PI: mgr Justyna Szklarczyk
Funding Body: National Science Centre Poland / PRELUDIUM grant
Project time-span: 2025–2026
The aim of the research project is to describe cultural history of State Farms in socialist and post-socialist Poland. Drawing on tools from oral history and methodologies from fieldwork, landscape studies, and affects studies, this project presents a microhistorical analysis of palaces that were adapted to State Farms in selected locations in Masuria (part of former East Prussia).
“Through their organisations, PGR employees actively participate in the work of creating a better tomorrow” reported the main organ of the Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe [Polish People’s Party], the weekly Chłopi i Państwo [Peasants and the State], in 1949. Established in the same year, State Farms (Polish: Państwowe Gospodarstwa Rolne, in brief PGR) – organised along the lines of Soviet sovkhozes – were based on state land ownership. The aim of these large farms was to develop innovations that would improve the efficiency of the entire agricultural economy in socialist Poland. Throughout this period, they accounted for no more than 20% of all farms. Most of PGRs were located in the so-called Recovered Territories, where the administration easily took over former German estates and established state farms on them. Employees of PGRs worked on state-owned land in exchange for wages, housing, and access to public services (health care, education, culture); this removed the sharp boundary between the former village and the town. On a symbolic level, State Farms testified to the ongoing class revolution, in which palaces and manor houses – nationalised and annexed for schools, kindergartens, workers’ housing, and cultural centres – would serve workers from peasant families.
Grassroots dwelling in PGR palaces – as part of the experience of PGR workers – was realized through a process of negotiation between the prewar feudal script of palace use and the new socialist practices introduced by the State Farms. These negotiations also took place within the cultural and plant landscape of East Prussia. Focusing on practices of dwelling in Masurian PGR palaces, the project proposes to interpret State Farms as agentive spaces where new social entities were emerging.
The measurable outcome of the research project will be a monograph prepared by the project director.
