A small town is almost completely skipped in studies of Polish ethnologists. The main scientific output in this field constitute works by sociologists, demographers, geographers, historians and urbanists. The reason of ethnographers’ weaker interest in small town communities lies above all in the position of classical ethnography, functioning until recently, for which a traditional thread of research interest was the culture of farming village community. After all, a relatively small number, complex structure and sometimes complicated network of small social groups, people density, intensifying specific types of social interaction, concentration of different functions connected with urban organization and lifestyle are only some of premises reinforcing the attractiveness of small-town communities as a type of laboratory of ethnological studies and ethnological analyses. On the basis of an overview and short description of the research situation concerning the cultural issues of the small-town community as the research subject, one can see that there are many topics that are hardly examined or totally skipped in the studies. Still there are few works concentrating on the problems of attitudes, motivation of behaviours and interaction. The awareness aspects in the functioning of a small town as a collective community have been covered to a large extent. Thorough, regular and broader-scale studies on the phenomenon of cultural identity and local identification among the inhabitants of Polish small towns have not been conducted yet. After all the studies carried out with reference to a slightly big community, allowing for grasping all problems appearing in it, allow to explain the creation of social groups, their duration, development dynamics and coherence in a more precise and consistent way. It usually has a vital importance for formulating wider theoretical generalizations further on. A relative spacious isolation and closeness of social contacts enable the conditions to verify the already stated theses. What is more, a lot of interdependences existing within a small-town spacious-cultural system can constitute a basis for generalizations extrapolated on other levels and systems of a social life.

Cultural tradition of Silesia is connected with its location at the meeting point of trade going from the east westward and from the north southward. A socio-political and economic situation of this region and settlement processes caused that the cultures of neighbouring countries and ethnic groups: Polish, German, Czech, Morawy permeated in this area from the Middle Ages forming the borderline culture. Life conditions in this region in the past were influenced by not only long-standing dependence on neighbouring countries (Prussia, Germany and Austria later on — till the beginning of the 20th century and then German Occupation till the half of the 20th century), but the development of coal mine ores and industry. The process of industrialization which covered especially Upper Silesia, the outskirts of Cieszyn and Opawa Silesia brought about a rapid development of technological civilization. Existential dependence of local and inflow population of physical work in coal mining and industry, and the necessity to getting accustomed to outside farm work caused the development of new categories of professional groups, a specific way and life style, formation of a new industrial culture. Ardousness of dangerous conditions, the need to provide for the everyday life and coresponsibility in the work place and family life resulted in deep religiousness, strength of social bond and sense of unique responsibility and awareness of family, local and regional identity. It all had not only a culture-created importance but contributed to the formation of personal features of Silesian population who have considered themselves as hard-working, well-organised, responsible and economical people till now. Contemporary cultural transformations in this region are connected not only with the phenomenon of culture globalization being popularized, but the necessity to restrict former coal mining and industry, regression of former sources of living. Tradition-maintained social culture and spiritual culture rooted in mentality of native population is however still a feature of the very population, its borderline culture constituting support for the awareness of the identity of people in Silesia.

The realities of rural life of North Sudan described in this article by no means come from the region of particular cultural features and high existence standard. They represent an above-average cultural situation of rural areas in the valley of the Central Nile. All the more they seem to be important and interesting for the researchers of this part of Africa these days. The northern part of Sudan is still little known, especially when it comes to modern times. Despite that, however, we realize that also in this part of the African continent have been undergoing great modernization changes which to a large extent and often irreversibly transform life and landscape of this place. The author, by means of presenting particular elements of village topography and everyday life, tries to outline the current existence image of this place in Africa, at the same time, putting an emphasis on changes taking place. The material presented in this article mostly comes from the author’s own field studies conducted in Sudan between the third and fourth cataracts.

The article presents the results of the research works of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas, presenting the topicality of magic practices concerning the ways of preventing children from spell. It constitutes an attempt of a cartographic analysis of data collected in the 1970s in 338 research points situated Poland wide. Atlas studies showed that the communities under investigation knew and practised different ways of preventing children from spell. These involve for example practices connected with using of elements in an intensive colour, isolative practices (ban on showing a child to strangers and covering it with cloth), practices concerned with turning the clothes inside out, practices combined with using impurity (spitting), practices connected with using sacred objects and votive gestures. The images on maps point to the relict nature of analysed magic practices on the one hand, and their former popularity in Poland (scattered and edged scope prove it). The maps show that some practices were maintained longer in the eastern and south-eastern Poland than in other areas. The very territory is often defined as the most conservative in terms of the traditional folk culture.

