Kashubian National Awareness – Selected Issues

Abstract

The Kashubian community is recently experiencing some sort of re-vival. This group, which is recognized outside Poland as Polonia, lives in the Pomeranian Voivodship. Kashubians didn’t dissociate themselves from Polish society, they are still an integral part of it, so they are also affected by the same problems as Poles. This article is an attempt to find an answer to the question of the im-portance of tradition for the survival and development of the only such community in Poland. In Kashubia – just like in the rest of Poland – the definition of national identity creates many difficulties. For centuries, culture and religion defined the national affiliation. And what is it like today? The authors of this article are trying to answer this question by examining selected issues, which in their opinion, are the most impor-tant. No position has been taken whether we are facing the process of changing the definition of national identity (for example due to cultural globalization, especially mass culture), the unification and accelerated social changes, among both large and small societies, whose identity is at risk. The presented research results illustrate only selected factors affect-ing the daily life of Kashubians, eg: who they are, how they perceive themselves, how they define Kashubian identity.