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The political landscape of the radical right has long been a major discussion point in the political and social sciences. By considering the variety of radical right organizations (movement parties and non-parliamentary organizations) and the particular national and transnational political and discursive opportunity structures, the paper aims at a comparative analysis of the main discursive frames present in political programs and manifestoes of radical right social movement organizations and movement parties in Poland (Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość and Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny) and Germany (Alternative für Deutschland and Identitäre Bewegung Deutschland). Moreover, based on approaches developed by Cas Mudde and Jens Rydgren, this article analyses how the features presumed essential to the radical right (nativism, authoritarianism and populism) are reflected and interconnected in the official discourses of the selected radical right organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the debates that surrounded the renovation of the royal castle in Krakow during the last decade before World War I. When the Galician crownland took over the castle in 1905, it bore little resemblance to a royal seat, having been used as military barracks since 1846. The debate that followed focused on what should be preserved, what demolished, and what recreated. In this discourse the “meaning” of a historical monument was examined and different interpretations within the circles of architects, preservationists, and artists were propagated. The debate conducted during the meeting of the Central Commission for Research and Conservation of Historic Buildings revealed that the division was not along national lines, but rather among different philosophies of preservation of built heritage. The point made by the paper is that the discourse conducted 100 years ago allows us today to draw conclusions about the role of historical buildings in a national(istic) worldview and examine its inherent contradictions. That is because, I argue, the past as such matters little in the national(istic) understanding, despite its ostentatious interest in history. What matters is the usefulness of historic symbols in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highlights the 5th ICCEES World Congress in Warsaw, Poland. Discussion on linguistic minorities under the transition from communism to post-communism; Perspective on minority languages; Insights on the ratification of the treaty concerning the minorities.

This paper will examine processes of democratization and “nationalization” with specific reference to the Second Polish Republic (II Rzeczpospolita) and the interwar period. Starting from a consideration of broader theoretical concepts concerning transformation processes and their relation to the analytical categories of gender and ethnicity, it will discuss the introduction of political rights for women in 1918 as a case study for the role women’s suffrage played in the process of democratization. A closer examination of the activity of three selected female members of parliament - a Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian MP - in the Polish parliament will help to clarify if and how gender and ethnicity mattered in political institutions. It is argued that especially their speeches, by addressing specifically political demands in a certain way, that is, how they spoke in the name of their sex, nation, and ethnicity, show a close interlinkage between democratization and nationalization during the Second Polish Republic. From this will emerge a more general outlook on the extent to which the recognition of women’s suffrage molded the basis for equality between women and men, and if the legally guaranteed equality really included all citizens of the Polish state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intellectual underpinnings of the nationalism articulated by the followers of Marshal Józef Piłsudski (Piłsudskiites), who ruled Poland between 1926 and 1939. Scholarly consensus holds that modern Polish nationalism was solely the domain of the National Democratic movement. Conversely, the Piłsudskiites' conception of the nation is generally seen as anachronistic, poorly articulated, self-contradictory, and lacking a deeper intellectual foundation. Focusing on the formative years of the Second Polish Republic (1918–1922), this paper draws a link between Piłsudskiite political thought and the philosophy of the heterodox Marxist theorist Stanisław Brzozowski. Re-examining the early writings of Piłsudski's followers in light of Brzozowski's philosophy, the paper presents the argument that “Piłsudskiite nationalism” was in fact deeply constructivist, surprisingly sophisticated, and no less “modern” than the nationalist discourse articulated by the National Democrats. In the process, the article interrogates and problematizes the classic “ethnic” vs. “civic” typology of nationalist movements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the early 1990s, large numbers of Polish Roma have emigrated, mainly to Germany and Great Britain. Unlike the migration of Polish (non-Roma) citizens there was an intriguing silence regarding the migration of this ethnic group. The absence of Roma in the grand narrative of migrations from Poland, as we argue, suggests that the notion of belonging and citizenship were unequally distributed among Poland's population. Based on our ongoing ethnographic research among Polish Roma migrants, complemented by an analysis of relevant documents, we argue that these inequalities and hierarchies are deeply rooted and there is an interesting continuity in how they were produced and reproduced prior to and after the 1989 regime change. We argue that one of the key factors in these movements, the collectiveness of the migration project – i.e. migrating as an extended family group as a component of the moral economy of Roma mobility – is mutually produced by unequal citizenship, mobility regimes and strong moral obligations stemming from kinship ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Polish history, Prince Adam Czartoryski is almost universally regarded as one of the most important Polish statesmen and patriots of the first half of the nineteenth century. In