The Polish Solidarity Movement in Retrospect: In Search of a Mnemonic Mirror

Abstract

The legacy of the Solidarity movement of the 1980s, which was a leading force in the region's 1989 revolutions, culminating most symbolically with the fall of the Berlin Wall, has yet to be institutionalized in Polish social memory. A spate of official commemorations marking the movement's 25th anniversary in 2005 provided a palette on which Poles projected-or refused to project-their memories. The movement's legacy continues to play out in current and contentious electoral politics, since the leaders of the top contending parties are former Solidarity activists. Despite and partly because of this active presence of Solidarity movement players, Polish civil society appears to be in a liminal state of active hesitation over the task of concretizing this movement's past in commemorative forms. This article proposes six cultural and political explanations for this hesitation. It also recommends that social scientists disaggregate the concept of memory work into various manifestations on a continuum from hesitation to deliberation and agitation to institutionalization. As the article illustrates, hesitation can constitute action. At stake in this exercise is a larger discourse-over the direction of the post-1989 sociopolitical changes vis-à-vis the aims of the 1989 revolutions and the meaning of democracy and transitional justice in a posttotalitarian context.

Trickledown politics: Do excluded ethnic groups benefit from non-violent national resistance campaigns?

“…Poland's Solidarity Movement, an NVR campaign with mass participation across diverse social divisions (Pearce, 2009) and subsequent democratization, led to increased associational autonomy (Bethke and Pinckney, 2021). In 1991, the first Roma association with a clear political leaning was formed (Stowarzyszenie Romów w Polsce; Mirga-Kruszelnicka and Mirga-Wójtowicz, 2017).…”

Delete, Restart, or Rewind? Post‐1989 Public Memory Work in East‐Central Europe

“…It is the 31 August 1980 founding moment of the trade‐union‐based Solidarity movement that has garnered more commemorative attention, however, through annual ceremonies at the Gdańsk shipyards, the movement’s birthplace. Matynia (2001) and Lipiński (2009) have chronicled the disputes that have often arisen in commemorating Solidarity: In 2000, the 20th anniversary came and went with little official ceremony (Matynia 2001); there were more extensive national celebrations for the 25th anniversary, but Poles were noticeably hesitant to celebrate, as former Solidarity activists in leading government positions were losing popularity (Pearce 2009).…”

Building Taiwanese history and memory from below: The role of social movements

“…Earlier literature explains the cleavages that gave rise to the democracy movement in Taiwan (Gold, 1994), but not how memory work in social movements changed after democratization. Elsewhere, a generational change, complicated experiences with democracy and temporal distance from the memory wars between authoritarian and democracy camps have altered the ways the past is conceived (Boyd, 2008; Eglitis and Ardava, 2012; Pearce, 2009). The first part of this article will show how a similar change took place in Taiwan.…”