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Poland

Culture & Identity

Way of Life

Life in Poland is heavily based on family and their religion, Catholicism. However, today many young people are heading to the cities for a university education and jobs, slightly changing the dynamic, but the active social lives found in cities have always had a significant role in Polish culture, especially considering the country was the likely birthplace of vodka.

Today about 60% of the people in Poland live in cities, but this number is slowly growing. However, the rural lifestyle of the people is an important part of the culture and as young people move to the cities, they seem to share their local customs and traditions. From a job perspective, the people are somewhat divided as nearly 15% of the people work in agriculture, another 30% in industry, and the rest work in the services sector, which takes on many forms.

For the farmers the daily way of life revolves around the rising and falling of the sun as well as seasonal variations. The industry and service workers tend to have more static hours, but even these can change as some industry positions have evening and night shifts and many service industries, particularly those in the entertainment and food industries, have evening and weekend hours. For those with more set hours, the regular work day runs from about 7:00 or 8:00 am to about 6:00 pm.

Education is important to most Poles and nearly every child attends school. School always begins at the beginning of September and ends in about May. The school day generally begins at about the same time the work day begins and it ends in the early afternoon, generally at about 1:00 pm. After this many children partake in after school activities or do their school work, which is rarely overbearing.

As a very family-oriented culture, evenings and weekends in Poland are heavily focused on family and religion. Most families eat together in the home and Sundays are the day to attend church, which an overwhelming number of Poles do on a weekly basis (especially compared to neighboring countries). Alcohol is also a part of the culture, especially for celebrations and holidays. However, with a thriving university scene, some large cities have become nightlife hot spots. Bars, restaurants, and dance clubs are all common in the cities and the youth of the nation tend to flock to these spots Friday and Saturday nights.

Ethnicity

Poland is extraordinarily homogenous as nearly every citizen is ethnically Polish. Some ethnic minorities still remain in the country, primarily Jews, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Belarusians, although most of these minority groups left during or at the conclusion of World War II due to the Holocaust then the shifting of the country's borders. The Poles are a Slavic group most closely related to the Czechs and Slovaks as all three are Western Slavic.

Language

Linguistically, the people of Poland speak Polish, which is a member of the western Slavic language group. Polish is more similar to the other western Slavic languages, including Czech and Slovak.

Nearly everyone in Poland is a native Polish speaker, but English is a popular second language and many young people today speak English at a conversational level if not complete fluency. Germany is also a popular second language, but not to the extent English is.

Religion

Much like the ethnic and linguistic homogeneity, Poland is also very religiously homogenous as nearly every citizen is Catholic, many of whom are regularly practicing Catholics. The largest minority religion is Orthodox, which is practiced by most ethnic Belarusians, Ukrainians, and a small ethnic Polish minority.

Catholicism is a Christian religion that is one of the first Christian religions (founded after the death of Jesus in about 30-33 AD). Catholicism believes that there is a single God who created everything, a savior, the son of God, Jesus Christ who is the forgiver of sins, and there is the Holy Spirit, which makes up the last part of the Holy Trinity. Catholics follow the teachings of the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments. Much of the faith is based on the life and teachings of Jesus, which is found in the gospels (in the New Testament).

Dress

The traditional dress in Poland varies from region to region and city to city; in the southern Tatras Mountains the style is so particular and varied the locals (at least historically) could tell where a person was from based upon their dress. Despite the vast differences, and the many details for each localized traditional dress, there are a number of commonalities that cross the entire country. For women, loose-fitting long sleeves was the norm, then the dress got a bit tighter in the upper body, but the lower part of the dress was always quite free-flowing. The colors of these dresses greatly varied, but were generally based on white and could include reds, blues, or greens. For the men, the traditional dress consisted of loose-fitting pants or knickers with a similar loose-fitting long-sleeved white shirt. However, men often wore a vest or varying lengths, which was again often in reds, blues, or greens.

Today the traditional dress can only be found on souvenir dolls, folk singers and dancers, and perhaps a few others during special occasions or holidays. For everyone in Poland, modern western-styled clothing is the dress of choice today, but the particular styles vary from person to person. As a visitor to Poland, wearing any western-styled clothing is acceptable, but the Poles are quite conservative so don't wear anything too revealing by being either too tight or by revealing too much skin. In churches long pants are often required.

Behavior

The Poles are conservative in most aspects of their lives and this is best seen in their behaviors, dress, and dining etiquette. They tend to dress and act conservatively, much of which is based on the doctrines of their Catholic faith.

As a visitor to Poland try to follow the lead of the locals by dressing conservatively (see above for details), dining in the local etiquette (see our Poland Dining & Food Page), and avoid sensitive conversation topics, such as politics, finances, and business unless initiated by your local counterpart. Also try to avoid being loud, rude, or showing off wealth.

Identity

Poles identify as Polish and that has a very specific meaning in Poland today. To be Polish one must be a native Polish speaker and must be Catholic. There is a minority of ethnic Poles in the country's northeast that is Orthodox, but most people see this group as odd and "not quite Polish," whereas any Catholic American or Canadian who was born in Poland and speaks the language fluently will often be accepted as a Pole. In this way, citizenship and nationality have little to do with being identified as a Pole; this separation of the government from the identity also has historic roots when the political entity failed to exist, and later under communist rule when most Poles disagreed with the government.

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This page was last updated: November, 2013