Russian history, on the other hand, he is remembered chiefly as the Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire, and a close personal friend of Tsar Alexander I. How did Czartoryski reconcile his commitment to the Polish nation with his service to the Russian Empire (a state which occupied most of Poland)? This paper will attempt to place Prince Adam's friendship with Alexander, and his service to Imperial Russia, in the broader context of national identity formation in early nineteenth-century eastern Europe. It will be argued that the idea of finding a workable relationship between Poland and Russia, even within the framework of a single state for a “Slavic nation,” was an important and forgotten feature of Polish political thought at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By answering the question of precisely how Czartoryski was able to negotiate between the identities of a “Polish patriot” and “Russian statesman,” the paper will shed light on the broader development of national identity in early nineteenth-century Poland and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 1945, German Breslau was transformed intoUr-Polish Wrocław at Stalin’s behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and salient narratives of identity as shaping forces, which include the suppression of German culture under Communism, prevalent intermarriage between Germans and Poles, and the city’s qualified reinvention as “multicultural” after Polish independence in 1989. Together with the group’s relatively small numbers, these narratives play out in their hybrid approach to ethnicity, often invoking blended cultural practices or the ambiguous geographical status of the Silesian region, to avoid choosing between “national” antipodes of “German” and “Polish.” The results follow Rogers Brubaker’s insight into ethnicity as an essentializing category used to construct groups where individual self-perception may differ; and the concept of “national indifference,” previously applied to rural populations. It also suggests we might better approach circumscribed “minority” identities such as these, by seeing them as a form of “sub-culture.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three case studies depict different attitudes of anthropologists toward the politics of nationalism promoted by the prewar Polish state. Ethnographer Stanisław Dworakowski, involved in a governmental Committee for the Issues of Petty Nobility in Eastern Poland, elaborated a study on this social stratum. Although based on reliable field research, it can hardly be considered scientific work, as it has many features of political propaganda. Quite opposite is the case of folklorist Joachim Chajes, secretary of the Ethnographical Commission of YIVO. Contemporary Soviet folklore was one of the fields of his research, which Polish anticommunist and antisemitic authorities found suspicious. Accused of communist activity, he was imprisoned. Social anthropologist Józef Obrębski can be situated between those two extremes. His field research among East Slavic peasants in Eastern Poland, concerning their developing national identity, although conducted within a national scientific program and financed by the state, is an example of intellectual independence. By revealing the negative attitude of the peasants toward Polish authorities, Obrębski achieved an outcome, which did not fulfill the official political expectations. These three trajectories show competitive coexistence of the meta-field of power and the scientific field, focused on their respective stakes: power and recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the difference between the construction of national and local identifications related to the new place of residence. It shows that local identification is more inclusive than national, and therefore may be a key to strengthening social cohesion. National and local identities can both be seen as forms of place identification (i.e., of spatial or territorial identity). The article builds on qualitative research on highly skilled migrants living in Wrocław, Poland. The empirical data shows that these migrants would rather obtain a city identification and call themselves Wrocławianie (inhabitants of Wrocław), and do not want, or only partially want, Polish national identity. Living in and experiencing Wrocław makes them feel like insiders, while experiencing Poland positions them as outsiders. While national identity is built around the difference between "us" and "them", local identity focuses on gaining knowledge about the particularity of a place and therefore allows for acceptance of heterogeneity and is easier for migrants to obtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main research problem addressed in this article is the pattern of reacting to stigma based on ethnic origin expressed by the representatives of different generations of Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities in Poland living under different political and ideological conditions before and after 1989. This paper is based on a qualitative empirical study that comprised 22 in-depth biographical interviews with representatives of Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities, who varied in age. The research found that while the elderly see their minority identity in terms of danger or threat, the middle generation perceives it as an obstacle in fulfilling their life aspirations in a society fully dominated by the Polish majority. The youngest interviewees seem to be the most willing to perceive their minority characteristics positively in terms of uniqueness as well as particular competences, especially bilingualism, which may give them an advantage in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the development of the German minority community in postcommunist Poland, focusing specifically upon the Opole Silesia voivodship. I argue that the minority's successful engagement within democratic fora at all spatial scales allowed the minority to voice its concerns and secure funds to develop its community infrastructure. However, as the 1990s progressed, the minority's ability to manipulate a politics of scale declined as the policy objectives of key allies were achieved or reformulated. Furthermore, the changing contours of the minority-majority relationship within Poland have exposed