Introduction
The article deconstructs the romantic myth of the Polish countryside, revealing the harsh reality of peasant women's lives during the interwar period. Poverty, exploitation, and a lack of access to education defined their existence, marked by titanic labor and a lack of emotional support. The text explores the phenomenon of transgenerational trauma and its impact on contemporary generations of Polish women. It emphasizes the importance of remembering these experiences to build an inclusive national identity and just social policies that account for cultural nuances and the emotional debt repaid by the descendants of peasant women. This is a story of the power of survival and the need to process history to fully understand modern Poland.
Table love: the primacy of satiety over affection
In rural homes, table love was the only available language of tenderness; instead of a hug, food was offered, serving as a material message of survival. These realities were determined by hunger and overcrowding—on tiny smallholdings, large families huddled in a single room, and diets were based on potatoes and nettles. Women endured an endless day, working 18 hours a day with plows and livestock, leading to extreme physical exhaustion.
In this system, marriage as an economic contract "for the land" excluded romantic ideals, pushing women into the sphere of caregiving and scarcity risk management. Motherhood was a heroic act, marked by the dread of high infant mortality (98 per 1,000 births in 1937) and a lack of access to contraception, making every pregnancy a brutal calculation of survival.
Hunger and overcrowding: institutions and social advancement
For many girls, domestic service in the city was the only escape from rural misery, though it often came with a lack of social protection and the risk of prostitution. The daily lives of women were disciplined by the pulpit, which served as a tool of control and the sacralization of suffering. The Church imposed strict moral norms and political slogans, such as anti-Semitic trade boycotts, which shaped the purchasing decisions of peasant women at marketplaces.
A turning point came with the post-war "dreamt-through" revolution (1939–1956), which opened educational channels for peasant children. However, mass advancement involved a rapid change in habitus—habits rooted in the body. The new middle class gained diplomas, but the price was inherited class anxiety, manifesting as perfectionism and shame regarding rural accents or origins.
The endless day: trauma and a new identity
Contemporary descendants of peasant women struggle with transgenerational trauma, manifesting in emotional coldness and the somatization of anxiety. An obstacle to discovering one's roots is genealogical melancholy resulting from the lack of peasant archives, letters, or photographs. Nevertheless, granddaughters are reclaiming their voice, reconstructing their grandmothers' lives through digital vital records and social therapy, allowing structural violence to be called by its name.
Folk high schools (e.g., Gacka Górka) remain an important point of reference, as they taught emancipation based on dignity rather than shame. Today, peasant heritage is ceasing to be a stigma and is becoming the foundation of a new identity. Understanding the "table love code" and the "heroine self-exhaustion" pattern is crucial for modern social policy and public health, which must account for these historical burdens.
Summary
The legacy of peasant women is not just a story of life in misery, but also of unquenchable strength of spirit. Will we finally manage to see their struggle in the mirror of Polish identity, or will they remain forever invisible, pushed to the margins of history? The time has come to build bridges of memory for them instead of monuments, connecting the past with the present. Recognizing their titanic work and processing the trauma of silence is a necessary condition for building a mature society that draws strength from its authentic roots.
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