Bibliogr. s. 22-26

The paper is focused on the issue of culture and its connections to rural developments. It was based on the assumption that the culture has various impacts on rural communities` life, as well as, it has been present in various ways in functioning and changes that might be observed in rural areas. In our opinion, such a perspective should be presented in a more detailed way in order to stress the multiple and various impact of cultural issues on economic and social transformations in rural areas. Therefore, we divided our paper into three consecutive parts. In the first one, we discussed the multi-dimensional image of culture, and its role in human development. In the second one, we discussed some changes in the mechanisms of rural development, perceived as moving from the traditional to the contemporary one. We wanted to stress that culture seems to be an important part of the latter one. The last part of our considerations brought some empirical evidence from Poland focused on the role of culture in rural developments showing, at the same type, some examples of this new mechanism of rural development.