The Polish organisations and institutions abroad and Polish diaspora organisations and institutions database
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Check the latest database of Polish and Polish diaspora organizations and institutions abroad polonia.stat.gov.pl
Database of - information for users.
The database of Polish and Polish diaspora organizations and institutions abroad documents the organizational and institutional aspect of the presence and activity of the Polish community and Poles abroad, with particular emphasis on social, cultural and religious activities. It is a systematized, functional, easily accessible, and ultimately a relatively comprehensive tool of an information and ordering nature. In its current shape, it is primarily used to easily locate an entity or a selected group of entities based on specific territorial, chronological and factual features. It should be noted, however, that the database cannot be treated as a complete and up-to-date "list" of Polish and Polish diaspora organizations and institutions abroad. The dynamic nature and scale of the studied phenomenon preclude the achievement of a result that fully reflects the number of Polish and Polish diaspora organizations and institutions abroad that actually function in a given unit or time period.
The database created as part of the permanent survey "Poles and Polish communities abroad in the world" was first made available in 2014. Due to the extensive research area and methodological limitations determining the long cycle of data preparation, it was decided to disseminate the emerging repository in the initial version, i.e. intended and prepared for further, gradual increase in information value and level of usability. The currently presented collection was developed in accordance with these assumptions and expanded - in relation to the original version - with updated and supplemented information on the previously considered organizations and institutions, moreover, the subjective scope of the repository was increased by further (also newly created) research units, and its subject scope was expanded.
Ultimately, an annual update of the database is planned, i.e. at least once a year, the available version of the repository will be replaced with another - updated one.
With regard to the published information, the following basic classification and ordering rules have been adopted:
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the list includes Polish and Polish diaspora organizations and institutions of a social, cultural and religious nature established and operating outside the country;
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the list includes Polish organizations and institutions with their superior structures in Poland, as long as they conduct permanent activity outside the country and have their headquarters there (e.g. School Consultation Points at Polish embassies, foreign pastoral centres and territorial units of Polish religious congregations, including Polish and Polish diaspora);
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the list includes Polish organizations and institutions established in Poland before September 1, 1939, operating later outside the country, of great importance for the social, cultural and religious life of the Polish diaspora, and often for the Polish national heritage in general (e.g. Society of the Guard Graves of Polish Heroes in Lviv, Łyczakowski Cemetery, Na Rossie Cemetery, etc.);
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the list also includes other, various forms of presence and activity of the Polish diaspora, functioning within the institutional structures of the country of residence (e.g. Polish collections of the Hoover Institute in Palo Alto, Adam Mickiewicz Museum - Branch of the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul, Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris);
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due to the scale and nearly two hundred years of history of Polish emigration, the area of interest includes, to a certain limited extent, also organizations and institutions that formally and actually ceased their activity, but their significance and legacy remain an important, and sometimes even fundamental, component of spiritual and material culture of the Polish diaspora and Polish national heritage (e.g. the Polish Historical Institute in Sweden, the Polish Combatants Association in Great Britain, or "Kultura" - a monthly magazine of the Literary Institute in Maison Laffitte);
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the list does not include Polish diplomatic missions (embassies, consulates and other representative offices) and Polish Institutes, the full and updated list of which can be found on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
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the list does not include cyclical (and even more so individual) events: patriotic and religious celebrations, special events, exhibitions, festivals, concerts, sports competitions, etc., organized by Polish and Polish diaspora communities, regardless of their status, character, tradition or number of participants. Although projects of this kind are an emanation of the broadly understood activity of the Polish diaspora and an important element of its cultural identity, they remain one of the many fields of activity of the entities covered by the "Poles and Polish communities abroad in the world" study, and from this perspective, they are rather an element of the description of this activity, not a separate category of entities tests;
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termination of the activities of an organization or institution included in the database does not delete the information collected about it; information on the termination of activity is treated as a necessary element of the description of the audit unit and is introduced in the file update mode.
The extensive research area, difficult to be synthetic and standardized, and the adopted method of analysis of secondary sources are the main determinants determining the sequence and schedule of the activities undertaken and planned as part of the research. The presented list, although it is another - extended and updated - version of the initiation set, is still not a product of assumed information value. As the least represented groups of research units (in relation to their total number), thus requiring the widest supplementation, it can be indicated as primarily Polish-language media (mainly Internet), as well as Polish chaplaincy centres.
The object scope of the repository has been extended compared to the original version (by variables 6, 8, 9, 12 and 13) and now includes the following elements:
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Name of the organization / institution in Polish (in some cases supplemented or left in accordance with the original spelling).
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Year of commencement of activity, which means the moment of establishment or registration of the organization / institution (or its branch, other affiliated structure) in the country of residence.
