Abstract:
This paper describes childhood in the Polish countryside in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The findings presented were based on an analysis of diaries, memoirs and biographies of representatives of the peasantry. The situation of children at that time was determined by two factors: poverty and work. Being a child was subordinated to the survival of the family and its functioning, and the position of the child in the family depended on its usefulness in the farm work. Children grew up in difficult housing and sanitary-hygienic conditions. They were inadequately fed and clad, and their relationship with their parents was characterized by emotional coldness. The whole life of a child from an early age was subordinated to seasonal farm work in the field.