Food and habits connected with it provide a lot of information on the subject of culture. The cultural memory of people, connected with a mythological and religious understanding of the world giving certain dishes, food, drinks a symbolic meaning and some that of taboo, was encoded in eating. The ancient culture of Greeks and Romans was based on farming. Harvest, grapes and olives — three produces of food and cultural role, and the identification symbol of this civilization were the most important. On such basis grew the Mediterranean culinary system which possessed visible vegetarian features, completed with meat and cheese. Nutritionally, the values accepted by “barbarians”, population inhabiting northern and southern Europe at this time, were much different. Different Celtic and German tribes upheld wild nature, fishing animals and collecting widely growing plants. Their main culinary value was not bread but meat. A significant difference between a culinary culture of particular areas of Europe, initiated in ancient times, has existed in the cultural memory till now and belongs to the factors of their identification and separateness. Christianity which was born and grew as the evidence and heritage of Hebrew culture, within the Mediterranean civilization, relegated the role of the products forming a material and ideological basis for this culture to the role of culinary symbols of the cult. By a gradual mixing of “barbarian” rituals with Christian ideology the European culinary culture was cristallised, including mainly the role of meat and fat. In a Christian cultural circle meat had connotations it has nowadays. A common food eating in a symbolic and real way expresses peace and friendship, as well as complementariness between co-feasters. During feasts and ceremonial dinners meat is offered being the symbol of prosperity and culinary pleasure for Europeans.

A social group functioning in Polish reality after 1989 combining features of punk and neoanarchism subcultures, associated with “anarcho-punk”, is combined with joint symbols, values and more or less direct social relations, interactions or social bonds. Despite some secondary local differences and ethnic as well as national flavour, neoanarchist environments and punk subcultures are treated as certain imagined communities constituting a peculiar point of view and “tool” for their participants, through which they perceive, interpret and evaluate the world surrounding them, behaviours or their or others actions. At the same time they are a “product” of “late postmodernism” and “mirror” in which the specificity and condition of the contemporary culture reflect and break. People connected with anarcho-punk through the network of mutual interactions within movement, both the direct and indirect ones, and thanks to numerous contacts with social system external to them very often use other fields of culture and human activity, among others decomposing the elements of popular culture in order to create their own system of references and meanings. Intergroup communication and jointly taken forms of activity play an important role in the process of identity gain or the choice of lifestyle as well as evaluation of socio-cultural reality. They are the means of conveying symbols, patterns of thoughts, myths enabling the interpretation of the world. Thus, they guarantee the”reproduction” of an anarchist discourse. Participants joining the actions within the movement do not only use the already-existing system of meanings, but also modify it and adjust to the changing socio-culture background. Such socially created and approved system of symbols do not only guarantees the continuity of the movement, but also serves the formation of new values, strategies or social practices which serve the group and their members to create new meanings, a critical description and working out the strategy serving the opposition in the light of dominating discourses, structures or centres of power. Thanks to symbols, repeated, interpreted, redefined constantly anew, the movement members give sense to their actions, valorize and structure the world surrounding them, define their own place in the world, interpreting their own experiences and direct their actions.

The study is devoted to oral, anonymous and collective works of Polish children in Cieszyn Silesia, on both sides of the Polish-Czech national borderline. A special emphasis was put on the repertoire functioning in the environment of Polish minority in Zaolzie, in the Czech Republic. Here, I aim at discussing the interethnic specificity of verbal play by Polish children from Zaolzie by means of a comparison with ethnically Polish store of folklore on the Polish side of the borderline in Cieszyn Silesia and with ethnically Czech texts. Verbal works of Polish national minority in the Czech Republic develops under the constant influence of ethnically foreign culture, language, literature and mass media. The analysis of specific genres of child folklore — rhymes — showed that the texts are marked by the interference of two languages and cultures. It is, however, the proportions between the elements borrowed from other culture and the parent one that bring about the ethnic nature. Borrowings, though, are not taken on passively and mechanically, but are modeled according to the principles of one’s own anonymous works. The influences of Czech enrich the Polish-speaking works of children, are adapted to the poetic system in accordance with the principles of one’s own anonymous works. Verbal play, developing in the situation of a direct presence of the sender and receiver, are incredibly precious for maintaining identity of a child living in the multicultural environment. Spontaneous reactions when playing do not only integrate peer environment, but give the sense of security deriving from the belief that the remaining participants of the act of communication have an analogous system of values, represent a similar worldview, and have a similar sense of aesthetics. A spoken word is a symbol of a live and dynamic culture, which realizes the needs of a group in a natural way. In the system of culture shaped in such a way foreign ethnic influences can only enrich it brings about its interethnic specificity.

