Ewa Smuk-Stratenwerth is co-founder of ZIARNO Ecological-Cultural Association and the Ecological Folk High School in Grzybów, Poland. As part of our series on mental health and wellbeing in rural areas, Hannes Lorenzen spoke with her about polarisation and conspiracies in rural Poland, but also about her views on “healthy patriotism” and the importance of practicing human virtues.
Hannes Lorenzen: Rural and urban Poland seem to be worlds apart. Cities have mainly voted from liberal to left, the countryside voted conservative to extreme right. Is your country split?
Ewa Smuk-Stratenwerth: People in rural Poland have always been conservative. Small farmers stubbornly survived the Soviet system. They preserved their independence. Today many vote for a radically nationalist party, maybe some for that same reason. They reject the liberal city lifestyle and the influence of far-away authorities. I think like in other parts of Europe, many Polish farmers and rural people feel ignored by city dwellers and by their governments. What is bad about it: there is too little exchange between the two worlds.
HL: The Polish independence movement was carried by workers supported by intellectuals and farmers. How did they lose each other?
ESS: The critical time was during transition from the Soviet to the free market system in the 1990s. When I moved from the city of Warsaw to the village of Grzybów, I saw both: people enjoying the new freedom in the city, and village people being lost and desperate in a market economy they did not understand. For many it was a moment of losing ground and falling into depression. We had significant rise in suicide rates, mostly among men. That period was also the dough for radicalisation and polarisation. People could not talk and reflect enough on what happened to them. They lost their communities and isolated themselves.
HL: At your rural folk high school, you try to break that isolation. How does that work?
ESS: We actively make people meet and talk here. Our agroecological courses include young people from cities and from local farms. We bring conservative Christians together with leftist vegans so that they can exchange their views about good farming and good food. When they cook, taste or eat together, they find out what really matters. We also regularly have school children here to discover nature, enjoy the farm animals, the bakery, the shop. We offer space and hands-on experience for understanding village life. That is how we are exploring ways out of stereotypes, prejudice and conspiracy.
HL: What kind of conspiracy do you mean?
ESS: Too many rural people have a general mistrust of everyone and everything. During the pandemic conspiracies strongly flourished. But also today, ideas about secret plans to harm Polish people and their farmers are widespread in rural Poland, mainly among men. I am happy that at our folk high school in Grzybów we now have a circle of young women between the ages of 25 and 40 who meet regularly and have discovered the strength of community spirit. Themes are around cooking and childcare, crafts and psychology. But together they recently dared to take a step out of their village. They went to visit a partner folk high school in Bornholm, Denmark and came back full of inspiration like new views on relations between men and women, but also about the determination of local communities to care for nature, which is not so common in rural Poland.
HL: Your Folk High School is also part of a Bioregion. What do you try to achieve with the project?
ESS: The concept of Bioregions tries to enhance something like a “healthy patriotism” for a space which is defined by nature and culture. It can be a watershed, a valley or coastline. What matters is that it has a sense of place for the people who live in it. It is different from the political concept of “homeland”. We invite people to look at their commons, the land, the water, the landscape, the farms and to find a common language for it. Then it gets easier to agree about common challenges and solutions. It is a way of dropping the stereotypes – here the farmers, there the ecologists.
HL: You also use the concept of weaving communities in that context. What does that mean?
ESS: Weaving means that we try to bring the various natural, economic and cultural threads together for the wellbeing of nature and the people in our region. Weaving means creating a strong common fabric, not just loose individual interests. But weaving includes more than just a development strategy. It is also about spending time celebrating life. During our courses and events, we encourage people to sing and dance together. In a sense we invite everyone to share all the skills and virtues they have.
HL: You often refer to human virtues as suggested by Socrates. Why are they important?
ESS: If we want to face the challenges we just discussed, for me Socrates’ four virtues: courage, prudence, justice and moderation are essential to overcome the polarisation and radicalisation in our societies. Courage meaning to challenge stereotypes and radical views and to create space for understanding and dialogue; prudence meaning to spend more time and give more attention and thinking before formulating one’s own views; justice meaning to find a fair estimation of the situation, before repeating radical views; moderation meaning to find a balance between my own needs and the needs of nature and other people. If we want to move out of all the deep divides we see today, we need to start with ourselves and practice these virtues, just as we must continuously train our bodies.
Ewa Smuk-Stratenwerth has a background in biology, anthropology and philosophy. She is co-founder of ZIARNO Ecological-Cultural Association and Ecological Folk High School in Grzybów, Poland. Since 1993 has been actively working for agroecology and sustainable development of rural areas. She has been an Ashoka fellow since 1999. Together with ARC2020, Ewa and her team co-organised a European gathering on rural resilience in Grzybów in 2024.
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