Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

Polish identity 151
both some peculiarities of the ‘sameness’ aspect of Polish identity discussed above,
as well as changing orientation of ‘distinctiveness’. As one can see from Figure 8.1,
Polish respondents perceive themselves as a little bit more ‘European’ than other
Poles, and Poland as more ‘European’ than they are. One can also notice that a
distance between Poland and the more ‘European’ Germany is shorter than distance
between Poland and the less ‘European’ Russia (1.90 and 2.72, correspondingly).
The ‘sameness’ and ‘distinctiveness’ aspects of the identity concept can, of course,
be differentiated only analytically. They are actually interrelated, and the changes
in the ‘distinctiveness’ dimension also influence what is meant by ‘being a Pole’. It
is interesting that this change in the frame of reference, or rather one should say,
the re-emergence of the European frame of reference, results in a very humble selfportrait
of Poles (see Table 8.6). Taking into account that the list of features in Table
8.6 contains only positive ones, one can say that Poles see themselves as better only
in the case of four categories out of the 18 under question. They perceive themselves
as more family-oriented, more religious, more patriotic, and more helpful to others
than an average European. The most striking is the lack of confidence, the feeling
of being lost, which turned out to be the most often mentioned psychological ‘deficit’
in this self-portrait of Poles.
Table 8.6 Opinions about a typical Pole and typical European
Feature
Percentage of the answers ‘has a given feature’
A Pole A European Difference
(1) (2) (1–2)
kind 73 84 –11
open to others 66 69 –3
patriotic 84 67 +17
educated 69 94 –25
well-behaved 66 85 –19
religious 93 47 +46
resourceful 77 88 –11
self-confident 40 91 –51
thrifty 48 82 –34
honest 60 78 –18
success-oriented 57 88 –31
living modestly 74 57 +14
good worker 70 93 –23
good standards of living 23 77 –54
respects his work 63 90 –27
in difficult situations unites with others
in joint actions 77 80 –3
helps others 55 40 +15
family is for him more important than work 80 32 +48
Source: CBOS ‘Current problems and events’ research (114), 10–15 August 1996, on a random
representative sample of adult Poles (N=1089).