The Baptism of Poland in Public Opinion

Abstract

The aim of this article was a comparative analysis of the social perception of the event of Poland’s baptism, as well as of its significance for the development of Polish statehood, culture, religiousness and its standing in the international arena, in the light of opinion polls carried out by the Centre of Studies of Social Opinion (CBOS) and the Centre of Studies of Public Opinion (OBOP) in the years 1965–2016. It is an attempt to find an answer to the following research problems: what is today’s historical awareness of Poles? Of which historical events are they proud, and which are those—in the opinion of the respondents—that give Poland bad name? Do Poles know the date of Poland’s baptism? To what degree is Poland’s baptism perceived as a decisive event on the background of other events of Polish history right up to the beginning of the 20th century? What importance do Poles give it for the development of Polish statehood, culture, religiousness and standing in the international arena?

In the research process the following thesis was accepted that in the last fifty years social apprehension of Poland’s baptism has not undergone any change. The incompleteness of source materials issuing from the fact that the author did not carry out her own research, but only based it on data contained in CBOS and OBOP reports, made it impossible to give a univocal reply. By the same, the thesis formulated in the introduction to the article was not confirmed nor refuted. In elaborating the research material, a method of comparative analysis, of quantitative and qualitative analyses of contents, as well as of an analytical-descriptive one was applied.