Researching the local space equals the preferences of the holistic attitude in the anthropology of the city. A strongly urbanized local space is marked by condensation of social and cultural phenomena which are reflected in various symbolic actions. Forms of graffiti, based on mythical structures of image or memory places constitute the semiotic space of the city. The semiotic space of the local area is not alike the space of the city as an urbanist whole although it is directly and indirectly connected with it. On the one hand, it is a collection of objectivised products of symbolic actions and on the other hand, the means of establishing social relations and articulating defined cultural phenomena. The phenomena taking place in the semiotic space of the city can be grouped into two main fields. The first one includes material objects of the sign type and objectivisd representations of particular value and idea, typical of sensori-motor perception. The second one would involve imaginative-notional objects, fulfilling the mythical function and referring to models of the world appearing in a given culture. Due to the diversity of the phenomena taking place in a semiotic space the research examining it should base on the application of various methods, paying special attention to the structural-semiotic method.

Collective memory, the issue visibly raised recently, is particularly important, and perhaps, especially with reference to the reality of the Silesian native population; regional collectiveness of a special history. Analysing the very phenomenon in the context of ethnology/anthropology and also basing on the arrangements (and terminology) within the scope of history and sociology, the very problem has its clear conditions and regional features in Upper-Silesian reality as well as processes taking place on the scale of the postcommunist Europe. In the space in question — as a result of the process of system transformation two different phenomena such as economic (transformations of the economic policy), trade (industry restructuring), social (structure, relation and bond transformation, lowering of life standard, and change of life style), ethnic-national (divisions within native population, a fully non-cristallised national process, erosion of Polish national attitudes, the phenomenon of the so called Silesian nationality, preceded by the growth of the so called Silesian option, and, finally, cultural ones (the predominance of the Silesian over Polish one, a weak relation with the Polish symbolic universe, revitalization of the Silesian identity) clashed here. The result has constituted a peculiar collective memory of the Polish People’s Republic being the expression of current dilemmas, questions, as well as trauma and hope. The very states are projected on and referred to the past. Moreover, in the perspective of our interest, the phenomenon of collective memory manifests in its different functions such as enculturation, information, explication, legitimization (of concrete events, messages, anniversaries, people), axiologisation (of processes, events or people), reproduction (“processing” of given facts or values) or redefinition — on the level of informality of given notions. It is this series of factors that decides on the importance of the research problem raised which is also connected with the phenomenon of identity in a special way.

It is difficult to define the spacious scope of borderland because its only stable point is the borderline. It visibly separates any two parts, two societies with their different systems of values, models and life styles, also often separates “the familiar” from “the foreign”. It is so on the Polish-Czech borderline where the Olza River used to flow through the culturally homogeneous Cieszyn Silesia and currently, as the country borderline, separates two Cieszyn lands going their own and separate ways for over 90 years. Revolutionary changes in Poland and Czech Republic from the turn of the 1980s and 1990s have changed the nature of the borderline which has become the focal point of the most and most intensive transborderline cooperation. Does it mean that the unity of Cieszyn Silesia as a culturally homogeneous and Central European region can return one day? It seems impossible because even the strongest formal relations, administrative actions and intensive mutual contacts will not glue dispersed identities of the inhabitants of both sides of borderland into one Cieszyn identity. Though, the identity of the inhabitants is never homogeneous and clear. It is composed of extremely rich and ethnically diversified material. The people of the borderland move freely from culture to culture, choosing the best contents and models for them, which causes that all dissimilarities are obvious for them and worth acceptance. However these are the people always situated on one side of the border, the one they identify with as their private homeland. The inhabitants of Cieszyn Silesia have two such homelands.

