Ruchliwość społeczna na wsi mazurskiej. Lata minione i współczesne
Social Mobility and Entrepreneurship: The Case of a Mazurian Village

Summary/Abstract: This paper describes the history of the post-WWII social mobility triggered by shifting Polish borders, which caused increased resettlement of people from the formerly Polish eastern territories to the western territories which belonged to Germany before WWII. Settlers arriving from the East replaced autochthonous inhabitants of the former German areas on the west and north, which now belonged to Poland. The majority of them had no choice as to where their new home would be. This diversity of the mobility circumstances is the basis for a verification of the thesis on a positive relationship between horizontal type of mobility and entrepreneurial behaviour of rural settlers. The analysis of the post-WWII history of the development of the surveyed village points out to empowerment being a vital precondition for a positive catalyst between the territorial and employment-related mobility and entrepreneurial attitute of the migrants. Business attitudes and actions are taken over by the next generation leading to expansion beyond farming, into new locations and forms of business activity.

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