Ekonomia niedoboru na nieludzkiej ziemi. O wspomnieniach polskich zesłańców z lat czterdziestych XX wieku do Kazachstanu
Shortage economy in an inhuman land. Memories of Polish exiles to Kazakhstan from the 1940s

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the issues of a particular type of economic exchange that emerged in the Soviet Kazakhstan of the 1940s, showing different aspects of this exchange, its bases and values, its units and circulations. These aspects are shown using the example of memories of Poles forcibly deported to Kazakhstan in the years 1939–1941. The introduction of a totalitarian system, in its unique, brutal, Stalinist form, in areas inhabited by Kazakhs nomads, now mixed with waves of forcibly displaced persons, caused an unprecedented dysfunction of social life, affecting all participants of the economic exchange, including the Polish exiles there. To describe this situation, I used two mutually complementary theoretical constructs: the deliberations of Janos Kornai (shortage economy) and of Pierre Bourdieu (cultural capital). The text reflects on other than pecuniary and non-monetary means of payment in an “inhuman land”.

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