An unquestionable phenomenon is the fact of existing in Poland, the country of the tradition of “the bulwark of Christendom”, a small community of Muslim Tatars who settled down as defenders of Polish eastern borders also against their Tatar and Turkish co-believers. The very group has been totally Polonicised, however, maintained its own religion. They remained faithful to Poland, also in the 19th century when Poland stayed under rules. As a recognition of their patriotism, a special unit of cavalry, maintaining the tradition of Polish Tatar army, was created in the inter-war period in the Polish army. Unfortunately, the number of Polish Tatars in the 20th century has decreased significantly. After the World War I and gaining independence out of 11 000 Polish Tatars, half of them was beyond Poland (in Lithuania and Soviet Bielorussia), and after the World War II, when their main headquarters were in the areas occupied by Soviets, many of them were expatriated into the remaining Polish territories, settling down, among others, in the area of north-eastern Poland that was closest to their settlement so far. They recreated here their social and religious life in which, however, they clearly underlined a religious autocefaly of Polish Tatars and a certain separateness of their Islam from the one of an Arabic type. In a rich bunch of the Polish national culture, Polish Tatars create the most oriental flower.

The article discusses literary works by František Sláma (1850—1917), a Czech national activist, writer and columnist working as a judge of the district court in Cieszyn between 1882 and 1888, devoted to gypsies (the Romany people). It covers four short stories created at this time and reprinted several times also translated into Slovak and the article devoted to Gypsies in Cieszyn Silesia. The leading themes of subsequent stories are baptism, wedding, confession and love between a young gypsy girls and a young non-gypsy boy. In the last one the author used a real event though it is above all based on the knowledge he had thanks to his contacts with gypsies as a judge. However, he colours his plot with motives taken from different sources. The author bases on a fairly stereotyped vision of the Romany life, the basis of which is to include petty thefts as a result of which they are constantly tried and from which they try to free themselves through lies, excuses or, “gypsying” Sláma wrote about gypsies in the article (“On gypsies in Cieszyn”) published in the magazine “Slovansky sbornik” in 1887. Both in the article and short stories Sláma presents the Romany people with friendliness, through which he shapes their image, perhaps negative, but familiar.

The article raises the issue of social cooperation during the wedding ceremony in Poland in the second half of the 19th century. In the majority of works devoted to the wedding we come across the analysis in which the authors pay attention to above all the dramatic, ludic, etc. function of the very phenomenon. The participation of the members of the village community in this ceremony was perceived in a very similar way. In the foreground were the ritual, dramatic and folklore role and function. The wedding ceremony is though a series of actions in which participate both individuals and whole groups hidden behind the curtains of the action going on. O a large extent these are the actions thanks to which it is possible to organize the whole ceremony. In this context one should look into social cooperation. The exploration of the hidden and secondary functions of the engagement of the community members in the wedding enriches our knowledge on this ceremony. Help given by wedding participants took place during each stage. The easiest division of this problem to be suggested is a division from the point of view of a practical or, in the second case, a symbolic nature of the actions undertaken. The wedding ceremony in its concrete manifestations such as mutual help during its subsequent stages has not been a static form, transmitted from one generation to another in an unchanging form. A comparison of the 19th century and 20th century materials allowed for distinguishing changes cooperation underwent. The very processes went in two directions. Both in the case of phenomena in which the symbolic role was dominant and the ones which were characterized by a practical importance of the actions taken we encounter changes and loss. The analysis of violence manifestations given at the wedding time shows the observer the whole scale of aspects and meanings of the role of the group at the time of the wedding. This hidden importance of the participation of the community, often densely veiled with gestures and more spectacular behaviours largely constitutes the basic principle of the ceremony. The interpretation of cooperation and changes happening in its area enable the examination of the functions of the wedding ceremony in a wider context of social life.

