The article is devoted to the development of Polish sociology from the 19th century until the period of the Second Republic, when sociology became an established academic field. The first Polish sociologists studied sociology at various European universities, but later worked in different professions i.e., Supinski was an owner of a textile weaving shop, Krupinski was a priest and a teacher, while Limanowski, Świetochowski and Krzywicki worked as journalists. Their sociological interest was secondary to their professional life. What is interesting is that they first joined European sociological institutions as members of the Institut international de sociologie (The International Institute of Sociology), gave papers at international Sociological congresses and only much later spoke at Polish conferences. They published in „Annee sociologique” and „Revue international de sociologie.” At times they also taught at different European universities, for example Gumplowicz taught at the University of Grazu and Petrazycki in the St. Petersurg University. The first sociology programs were established in Poland after it regained its independence: in 1920 Leon Petrazycki was appointed chair of sociology at the University of Warsaw and Ludwik Krzywicki was appointed chair of a program called the history of socio-political systems. Sociology was treated then as an auxiliary academic field for the study of law. Sociology as an autonomous field was first created in Poznan and its main inspirer was Florian Znaniecki. Not until the second decade of the Second Republic was sociology established as a separate department at the universities in Kraków and Warsaw. At the wake of the WWII sociology was a well established academic field in Poland with its own programs of study, research intstitutes, scholarly journals and a professional association of practitioners.

This paper addresses the public discussions among Polish scholars and social scientists which took place following the Second World War. The debate on the sociological and historical genealogy of the Polish intelligentsia started with the publication of a lecture given by the sociologist Józef Chałasiński. Covering this debate, the paper shows the way in which the literary and publicist stereotypes came to be a research question for the Social Sciences and Humanities.

According to a widespread view, reviews in science are an instrument for the selection of ideas and people. The article analyzes the gatekeeping role of habilitation proceedings in Polish sociology, taking into account three main areas: (1) the power held in the field of sociology by individual and institutional selectors, (2) statistics on the results of selection, and (3) the fate of academics rejected in the gatekeeping process. It has been found that (1) in Polish sociology there are leading institutions that play the largest role in awarding habilitation degrees, but unlike in other disciplines, there is no phenomenon of domination in the field of review by specific scholars. (2) In the proceedings from 2013–2019, 12.5% of the proceedings ended with a refusal to grant the degree. In the set, no proceedings with a controversial outcome were found (e.g., conferring a degree with a preponderance of negative reviews or vice versa). In the examination of the review results, no trend of systematic gender discrimination was found. (3) 32% of those who were denied a degree left the scientific community, while 63% are still working at the same university as before the denial.

This essay addresses the question of the ties between various social levels, particularly in connection with research on Polish society at various stages of its post-war history. In reference to the theoretical reflections and research presented by Mikołaj Pawlak in the book Tying Micro and Macro: What Fills Up the Sociological Vacuum in 2018, the author of the article argues for the necessity of careful consideration in formulating research generalities, especially when they refer to terms or metaphors coined earlier, such as the idea of a sociological vacuum proposed in the 1970s by Stefan Nowak.

The author of this essay deals with the specificity of sociology in Poland, reaching for the book of Antoni Sułek A Mirror on the High Road. Chapters from the History of Social Research in Poland (2019). Chapters of this book taken as a set constitute a review of the key issues that Polish sociologists strived to tackle in the 20th century. For approximately half of the book (6 chapters) Sułek focuses on issues of Polish sociology from the mid-1950s to the turn of the 1990s: the first is the change of theoretical and methodological paradigms in Polish sociology in the second half of the 20th century; the second is the successes of Polish sociology, but also its weaknesses—the author devoted much space to the theoretical limitations that prevented sociologists from predicting the formation of Solidarity in 1980. The third topic is the historical analysis of surveys conducted in the last decade of communism—their reliability as well as social and political functions. Finally, Sułek’s vision of socially-involved sociology appears. The strength of such sociology lies in its methodology, with which specific phenomena can be correctly defined, impartially analysed, and systematically investigated. And this in turn enables evidence-based debate and policy.