The article discusses the connections between nationalism and history teaching in the context of dominant structures of collective memory in Poland. Drawing on qualitative research in Upper Silesian schools, the article analyses in detail how the state-sponsored history is enacted and resisted by the teachers in school practice. The article also demonstrates the advantages of processual conceptualisation of collective memory. It provides further theoretical insight by bringing together three strands of literature: memory studies, nationalism studies and critical media analysis.
This paper examines the relationship between racism and the memory politics of the anti‐communist underground in Poland. It explores a covert antisemitism behind the conservative nationalist hegemonic project of transforming the anti‐communist underground into the ideologically charged symbol of the Cursed Soldiers. It demonstrates that under the conditions of the condemnation of antisemitism, the symbolism of the Cursed Soldiers has become a covert way of expressing anti‐Jewish prejudice in hegemonic memory politics. The paper argues that this covert antisemitism must be seen in the broader context of historical racialised antisemitism and racialised structures of Polish national identity. The paper challenges the notion of Poland as a country free from racism, by unpacking the role of racialisation in the dominant understanding of Polishness. It demonstrates how the memory politics of the Cursed Soldiers fit into the racialised logic of the dominant ideology of Polish national identity.
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