The article is devoted to the role of a toy in the process of getting to know the world by man in the process of enculturation. What constitutes the center of author’s attention is a toy programmed and made for children’s play, especially the toy, the aim of which is to represent something different — most often the thing which for man playing it, because of his/her low height, little experience and limited opportunities, is physically not available directly or often even dangerous (e.g. a dangerous car represented by a little car understood as its miniaturized model). A similar representation bases on the analogy, which allows for naming a given type of toy an iconic toy. It helps people to relatively safely get to know the world which is dangerous and difficult to grasp. The iconic toy in this sense serves to get familiarized with the world. Within the culture of a traditional type the iconicity of toy boils down to the analogy based on simplification. The culture toy of a traditional type is always distinguished by “essential” (in other words typical) object features it represents. Thus, it is somehow a counterpart of the prototype in the cognitivist theory in the sense that it is an idealized image of the thing represented. It is also its functional equivalent if one assumes that its task is to simplify and cognitively make available the world which, on account of its diversity and changeability, is cognitively intangible. Thus the aim of the traditional toy is to give the reality specific borders and accustom man to it, which is a condition of a cognitive ruling over the world. In the contemporary culture apart from iconic toys the analogy of which to the object they represent is based on simplification appear toys, the analogy of which to the represented object bases on “deformation” (e.g. an anthropomorphic monster with a non-standard number of eyes, limbs, etc.). From the cognitive point of view, similar toys do not confirm the world borders. On the contrary, they constantly disturb them, thus violating models, types and typologies. The function of similar toys in the enculturation process may lead to preparing man to functioning in the “fluid” modernity (Z. Bauman), which is characterized by instability of the cosmos borders in that that the very borders are prone to possible revisions and changes. Verbal play, developing in the situation of direct presence of the sender and receiver are extremely precious for retaining the identity of a child living in a multicultural environment. Spontaneous relations during play not only integrate the peer environment, but also give the sense of safety resulting from the belief that the remaining participants of the communication act have an analogical system of values, represent similar views and have a similar sense of aestheticism. A said word is the symbol of the living and dynamic culture which fulfills the needs of the group in a natural way. In the system of culture shaped in such a way foreign

The role of folk culture, especially artistic works based on traditional patterns and shaped under the influence of natural, historical, social and economic factors has an unquestionably important position in a discussion on the national heritage, its separateness and “place” in the European culture. Ethnologically, the folk art was interpreted as the utilitarian, religious, magic, prestigious, culture created as well as artistic and aesthetic value. The discussion on the contemporary state of the so called folk art and scope of definition of the very cultural phenomenon experiences many obstacles. The notions “ folk art”, “folk works” and “innate works” demand necessary verification in which one has to take into account new defining criteria, such as technique, subject-matter, function, and, above all attitude and author’s artistic self-awareness. A characteristic feature of this work is the continuation of traditional patterns and at the same time search for artistic individualism. In consequence, it leads to diverging from a typical convention, aiming at new, different formal, technical and thematic solutions. What needs verification is also the notion of “a folk author”. Nowadays it is rather a “pseudofolk” author, an artist for whom the most important is the process of creating his/her own artistic reality, experienced inside him/herself and its expression. A creative passion is an attempt to fight with passing time and rapid changes he/she does not follow, and overcoming workshop and emotional barriers. The very text is an attempt to characterize the contemporary and individual artistic work on the basis of the studies conducted in Silesia, especially Cieszyn Silesia and Zaolzie.

The centres, located in Europe, through which the borderline of two countries goes are marked by socio-cultural separateness worth documentation and complex examination. Ethnology, in line with other disciplines, should get engaged in the analysis of phenomena and socio-cultural processes revealing themselves in borderline double towns. The towns divided by the national border have not constituted a frequent type of town. There are several dozen towns divided by a national border in Europe. Borderline “two-towns” are peculiar “cultural laboratories” in which it is possible to observe interesting trans-border phenomena every day. The majority of European double towns are distinguished by biculturalism, bilingualism, and bicurrency until recently. Crossing the border means encountering different architecture, traditions and life style of the community members who experience other problems publicized by different media on both border sides. Political, system and economic Changes happening on a macro scale on the one side and sometimes on both sides of the border in borderline “double towns” evoke extremely dynamic and diversified socio-cultural processes. Borderline double town relations spoil every-day cultural “clashes”, revealing their own complexes and those belonging to their neighbours, as well as reluctance to maintain rather forced than spontaneously-formed kind neigbourhood relations. A counterbalance of negative phenomena typical of many double towns constitutes planned enterprises having a positive influence on the development of borderline towns: positive results of the activisation of local trade, accelerated”course of tolerance” which the citizens of such towns participated in, initiated processes of transforming borderline towns in towns of borderland, and taking on the function of borderline centres and capitals of Euroregions. An important stage in improving the relations between the inhabitants of both parts of borderline towns is moving from the institutionalized cooperation to informal one.