post-war society

The purpose of the article is to present the fate of the so-called "indomitable" soldiers [żołnierze wyklęci] and their myth, cultivated from 1989 onwards. In 1945, these soldiers, refusing to accept new orders in a country led by communists supported by the USSR, decided to continue the fight. At the end of the war there were 120,000-180,000 of them out of which 13,000-17,000 fought in partisan units. Two years later, there were only about 2,000 of them left. They represented different social groups and attitudes.

The appreciation of the year 1945 began almost immediately after the war, and lasts until today, while generating strong tensions in both public life and historiography in Hungary. Debates concerning the politics of memory were crystalized especially about the question if 1945 represented a liberation (of the German yoke) or an occupation (by the Soviets). Recent research, of which this contribution summarizes the results, has considerably enriched the literature with new points of view on the intermediate period of 1944 – 1945.

In the three sections of her article the author ruminates on the exiting of the Napoleonic Wars, which, through their geographic dimension, length, the use of new military technology and ideological content, brought important structural changes, and not only to French society. In the first section we learn about the diplomatic-military level of activity at exiting the War in 1814–1818, when France returned from the position of outcast to move back into the community of European states.

In this text the writer analyses the formation of attitudes of the Ukrainian civilian population settled in the territory of Eastern Galicia towards the representatives of the Polish civilian and military powers in the period of the Polish-Ukrainian (1918-1920) and the Polish-Russian (1920) war conflicts and in the immediately following period when Poland seized power over this territory. He develops the issue against a background formed by a complicated military and political situation in this area (including the consequences of Civil War in Russia which was fought also here).

The forced resettlement of the Ukrainians (the so-called Lemkos and Boikos) from south-eastern Poland to the Soviet Ukraine in 1945-1946, often carried out in a violent way, was part of the plan to attain homogeneity of Poland as a one-nation state without ethnic minorities. In autumn 1945, as a result of political pressure exerted on them by the Polish government and its subordinate bodies and under the impact of a growing number of brutal acts of the Polish troops and militia engaged in the transfer of the Lemko and the Boiko people into the U.S.S.R.

Family exists at every stage of human development and in every system. Family is the basic social unit consisting of the spouses, their children and other relatives, tied by blood and social bonds. The most important task of the family is the organisation and maintenance of their household, taking care of basic needs and emotional life of its members as well. One of the external features enabling to recognise members of a particular family is a common surname or a name traditionally shared by the family.

The Second World War had a damaging impact upon many Polish families. As a result of the decision carried out by the Allies, the Poles settled in the territory of the Second Polish Republic (Rzeczpospolita II) were forced to leave their homes. The tragic circumstances related to their expulsion, the difficult journey to other lands and conditions under which they were rebuilding their existence in a new, unknown land, were described in diaries and memoirs. In this paper the writer subjects these texts to a detailed analysis.

The Second World War affected the Jewish population in a specific way. In a critical state appeared especially the traditional Jewish family and, in fact, it ceased to exist. It is possible to speak about torsos of families – children without parents, spouses without their partners and other family members. The return to a society exhibiting complicated social relations, harsh socio-economic conditions and a post-war psychosis was tremendously difficult for the Jews. In this context, they had three possible options: to preserve their identity, to get assimilated, or to emigrate.

An impact of the war events and war regimes upon the family opens space for comparative studies of social consequences of the WWI and WWII. Survival and behavioural strategies may be another starting point for a study of models of behaviour and mental reactions to extraordinary conditions created by a war conflict. The study focuses on these two schemes and highlights their potential to become universal concepts acceptable for studying an impact exerted by war on a society in general.

War is not an exclusively political or military phenomenon, though these have been its aspects traditionally approached by historical research. It is distinctive of the great wars of the 20th century that they influenced all spheres of the life of society. As a result, the focus of historians´ interest has shifted from military-diplomatic and political-economic background to a broader social and cultural field in the last decades.