Życie Józefa ze wsi D., powiatu puławskiego. Przypis do „Młodego pokolenia chłopów”

In sociological and anthropological studies, people often appear as anonymous representatives of their groups. The question arises of what we could learn about them if we had the opportunity, even many years later, to discover their identities. The author answers this question by a case study derived from Józef Chałasiński’s classic work ‘The Younger Generation of Peasants’ (1938), which was based on life histories submitted to a competition for rural youth. On the basis of memories, documents, and other sources, the author of the present article reconstructs the biography of a peasant from Central Poland, Józef Próchniak (1876–1934) from the village of Dęba. Appearing marginally as ‘Józef’ in one of the life histories submitted to the competition, he is revealed to have been a person of rich biography. This article describes Próchniak’s relations with his social environment and with broader history and is a sociological account of one hundred years of history in his village and neighbourhood. The example demonstrates the misconceptions that exist about ‘classes without history’ and shows that writingthe history of ‘ordinary people’ is possible.