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Type of organization / institution - general classification developed for the purposes of this repository in order to enable and facilitate searching, filtering and grouping of audit units (under no circumstances should this classification be treated as strictly describing the scope or subject of the audit unit's activity); the classification includes 8 ordering categories, relating to the form and field of activity of the entity (the categorization scheme is included in the document sheet).
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Detailed type of organization / institution - a similar classification, with the same purpose, being an extension of the general classification and together with it constituting a permanent, hierarchical structure, includes 36 categories of units (the categorization scheme is included in the document sheet).
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The organization / institution headquarters: country - name of the country in which the entity operates and/or has its headquarters, office or other relatively permanent place of work / contact (i.e. meeting place of its authorities or meeting place of associated persons / organizations, sometimes - especially in the case of smaller association entities - it is also the place of residence of the organization's leader). In the absence of an unambiguous territorial assignment or its variability, an appropriate comment is included in the supplementary information. The names of countries in Polish are provided in accordance with the guidelines of the Commission for Standardization of Geographical Names Outside the Republic of Poland.
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The organization / institution headquarters: administrative division of the country - name of the higher-level administrative division in which the town is located - the organization / institution headquarters; due to the nomenclature and structural diversity, it was decided to include (with the exception of Austria, Spain, Germany and Great Britain) both the name and the type of unit, e.g. Lazio etc.
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The organization / institution headquarters: city - name of the city (town) in which the unit operates and/or has its headquarters, office or other relatively permanent place of work / contact (i.e. meeting place of its authorities or meeting place of associated persons / organizations sometimes - especially in the case of smaller association entities - it is also the place of residence of the organization's leader); in the absence of information or the absence of reliable information, the field was left blank.
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Reference year - the available information on the basis of which the data on the audit unit is updated does not always reflect the current state, i.e. existing at the time of data verification, therefore, for each entity, the reference year is provided, understood as the period from which the information being the basis for last verification (this may be e.g. the year of the last update of the website maintained by the audit unit).
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Activity status - this variable allows for the selection (filtering) of research units depending on whether they operate (symbol 1 - organization / institution is operating, symbol 2 - organization / institution has ceased or suspended its activity); in the absence of information or the lack of reliable information, as well as in a situation where the entity formally exists, but has not shown any activity for a long period of time, the symbol 3 was assigned - lack of information on the activities of the organization / institution.
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Related persons – a purely informational variable (in its current form, it is not intended to perform a filtering or sorting function); it includes the names and surnames of the entity's founders, persons performing management, managerial or representative functions in it, in some cases the names of its prominent representatives (sometimes also when these persons no longer perform their function or role, including deceased persons); due to the functionality of the collection, the surnames are given without specifying the function, academic or military degree, etc. (the exception are clergy, including members of religious congregations).
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Website address of the organization / institution - address of the website maintained by the unit; if the entity does not have its own website, the address of the website maintained, e.g. by the federative / superior organization to which it belongs (if it contains information about the entity). Internet media are a special case when a website (news portal, website, forum, blog, Internet television, Internet radio, etc.) constitutes a research unit as such.
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E-mail of the organization / institution - e-mail address of the entity or person performing management, managerial, representative, representative functions in it; if the unit does not have an e-mail address or if it has not been possible to determine it, the e-mail address of the federating, parent or leading organization / institution may be provided (if justified).
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Social network account of the organization / institution - account address on a social networking site operated by the entity.
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Supplementary information - this field is intended for additional information, relevant from the point of view of identifying the entity, determining its formal status, specifying the conducted activity, e.g. previous names of the entity, owned subsidiaries (branches, subsidiaries, etc.) and organizations / institutions operating under its auspices, superior organizations / institutions, the fact of termination of operations, etc.
The usefulness of the Database of Polish and Polish diaspora organizations and institutions abroad depends primarily on the possibility of obtaining relatively up-to-date and verifiable information from at least two sources. Hence, providing a wide spectrum of data sources, comparative analysis of their content and selection are the most important factors determining the quality of the resulting information. The authors of the study - aware of the extensiveness and formal and substantive complexity of the research area, as well as the limited availability of some information, which in turn increases the risk of making a mistake - turn to all persons with knowledge in this field, in particular to the authorities and members and employees of the organizations themselves and Polish and Polish diaspora institutions, for kind help in supplementing the missing information and correcting outdated or inaccurate information.
In order to facilitate the verification and completion of the information contained in the database, a short, one-page form was made available: Form for updating data. With its help, you can correct incorrectly entered data or complete missing data.
All information provided is invaluable help for the authors of the study, for which they express their gratitude and thanks!
E-mail address to which you can send the completed form and correspondence regarding the Database of Polish and Polish diaspora organizations and institutions abroad :
