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Article: Post-communist folk. (folk art in Poland)(Arts, Books and Sport)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- August 20, 1994
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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OLD rustic ways and novel western ones exist side by side in the post-communist Polish countryside. The results can be startling. Satellite dishes have displaced nesting storks on the thatched roofs of peasants' cottages. Dancers at a country fair, dressed in their forefathers' folk costumes, sip Coca-Cola from cans, spurning delicious local fruit juices. Farmers haul microwave ovens and dishwashers home in horse-drawn carts, and shepherds call home on mobile telephones from remote valleys.
Such ambiguities extend to Poland's rich heritage of folk arts and folklore. Although much of the best of it disappeared during the Nazi occupation and under communism, remnants ...