“Zeszyty Artystyczne” – Call for Papers:
The Polish Countryside (and Beyond) in the Arts – Cultural and Social Changes
In recent years, rural and peasant issues have become a major topic of reflection not only in the Polish humanities but also in culture in the broadest sense, encompassing media discourse, literature, theater, film, music, and the visual arts. The growing prevalence and intensity of this discourse have even led some observers to propose that we are witnessing a so-called “folk turn” taking place within the field of Polish culture. This stems, among other things, from the recognition that, throughout Polish history up until the postwar period, the peasantry constituted the most numerous social group, from which the majority of contemporary Polish society descends. Peasants, however, were a class that was politically, socially, economically, and culturally subordinated and marginalized, internally colonized, and even “Germanized,” and at best, in certain historical periods, instrumentally patronized. Therefore, reclaiming their history and restoring their experiences, agency, and autonomy is a crucial aspect of the efforts undertaken as part of the “folk turn.”
“Zeszyty Artystyczne” has already addressed this issue twice through its initiatives. In January 2025, it opened an exhibition titled *A Quite Ordinary Village*. The title alluded to the book *A Quite Ordinary Country*. *A History of Poland Without Martyrdom*, whose author, Brian Porter-Szűcs—an American historian of Polish descent—stated that he considers “Poland to be truly interesting, but by no means because it is an extraordinary country, but precisely because it is so very ordinary.” According to Porter-Szűcs, Poland’s ordinariness lies in the fact that it is not some “foreign land with a bizarre history,” but a space that has been and continues to be “at the intersection of all the trends characterizing the modern world.” If Poland is ordinary in this sense, then the Polish countryside is also ordinary—perhaps not situated at the intersection of all the trends of the modern world, but certainly of many of them. The exhibition features several works on the countryside created by artists with rural roots. However, while these projects can certainly be considered art about the countryside, in light of the question of representation, the doubt arises: is this art truly art from the countryside? And how does it function in the countryside—that is, does it reach the countryside at all, meaning is it art in the countryside? And if it does reach the countryside, how is it received there? These questions, among others, were raised during the second event—a panel discussion devoted to reflecting on ART ABOUT THE COUNTRYSIDE — ART FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE — ART IN THE COUNTRYSIDE [in the context of the so-called “folk turn”]. Many issues were addressed there, but even more were merely touched upon or even omitted; that is why “Zeszyty Artystyczne” is now, for the third time, reflecting on rural issues.
“Zeszyty Artystyczne” invites submissions of texts addressing rural themes and offering a critical examination of these issues from an artistic perspective, while broadening the discussion to include cultural, social, political, and religious contexts.
Some of the interesting topics include:
– “The ‘folk revival’—a new peasant craze?”
– The category/concept of the countryside, rurality, and peasantry—what does it mean today?
– Civilizational and cultural changes in rural areas (e.g., the rural community’s attitude toward non-heteronormative people)
– Work in rural areas, class divisions
– Rural areas and migration: from the countryside to the city, from the city to the countryside, from the countryside to the world, immigrants in rural Poland (economic migrants, refugees—e.g., the attitude of residents of rural areas/rural areas toward refugees/immigrants from Ukraine, attitudes of residents of rural areas in eastern Poland toward refugees illegally crossing the Polish-Belarusian border)
– rural activism: activities of rural women’s clubs, volunteer fire departments, sports teams, etc.
– animals and non-human forms of life in the countryside, including attitudes toward the natural environment
– rural/folk/peasant religiosity – what religiosity looks like in the countryside today – its social dimension (rituals, ceremonies), but also its individual dimension, related to spirituality
– connections between artists and the countryside – historical and contemporary perspectives.
Text length: 20 ,000–40,000 characters, including spaces
Deadline for submitting abstracts (approx. 500 characters): January 31, 2026
After the abstracts have been accepted, the deadline for submitting papers is March 31 , 2026
Email: zeszyty.artystyczne@uap.edu.pl
Detailed editorial guidelines are available at: http://za.uap.edu.pl/?page_id=12