I personally remember some very pleasant college-level studies on Polish Ethnography that I had attended in the summer of 1975 in Poland, in Kielce (in south-central Poland). Since I was highly fluent in Polish and quite bright for my age, I was able to meaningfully take part in the activities though being only in my mid-teens at the time. These types of initiatives were part of Edward Gierek’s huge outreach to Polonia -- that is, communities of persons of Polish descent living abroad.

        There was an especially intensive effort towards American and Canadian Polonia. This coincided with a brief “ethnic studies” movement in America and Canada at the time – when, for the first and probably last time, so-called “white ethnics” like Polish-Americans were somewhat popular. One remembers that 1970s television series, Banacek, with a suave Polish detective – although it was marred by little research into actual Polish matters. (The name Banacek, for example, is typically Czech, not Polish.) There was also the iconic figure of Bobby Vinton, one of whose hit songs included major passages in Polish. The American television mini-series Roots was also referred to as representing a search for rootedness which Polish-Americans should also undertake, in respect of their Polish origins. Although there was obviously a “hidden agenda” behind the Gierek outreach, it was something that (as far as I can see) has actually never been matched – I refer of course as far as its positive aspects -- in the post-1989 period. I also note the major emphasis that was put on folk- and peasant-culture and native Slavic elements in Poland at that time – for example in widely-circulated art.

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