Pamiętniki konkursowe oraz współczesne wywiady jako komplementarne źródła do badania chłopskiego doświadczenia reformy rolnej
Competition diaries and contemporary interviews as complementary sources for investigating the peasant experience of agricultural reform

Summary/Abstract: This paper compares materials submitted in diary competitions and contemporary biographical interviews as sources for analysing peasants’ experience of the communist agricultural reform in Poland (1944). 69 interviews conducted between 2017 and 2019 are compared with three competitions: “Opis mojej wsi” [A description of my village] (1948), “Nowe pamiętniki chłopów” [New peasant diaries] (1955) and “Mój rok 1944/1945” [My year 1944/1945] (1969). The author reveals what kind of people wrote the diaries, the form these diaries took, what topics they featured and which went uncovered, and why the diaries are insufficient in themselves as source material for such research. The article reflects on the specificity of the diaries as an induced narrative, and presents the options for a critical approach to their analysis. The second part of the text shows how the interviews supplement the diaries.

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