Emigration of Władek Wiśniewski as an escape – a reinterpretation of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America volume 3 in the light of the autobiographical narrative interview method

Abstract

Reading Władek Wiśniewski’s autobiography in the third volume of Thomas and Znaniecki’s The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, not entirely neglecting the economic factor, it is worth paying attention to a very interesting and not uncommon reason for leaving the homeland, that is “an escape”. Its various current modalities can be placed on the continuum between “an escape from” and “an escape to”. Using analytical tools developed by Fritz Schütze, which were created much later, but largely inspired by achievements of the Chicago School of Sociology with Thomas and Znaniecki as its major researches, it can be shown that Władek’s primary reason for leaving the country was to free himself from tense family relationships. They were based on exploitation and distrust, full of hypocrisy and injustice; a desire to move away from home in order to break with an image of his own identity in the eyes of his Significant Others – as a person who is not worthy of respect, a drunkard and loser. Thus, the main hypothesis of this article (emerging from analysing constellations of events in his life) is: Władek Wiśniewski’s motives for leaving the homeland and going overseas are not only and primarily economic but are placed between “an escape from” and “an escape to”, though they gravitate towards the latter one.