significant cleavages within the minority, bringing into question the continued relevance of the German minority political party for the constituency it claims to represent. Introduction The emergence in Europe of a new minority rights regime, adhered to by Poland as part of its desire to "return to Europe" and join the European Union, has created a legislative framework that aims to ensure that members of national minority populations can enjoy substantively the same rights as the majority. The most significant legislation in this area is the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1995), ratified by Poland in December 2000. The "guarantees" of this new regime, in order to be substantiated, require minorities to be able to mobilise sufficient political capital in order to have their rights (social, cultural, economic) taken into account, both within and without democratic fora. In Poland the most successful minority has been the German minority, which, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, was able to forge up-scale links with powerful allies such as the German government, the Union of Expellees and the Association of Compatriots. As the 1990s unfolded, these links weakened, in part because of the substantial progress made by the minority in gaining the recognition they had been aiming for, but also owing to the changing policies of allies as their own goals were achieved or reformulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the anti-Lukashenka protest movement in Belarus by comparing it to the Solidarity movement in Poland. We organize our analysis around the concept of four stages identifiable in the development of social movements: emergence, coalescence, bureaucratization, and decline. We argue that protests in Belarus reached the bureaucratization stage, but their transformation into a more durable movement was slowed down by the brutal repressions unleashed by the Lukashenka regime propped up by Putin's Russia. However, the spectacular changes in people's conceptions of national identity built around symbols different from those associated with the officialdom may sustain emotional mobilization necessary for formation of higher levels of organizations in the oppressive context of today's Belarus. The contours of this process are brought into sharp relief when compared with the long, cumulative trajectory of the 1956-89 anti-authoritarian Polish revolts. This opens the way for cautious prognostication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the ethnic entanglements of the land reform debate in the first Polish Diet (1919–1922). Against the backdrop of global comparative studies, interwar Poland, haunted by land hunger, rural poverty, and high concentration of land ownership, is an odd case. Despite conditions conducive to far-reaching land reforms, that is, a high level of inter-elite conflict and semiautocratic order, the Polish reform was very moderate, if not disappointing. Unpacking the series of moves in the debate and the sequence of hairbreadth voting on its shape, I ask why, despite broad acceptance of the reform across the political spectrum, it could not attract enough support to be swiftly executed. The ethnic composition of the country triggered controversies concerning German farmers and peasants of the ethnically diversified eastern borderlands. Major political parties shared tacit Polish nationalism, but the history of political alignments made the nationalist politicians susceptible to the lobbying of the landed elite and estranged them from peasant parties. The land holdings of nobles were considered a bulwark of the nation, which effectively blocked the alternative idea of integrating the ethnic minorities via land ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2015 up until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Polish citizens have undergone a major decline in their willingness to allow foreigners to reside in Poland. The following text empirically investigates whether antipathy to newcomers is driven more by cultural or economic concerns, and what role the ethnicity of immigrants plays in this antagonism. The findings suggest that the ethnicity of immigrants is significant in both the salience of the expressed hostility and in the importance given to individual factors. When considering the acceptance of immigrants of different ethnicity, Poles are most concerned about preserving their national culture, whereas worries about the burden on the national economy are uppermost when considering ethnically similar newcomers. Antipathy against ethnically similar immigrants is also much weaker than against those of different ethnicity. The over-time comparison tells us that support for the government, religiosity, and opposition to universalism values became the most important predictors of restrictionism after 2015. We assume that the increase in anti-immigration attitudes was not that much caused by the unprecedented wave of immigration, but rather by the rule of the nationalist-conservative government which politicized the issue of non-European migration and contributed to the change of public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By investigating the information and propaganda campaign surrounding the election of delegates to the 1929 World Congress of Poles Abroad, this article seeks to elucidate a complex interplay between foreign policy considerations, security concerns, and nationality policies of the Polish and Soviet governments. It examines the role of national minorities in the Soviet modernization effort and the ongoing Polish-Soviet rivalry of the interwar period. The focused study of the information campaign, and the public discussion surrounding the election process to the congress, contributes also to the debates on mass political culture in the interwar Soviet Union. Party communication, intelligence, and secret reports compiled during the local elections and conferences provide a unique source for sampling public opinion of the Polish population regarding the Soviet regime in the early years of Stalin's First Five-Year plan. The article argues that despite the considerable efforts of the party to define and promote Polish identity, and thus shift their loyalties closer to the Soviet state, the Polish population in Soviet Ukraine, even at the end of the 1920s, continued to express