Integration of Migrants in a Major Polish City. Kraków’s Public Cultural Institutions and the “New Ukrainians”

Abstract

The article deals with the integration processes of Polish native inhabitants of Kraków and the newest (since 2014) migrants from Ukraine (70–100,000 in a city of about 800,000). One of the main actors in these processes are municipal public cultural institutions. Using a number of methods, the needs of the Ukrainian population in Kraków were assessed and the offer of the local public institutions was studied. A focus group, IDIs, analysis of websites, Facebook profiles, and participatory observation were used. A basic problem for migrants is finding information on the local cultural offer presented in Ukrainian or Russian. Kraków does much to include foreigners into its social life. However, still closer integration, taking advantage of the potential of migrants, would be instrumental to making their life better and to making the city even more attractive to its Polish and non-Polish inhabitants and tourists. Premises and other resources at the disposal of Ukrainian private institutions are too small for large-scale cultural activity. Kraków’s cafes and pubs help, organizing concerts and meet-the-author and meet-the-artist sessions, but these events could be better organized by public cultural institutions, inviting much larger audiences. Sometimes leading Ukrainian artists visit Kraków and turn to municipal institutions looking for support and employment, only to find neither. It would be very beneficial for the city to monitor these initiatives, via Kraków’s Ukrainian websites and Facebook profiles, and take advantage of them.