered down by split inheritance, numbered some 8%-10% of the population at its peak. Better to be a somebody with a tiny parcel of land and a noble surname than a nobody forced to invent stuff like steam engines, telegraphs, mechanised looms, or blast furnaces.
As I have written before, the English countryside is where one wants to retire to, the Polish countryside is where one wants to escape from. The Polish wieś seethes with zawiść - jealous hatred or hateful jealousy - neighbours cannot countenance the fact that others are doing better than they through harder work, more judicious crop rotation, earlier (or later) planting (or reaping) - or just better luck.
But back to Hambleden. I doubt if all but the smallest number of villagers living here actually makes a living from the land. The large landholdings are efficiently and industrially farmed; here and there some organic farming takes place, but generally this is arable and livestock country, well maintained and managed. The majority of its 1,500 villagers are recent arrivals who have bought picturesque properties with monies earned or inherited or both; I'd guess the village is 50%+ retired City folk, entrepreneurs who've exited their businesses or inherited wealth, with the minority being people connected to the village through their kin. The influx drives up property prices.
In Poland, I get the sense that the majority of Varsovians are only one or two generations removed from the land. In 2001, I remember going for a walk with my children, then aged eight and six, and seeing a slaughtered pig being drained of blood, its throat slit, lying on a large wooden table in the middle of a farmyard. At work the next day, I mentioned this to my colleagues Beata and Joasia. Both laughed and said they could still remember seeing the same scene as children on their grandfathers' farms. Most of urban Britain is five or even ten generations removed from the land. And with that comes learned dependence - on the mill-owner or the state - but that's another story. In January 2006, on my way to a conference in Sandomierz, I noticed on the thermometer it was -26C outside. I glanced at the landscape; an elderly woman was carrying a bundle of firewood from the forest to her house. It occurred to me that at minus twenty-six there's no such word as mañana - rural life is hard, and one takes full responsibility for one's fate. You don't outsource it to a welfare state.
Rugged individualism can become pathological individualism, however.
Poland needs its villages to get more connected, to discover a sense of community, of win-win, of public-spiritedness, building trust between neighbours. The pub is essential to that process. Village pub teams - bowling, darts, cricket, quiz - compete with one another in English. Nothing like this happens in Poland.
But to get things kick-started, there's no better way to do it than by opening small cafés, bars, restaurants, pubs. Maybe in a generation or two's time, the Polish village is where wealthier Poles will want to retire to.
But to get things kick-started, there's no better way to do it than by opening small cafés, bars, restaurants, pubs. Maybe in a generation or two's time, the Polish village is where wealthier Poles will want to retire to.
[UPDATE NOVEMBER 2017: I buy a działka in Jakubowizna, a village 40km south of Warsaw.]
[UPDATE JULY 2022: I find I'm spending more time in Jakubowizna than in Jeziorki.]
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This time two years ago:
From the Mersey to the Tyne
This time three years ago
Autumnal Gdańsk
This time four years ago:
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This time five years ago:
Words fail me: what's the Polish for 'to fail'?
This time six years ago:
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This time eight years ago:
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5 comments:
I was delighted to read this, because it's something I've observed while travelling around Poland. Most villages have no 'there' there, they're just necklaces of houses. Sadly it doesn't attract me to the countryside, and I can't get motivated to go cycling - something I'm passionate about in the UK!
I am absolutely sure that Pan Heniek and Pan Ziutek will while the afternoon away supping tins of Warka Pstrąg do enjoy this with the same friendship and good mood as some of Gentlemen like Mr. John and Mr. Paul do this sitting and sipping their pints of ales at the village's Wilde Horse pub somewhere in England.
The strip holdings are a common ancient European practice. Similar to modern suburbia really, which is usually seen as a democratic liberal private property progressive thing... atomised.... In the late and after medieval period, in a road to serfdom, some Polish magnates collectivised the strip holdings into Folwark system (from the German for Vorwerk --- I know a German family Forck also derived from this term) no doubt on the advice of some consultant. In Australia such small holdings, which surround the more densely settled ordinary suburbia, are called hobby farms... but then our soils are worse... and the best soils we dig up to mine coal.
In Norman Davies history of Poland, God's Playground, vol 1, pages 280 ff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folwark
I’ve noticed this many times as I grew up in a village just like the one you wrote about. You mentioned investing in society and for me, this is the biggest difference in Poland and I believe the driver of many cultural differences. My wife calls it social trust. The way in which we view each other; as a threat or not. A perfect example is the way in which houses are locked behind a gate in a Polish village whereas in the UK, most houses are open to the road. Last night my wife could not believe that in the UK I can just pop into shop and buy a number plate for my car. No bureaucracy, no hassle. I would guess this comes from years of oppression, but I’m not sure.
I notice focus on selfish individualism in English communities. Kids getting upset if they don't have phones or McDonald's. Where Polish kids are still taught to respect their elders and help the community. Only the 'woke' tolerant pro EU Brits take part in hipster style community events to create that community sense in money driven UK.
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