Is It Merely a Sphere of Symbols? Some Aspects of National Culture in the View of Antonina Kłoskowska and Other Modern Polish Sociologists

Abstract

In the last period of her professional career, Antonina Kłoskowska focused on issues related to national culture and nation itself, which is evident e.g. in her publication National Cultures at the Grass-Root Level. The article presents Kłoskowska’s main arguments concerning the notion of “national culture”. The author regarded this specific type of culture as one that could be characterized as symbolic, compound and coherent in the syntagmatic sense. Kłoskowska points out that, in order to be recognized as a member of a national community, it is necessary to acquire and refer to the canonical resources of its culture.
In the second part of the article some of the findings of contemporary Polish researchers are laid out, which correspond or directly relate to some of Kłoskowska’s ideas. A comparison and analysis of their views leads to a conclusion that their diversification does not generally mean that they are completely distant in their judgments but rather that various aspects are stressed in different ways. This attests, however, to the fact that the authors belonged to diverse intellectual formations.