persistent nonconformity and a lack of faith in the Soviet government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article asks whether the divided town Cieszyn-Český Těšín can be considered a joint "living space" in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. It evaluates the impact of the pandemic on various aspects of the daily lives of the inhabitants and institutions of both parts of this divided town. Three main dimensions of cross-border integration were studied: cross-border flows, cross-border structures/institutions, and the feeling of togetherness, which represents an ideational dimension of cross-border integration. The research was based on studying narratives covering border closures in the divided town, the analysis of cross-borderness of existing Facebook groups acting in both parts of the divided town, and the results of an extensive questionnaire-based survey among its inhabitants. The border closures restricted cross-border flows, which hit cross-border commuters and damaged the quality of this divided town as a living place because it introduced uncertainty. However, the health crisis also showed the high level of mutual interconnections between the local inhabitants and a functional cross-border civic society. The local people and politicians tend to perceive the divided town as a joint living space. The level of cross-border integration highly exceeds the one usual in the "new EU." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses a popular survey on national identity in Poland. However, the analysis of the survey is a pretext to remind one of the limitations of crude quantitative methods and to look at the Polish national identity itself. The article shows that the survey questions are far from unambiguous, and respondents might attribute different meanings to them. The survey does not "measure" national identity existing in the world, rather it serves to maintain the hegemonic concept of Polishness. It diminishes the significance of Catholicism and the perceived biological dimension of Polishness. It ignores public sentiment linking Whiteness and Polishness, contributing to maintaining the dominant image of Polishness as free of racism. Under the guise of objective research, the survey is one of the elements sustaining the image of a relatively open and inclusive Polishness. Referring to my own qualitative research and recent literature on the topic, I argue that Polish identity must be seen in terms of selective racism without racism—that is, it is an identity based on racial premises but which at the same time neglects its racial character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical literature on interwar Polish policy on Belarusians and other minorities focuses primarily on the relationship between the regime in power and minority groups as a single block, failing to note instances in which regime policies toward specific organizations have not been uniform. Despite the fact that Belarusian ethnic identity was ambiguous and national consciousness low, no fewer than 13 political organizations in interwar Poland claimed to represent the minority. The most influential organization was the Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union Hromada. Less than two years after the organization's inception, it was banned in 1927. This article examines why an organization like Hromada, which did not resort to violence and in fact took pains to operate within the legal framework of the Polish constitution, was shuttered by the state, while other organizations with similar profiles were allowed to operate. The article reveals that Hromada was not banned strictly due to what the government considered its radical ideology or because it was an antisystem party, but rather it was banned for its ability to suppress organizational pluralism among Belarusian organizations. The article advances the existing literature by (a) shifting away from analyzing the dynamics between a state and an ethnic group as a whole, by disaggregating the level of analysis to focus on minority political organizations, and by (b) going beyond ideology as the main explanatory variable dictating state policies toward minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the status and situation of the ethnic minorities in Poland. Creation of a special bureau for the coordination of policies towards minorities; List of important conventions on minority issues; Estimates on minority population; Details on ethnic minority groups present in the country.

This article traces changes in Polish administrative approaches toward indigenous Upper Silesians in the 1960s and 1970s. By commissioning reports from voivodeship leaders in 1967, the Ministry of Internal Affairs recognized that native Silesians held reservations toward Poland and, moreover, that postwar "Polonization" efforts may have backfired. These officials further understood the need to act quickly against "disintegration" trends. Although administrators in Katowice and Opole noted that relatively few Silesians engaged in clearly anti-Polish activities, these leaders still believed that West German influence threatened their authority in Silesia. Increasing West German involvement in the area, particularly through care packages and tourism, seemed to support this conclusion. In response to fears of West German infiltration and the rise in emigration applications, local authorities sought to bolster a distinctly Silesian identity. Opole officials in particular argued that strengthening a regional identity, rather than a Polish one, could combat the "tendency toward disintegration" in Silesia. This policy shift underscored an even greater change in attitude toward the borderland population: instead of treating native Silesians as an innate threat to Polish sovereignty, as had been the case immediately after the war, the administration now viewed them as essential for maintaining authority in western Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically reexamines how Germans understood Polish national identity during World War I, and how their perceptions affected German proposals for ruling Polish territory. Recent historiography has emphasized the impact of colonial ideologies and experiences on Germans' imperial ambitions in Poland. It has portrayed Germans as viewing Poland through a colonial lens, or favoring