"Ruch przyjaciół dzieci" w Drugiej Rzeczpospolitej (1918-1939)
"Movement of the Friends of Children" in the II Republic of Poland (1918-1939)

Summary/Abstract: The article is the chapter from the book written for German readers. This book is about one of the most vital "pedagogic movement" in the interwar Poland: "movement of the friend of children", founded and run by educationists, who had strong belief in socialistic ideology. This article consists of four parts. The first one presents the famous vision of "hauses made of glass" described by Stefan Żeromski in his last novel "Przedwiośnie". This part also shows an attempt of Warsaw Biulding Society to make the vision real. The second part is devoted to precursors, genesis, forms of activity and development of Workers' Society of Friends of Children, founded in 1926. It contains a lot of comparisons and references both to Austian and German movement of friend of children. The third part presents, basing on case study, the activity of Workers' Society of Friend of Children in the Warsaw district Żoliborz. This dictrict, in respect of scale and complexity, resembles the Hellerau housing estates in Dresden in the beginning of XX century. The fourth part is "a general view of post-war days of the movement of friend of children". In this part the author draws a conclusion that the continuator of pre-war "movement of friends of children" being in service with State, giving up the vision of "hauses made of glass" and "cooperative republic" utopia unfortunately stopped being "the fighters of tomorrow" and became ordinary social workers or communistic propagandists.

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