Polish and Eastern European Sociology
Central and Eastern European Sociology
There is no doubt that central and eastern European sociologies have similar intellectual, historical, and political roots and can be treated as one block, in contrast to western European sociologies, which are not characterized by uniformity (Nedelmann and Sztompka 1993). This holds true especially for the postwar period in the development of eastern European sociologies. The only exception to this pattern is Polish sociology, which is why we analyze the history and current state of Polish sociology separately. In this brief analysis of central and eastern European sociology we focus on Russian, Hungarian, Czech, Bulgarian, and Rumanian sociologies (see Kolaja and Das 1988; Genov 1989; Keen and Mucha 1994).
Overall, we do not evaluate these sociologies as very impressive, especially in comparison to western European sociologies, on the one hand, and American sociology, on the other. Central and eastern European sociologies have not produced important contributions either to classical tradition or to contemporary sociology. The only contribution to classical world sociology that should be mentioned here comes from Russian tradition and belongs to Pitrim Sorokin (1959, 1962).
The postwar period in the development of eastern and central European sociology is marked by the imposition of the communist system on the societies in that region.
