Populist in form, nationalist in content? Law and Justice, nationalism and memory politics

Jaskułowski, Krzysztof; Majewski, Piotr

doi:10.1080/23745118.2022.2058752

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…This is not a trivial effect, as references to history are frequent among those sharing the instrumental LTH. In fact, nationalism seems to be obsessed with history, while the historical visions it brings often distort reality and are not based on novel historical findings (Jaskulowski and Majewski, 2022). The historical policy of nationalists is similar to that of Orwell's (1949) Big Brother: history can be attended to only if it can be officially controlled.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between discovery and exploitation of history: Lay theories of history and their connections to national identity and interest in history

Wójcik

Lewicka

2022

Memory Studies

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One of the distinctions in modern historiography is that between collective memory and history. Although ideal historical research is presented as objective and driven by the search for accuracy, collective memory is nearly always distorted by the current group’s needs. In the current study, we assess whether common people use this professional distinction and whether these two concepts are used by the general population. Our findings are based on several different lines of quantitative studies with a total sample size of 3949: two representative Polish samples, a study of the collective memory of Oświęcim inhabitants and one representative study of inhabitants of six Polish cities. The findings show that laypeople distinguish between three different forms of historical understanding, corresponding to the (1) realistic view of history (history as a search for truth), (2) instrumental view of history (history as a construction in the service of the group’s current needs) and (3) relativistic view of history (disbelief in the possibility of historical cognition). The meta-analysis of correlations revealed that instrumental lay theory was positively related to the nationalistic in-group identity that glorifies the in-group. By contrast, realistic theory was positively related to patriotism – a form of in-group attachment that is open to criticism. The realistic theory was positively related, whereas the instrumental view was negatively related to the expressed interest in history. Moreover, the instrumental view of history was positively related to the explicit denial of the value of historical heritage and a strong focus on the present.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between discovery and exploitation of history: Lay theories of history and their connections to national identity and interest in history

Wójcik

Lewicka

2022

Memory Studies

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“…23 After the fall of communism, he published a book that popularized the term. 24 It was not until the fall of communism, however, when academic research was no longer subject to censorship and veterans' associations were formed, that open discussion, research and commemoration of the underground became possible. 25 In the early 1990s, a marginal group, the conservative Republican League, also engaged in commemorative activities, organizing an exhibition in 1993 at the University of Warsaw and then, six years later, with the financial backing of the liberal-conservative government, publishing a book entitled The Cursed Soldiers.…”

Section: The Memory Politics Of the "Cursed Soldiers"mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contested Symbolism of the "Cursed Soldiers": Hegemony, Memory and the Politics of Fear in Poland

Jaskulowski,

Majewski

2024

ham

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This article has two related goals: theoretical and empirical. First, it develops the theory of hegemony by integrating it with the concept of the collective emotional field in the context of nationalist memory politics. It then draws on the concept of hegemony to analyze the commemoration of the postwar anticommunist underground in Poland after 1989 and its grassroots reception. The article shows how memory politics work not only on the symbolic but also on the emotional level as a manifestation of a nationalist exclusionary affective politics of citizenship that creates a collective emotional field of pride but also of fear and threat.

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“…The communist repression was accompanied by propaganda depicting the AU as fascist bands. However, during the People's Republic of Poland (PRP), among the factions of communists with nationalist and antisemitic views, demands were already appearing for the rehabilitation of the AU (Jaskulowski & Majewski, 2022). Jerzy Ślaski (1981), who himself was a member of a post‐war partisan group which benefited from an amnesty, also spoke out in this vein.…”

Section: Building a Hegemony: From Bandits To The Csmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, the paper assumes that in order to explain the conditions of possibility of these structures, it is necessary to go beyond the compartmentalisation that characterises research on racism in Poland. It critically combines several strands of research that have been developed in relative isolation: racism studies, memory studies, antisemitism studies and anti‐Islamism studies (Bilewicz et al, 2018; Drozdzewski & Matusz, 2021; Jaskulowski & Majewski, 2022). Thus, the paper is not another narrow case study—rather it aims to provide a broad overview and synthesised analysis of memory politics in the broad context of the dominant structures of racialised Polish national identity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The memory politics of Cursed Soldiers, antisemitism and racialisation

Jaskułowski

Majewski

2023

Nations and Nationalism

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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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Populist in form, nationalist in content? Law and Justice, nationalism and memory politics

Cited by 15 publications

References 23 publications

Between discovery and exploitation of history: Lay theories of history and their connections to national identity and interest in history

Between discovery and exploitation of history: Lay theories of history and their connections to national identity and interest in history

The Contested Symbolism of the "Cursed Soldiers": Hegemony, Memory and the Politics of Fear in Poland

The memory politics of Cursed Soldiers, antisemitism and racialisation

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