CULTURE: ‘Little Stabilization’ of Sociology – the Sociology of Culture as a Regulated Subdiscipline

The article attempts to make a contribution to the history of one of the sociological subdisciplines, namely the sociology of culture. We have discussed here the period, known in Poland as “little stabilization” (1958‒1970), when sociology, just as other areas of social life in those days, experienced a kind of relative stability. It could be particularly clearly sensed after sociology had been anathematized by the totalitarian system, which expelled sociology from Polish universities between 1948 and 1956. Although this favourable time was efficiently used for revival and development, it was also marked by strong government intervention into the domain of science. To have its own “little stabilization”, sociology had to pay the price of the resignation from the freedom of research – sociology proved in fact to be strongly regulated. The history of the sociology of culture has been placed here against the background of the political events of that period. The article shows the ways in which the government tried to influence the shape of the subdiscipline, adjusting it to its own vision of the cultural policy and also denouncing anti‑socialist views and writings.