colonial methods to rule over Polish space. Using the wartime publications of prominent left liberal, Catholic, and conservative thinkers, this article demonstrates that many influential Germans, even those who supported colonialism in Africa, considered Poland to be a civilized nation for which colonial strategies of rule would be wholly inappropriate. These thinkers instead proposed multinational strategies of imperialism in Poland, which relied on collaboration with Polish nationalists. Specifically, they argued that Berlin should establish an autonomous Polish state, and bind it in permanent military and political union with the German Empire. The perception of Poland as a civilized nation ultimately structured Germany's occupation policy and objectives in Poland throughout the war, much more than stereotypes of Polish primitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and attempts to explain the reasons for the conservative and nationalist character of Polish schools. The author uses data from surveys, analyzes political programs, postulates concerning education put forward by conservatives, and quotes poems emphasizing national identity from textbooks used at schools to teach reading skills. According to the author, it can be observed that nationalists build an atmosphere of aversion to immigrants, which affects racism in the school hallways. The article also presents the phenomenon of so-called school chambers of national remembrance, which are part of patriotic rituals practiced by Polish society. The author emphasizes that nationalism is the basis for changes in history programs of study, which are part of the educational reform implemented by the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - PiS) government. The cultural soft power, which is used to make reality more “national,” complements the administrative and political hard power of the PiS party - both tools are used to create an authoritarian-nationalist vision of social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the case of the Suwałki Triangle region on the current Polish-Lithuanian border to demonstrate how local activists developed a “multicultural” interpretation of social relations to counter previously dominant nationalist narratives. It then contrasts this interpretation with a “decoloniality” framework to illustrate the limits of the multicultural approach. Decoloniality, developed by Walter Mignolo to theorize about Latin American historical experiences, finds continued hierarchies in the apparently plural social landscape, situates identity as a fluid response to these hierarchies, and privileges voices that are “delinked” from them. Decoloniality may explain the complex borderland identifications of the Suwałki Triangle - and potentially other territorialized communities - better than multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explore the interaction between local, national, and transnational frames of memory as it manifests itself in the contemporary commemoration of the Jewish past. Focusing on the case study of Poland, I argue that articulations of transnational memory still remain deeply rooted in local and national interests and mythologies, reflecting the fears, desires, or longings of memory makers. Ranging from digital media which stress the interactive and agency-based dimension of transnational memory, through to vernacular “stumbling blocks” inspired by German citizens and subsequently transplanted onto the Polish ground, to public memorials which are either embraced or contested by a variety of social actors, these initiatives urge us to rethink traditional approaches to memory. In particular, these different scales and locations of remembrance question the common perception of collective memory as rooted in rigid nation-state frameworks in favor of memories that travel, move, and transgress multiple boundaries and affect multiple communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution looks into nationalization and education in European borderlands in the early post-World War II period. Belonging to Belgium and Poland, respectively, in the interwar years, the Eupen–St. Vith–Malmedy and the East-Upper Silesia regions came under German rule during World War II. Returned to the Belgian and Polish nation-states once the war was over, the regions experienced a pronounced upheaval in the population profile as a result of population transfers and reorientations in education curricula. The aim of these measures was to guarantee the national reliability of borderland inhabitants, with a special role being designated for teachers, who were perceived as crucial in the raising of children as national citizens imbued with certain core values. This contribution compares the methods employed by the authorities in selecting educational personnel for their borderlands, the nationalizing role teachers were to play and the way teachers gave meaning to their professional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After first outlining the notion of anti-Semitism, the predominant survey method used for researching it, and the history of the presence and the current (near) absence of Jews in Poland, this article gives the results of different surveys of various kinds of anti-Semitism in this country, including the authors' own, and discusses the findings of their qualitative study – focus group interviews with members of three different Catholic communities from three different cities. The qualitative study confirmed the hypothesis that imagined and stereotypical rather than real Jews are the objects of modern anti-Semitism in Poland, while real historical and stereotypically perceived Jews are the objects of its religious and post-Holocaust variants. The roots of religious anti-Semitism lie in the not entirely absorbed teachings of the Catholic Church on the Jewish deicide charge. Religious anti-Semitism supports modern and post-Holocaust kinds of anti-Semitism. Modern anti-Semitism is rooted in poor education, lack of interest in the Jewish history of Poland, lack of inter-group contact, and persisting stereotypes of Jews. Among the various Catholic communities of Poles, there are considerable differences in attitudes to Jews. The qualitative study also revealed a methodological deficiency in the standard survey questions intended to measure anti-Semitism, which are