Introduction
The "boor" (cham) is a fundamental concept in Polish culture—a toxic byproduct of a civilization built on violence. It is not merely a historical figure, but a persistent state of mind and a form of survival. It was born on the manorial farm as a response to the whip and the contempt that molded the peasant from mud, only to later marvel at his condition. This article analyzes how the system of serfdom shaped the Polish social structure and why this trauma still resonates in contemporary relations, from online comments to political culture.
Reification and Social Death: The Peasant as Inventory
A radical reification—the literal objectification of human beings—occurred within the serfdom system. The peasant was not merely perceived as a thing; he simply was one. In manorial registers, the word "soul" denoted a unit of inventory, placed on par with a plow or cattle. This phenomenon led to social death: the subject was biologically alive but legally and socially annihilated. He could not decide for himself, make promises, or possess his own memory.
The language of contempt was a key tool of this degradation. The concept of the "boor" served to dehumanize, excluding the peasantry from the human community. Violence was not an incident here, but a civilizational code and the primary regulator of life. Beating served as a daily affirmation of the victim's inhumanity, reminding them that their body belonged solely to the master.
Patriarchy and Serfdom: The Ideology of Violence
Serfdom appears as a subversive, exceptionally cunning form of slavery. Unlike colonial models, it did not require ships; it utilized the peasant's rootedness in the land as a mechanism of enslavement. This system legitimized patriarchy—a metaphysics of dominance in which the landlord acted as the "father" of the community. This great lie allowed beatings to be called "care" and exploitation to be framed as "moral guidance."
In this arrangement, drunkenness played an ambiguous role. On one hand, it was a "tool of brutalization" imposed by the manor and a source of profit from propination laws. On the other, it became a form of ritual resistance and the only medicine for survival in a world with no way out. The manorial system created a matrix of relations based on arbitrary power, where resistance had to take hidden forms, encoded in folk culture and everyday sabotage.
The Polish Plait and the Somatization of Oppression: Trauma Written on the Body
Historical trauma does not disappear; it undergoes somatization. The Polish plait (kołtun), in Kacper Pobłocki's anthropological interpretation, is not just a medical phenomenon but a symbolic "scream directed inward." When open rebellion was impossible, the peasant's body spoke for itself through illness and tangled hair. It was a survival capsule and a silent sign of despair. The legacy of the manorial farm manifests today in resentment and a lack of social trust—the modern "boor in an SUV" is merely a new form of an old defense mechanism.
Unfortunately, Polish collective memory suffers from repression. Historiography often metaphorizes violence, turning it into the pastoral nostalgia found in the paintings of Chełmoński. The mechanisms of amnesia regarding manorial violence mean we still do not understand our own identity. Disarming the "boor" within ourselves requires a conscious burial of this trauma and the realization that our history consists not only of manor houses but, above all, of a majority that remained silent for centuries.
Summary
Trauma remains the mother of all metaphors for the Polish fate—unspoken, yet deeply lived. The Polish plait, as the materialization of pain, serves as a reminder of a system that turned people into objects. The ritual of "curing" it was an attempt to reclaim agency in a world of total objectification. If a new Poland is to be free and just, it must begin by reckoning with the legacy of the manorial farm. The "boor" should remain a warning to us, not an identity. Only by understanding the mechanisms of past oppression can we become people truly free from the shadow of the serf's whip.
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