THE MANOR WAS, THE MANOR IS NO MORE. LAND REFORM IN POLAND - ANNA WYLEGAŁA

Discover the fascinating history of land reform in post-war Poland, told from the perspective of those most affected. In her book "The Manor Was, the Manor Is No More," Anna Wylegała analyzes the effects of the expropriation of large landowners and the transfer of land to peasants in 1944-1945. It is a story of social, spatial, and memorial changes that sheds new light on Poland's post-war history.

• In-depth analysis of land reform in Poland
• Perspective of the victims and beneficiaries of the changes
• History of specific places and communities
• A story of memory and manor heritage
• Impact of the reform on the social and spatial structure of the village
• The fate of the manors after 1945
• Contemporary attitudes towards the landed gentry heritage

The land reform, carried out in 1944-1945, is one of the least researched events in Poland's post-war history. During the PRL era, attempts were made primarily to prove how much it improved the situation of peasants and agricultural workers. After 1989, numerous memoirs of landowners were published, describing the expropriation process, and publications on the countryside focused on the later period, especially on peasant resistance to collectivization and the social consequences of the functioning of state agricultural farms.

Anna Wylegała's book fills this gap and fits into the current trend of broader interest in history through the prism of the fate of ordinary people. It answers the question of what experience the land reform was for the victims, i.e., the landowners, for those who benefited from it, i.e., the farm servants and landless peasants, as well as for a host of more or less involved witnesses. The author also looks at specific places and communities: manors that after 1945 were converted into cooperative offices, apartments for managers of state agricultural farms, kindergartens, community centers, orphanages, and health centers; villages where, as a result of the division of the lord's land, the spatial structure, social hierarchy, traditions, and everyday life changed.

It is also a story about what the memory of the reform is - among the descendants of peasants and the descendants of landowners, what the contemporary attitudes towards the former manor and landed gentry heritage are, and how the sub-manor space functions today. The book was co-financed by the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport from the Fund for the Promotion of Culture, obtained from surcharges established in games covered by the state monopoly, in accordance with Art. 80 section 1 of the Act of November 19, 2009 on gambling.