Abstract
Polish rural migrations are a permanent phenomenon with specific features. They are a temporary yet indefinite type of departure from the social and topographic ‘peripheries’ to similar ‘peripheries’ of the receiving country, a group rather than an individual process of nominating migrants, their mutual movement to a chosen country and staying in ethnic cliques ("ghettoes"), finally the lack of a clear innovative effect and even the stagnation and retraditionalism of the environment they return to. These phenomena were described in detail by Polish rural sociologists during the inter-war years and current research confirms the constancy of the pattern established at that time. The similar behaviour of migrants and social consequences of toing and froing to earn money suggest the constancy of their conditions (particularly the peripheral situation of Poland in Europe and the dual development of Polish society and economy).