Przeobrażenia społeczne w Gdyni po 1939 roku w świetle „biegu życia” działaczy i sympatyków obozu narodowego
Social Transformations in Post–1939 Gdynia in the Lives of Polish National Movement Members and Supporters

Summary/Abstract: In 1939 Gdynia was one of the biggest centres gathering supporters of the National Camp (Endecja). After the outbreak of the Second World War, in changed circumstances, the burgher community integrated around the concept of national Catholic identity did not cease to exist in a day. Thanks to the application of the biographical method, it is possible to establish its later history: the community of the National Party Activists and supporters was not permanently disintegrated in years 1939–1945 but revived itself after 1945. Final disintegration of Gdynia pre-war burgher community did not take place earlier than in years 1946–1949. Ruling communists employed a wide variety of repressive measures not only against the persons undertaking anti-government activity, but also against professional and social groups treated as „reactionary” (doctors, lawyers, traders, real property owners). Analysis of the statistical samples revealed that arrests, displacements, discrimination and non-formal actions led to liquidation of the private sector in trade, and disintegration of the community being the base for the Endecja in the pre-war period. From sociological standpoint, described social transformations bore serious consequences: firstly, the continuity of development of the conservative burgher community was disrupted; secondly, disintegration of the Endecja burgher community meant the failure in possible symbiosis of local, Kashubian identity with national, collective identity. The ways of two social groups: local Kashubians and new Gdynia inhabitants separated.

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