sometimes understood as questions about facts rather than about opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two main myths constitute the founding basis of popular Polish ethnic nationalism: first, that Poland-Lithuania was an early Poland, and second, that the partitioning powers at all times unwaveringly pursued policies of Germanization and Russification. In the former case, the myth appropriates a common past today shared by Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. In the latter case, Polonization is written out of the picture entirely, as also are variations and changes in the polices of Germanization and Russification. Taken together, the two myths to a large degree obscure (and even falsify) the past, making comprehension of it difficult, if not impossible. This article seeks to disentangle the knots of anachronisms that underlie the Polish national master narrative, in order to present a clearer picture of the interplay between the policies of Germanization, Polonization, and Russification as they unfolded in the lands of the partitioned Poland-Lithuania during the long nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explain nationalist politics in Poland, researchers and observers have sometimes speculated about the dispositions of the electorate, popular sentiments, public fears for the loss of sovereignty, the people's historically ingrained preference for nationalist rhetoric, and their feelings of discontent about the economy. This article argues that hypotheses about the existence of nationalist sentiments within the electorate have tended to eclipse an important question about the main producers of nationalist rhetoric: Why do certain mainstream parties at certain points in time decide so frame their program as nationalist, even when there is no objective reality that seems conducive so the creation of great public concern about typically nationalist issues? This article explores this question by looking at various campaigns for Polish parliamentary elections since 1997. My argument is that when seeking to explain the motivations behind major campaign turns toward nationalism we should not merely understand them as responses to voter sentiment and voting behavior. Instead, we should see them as crucially driven by the transactional logic of inter-party competition in a party system that is in constant flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions about ethnic mobilization in eastern Europe have emphasized efforts of nationalist leaders to demarcate their community from their neighbors in mixed areas where ethnic boundaries and identities were blurred. Demarcation became a common means of defining the community both geographically and culturally, a process which later facilitated the community's mobilization. In the German Empire, however, the Polish–German demarcation was already stark, since it mostly coincided with Catholic–Protestant demarcations. But while the Polish community mobilized quickly and showed great solidarity, the German community did not. Using the Bromberg/Bydgoszcz administrative district as a model, the article argues that the local German community's internal divisions limited its ability to mobilize. Germans agreed on the need for greater German community solidarity, but differed on conceptualizations of its ideal structure and form. Liberal nationalists, envisioning a more egalitarian community defined by a common ethnicity, fought with local conservatives, who were as intent on preserving their prominence within the community as they were on struggling with the Poles. Such divisions crippled local German mobilization on any scale comparable to their Polish neighbors, suggesting that an ethnic community's self-demarcation is necessary but not sufficient to ensure its mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A probe into the changing perceptions and classifications of Silesian (i.e. the Slavic dialect and the Slavic-Germanic creole of Upper Silesia, or both construed as the ethnolect of the Silesians) during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as most saliently influenced by the mutually nullifying competition of German and Polish ethnolinguistic nationalisms. This competition opened the space for the rise of the Silesian national-cum-regional movement, which sometimes undertook the task of codifying a Silesian language. Such codifications were frustrated during the periods of dictatorship and totalitarianism, which lasted in Upper Silesia from 1926/1933 to 1989. Berlin and Warsaw suppressed the possibility of the rise of a Silesian language, perceived as an ideological threat to the ethnolinguistic legitimization of German and Polish national statehood. Today, Warsaw dislikes the recent popular grassroots project to codify Silesian as a language, but, under the democratic conditions enjoyed in postcommunist Poland, the state administration has no legal means to suppress this project. The codification of Silesian gathered pace at the turning of the twenty-first century, due, among other reasons, to the rapid spread of access to the Internet. However, without the state's blessing and support, the outcome of the codification project, remains, at best, uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article considers how regional integration in Europe has informed processes of collective remembrance and transitional justice in Central and Eastern Europe. By taking the cases of Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic, two claims are made. First, although European institutions have not initiated top-down projects of historical reckoning, activists who have an interest in promoting engagement with the recent past have been able to draw the political, financial and/or judicial weight of European institutions behind particular reckoning initiatives, on an ad hoc basis. Second, the nature of the projects that have been realized with the assistance of European resources has varied across the region, according to the extent of prior efforts to promote collective remembrance and transitional justice at the national level. Where there have previously been constraints on historical reckoning, activists have drawn “Europe” behind efforts to promote national-level confrontations with particularly national experiences of communist rule. By contrast, where there has previously been extensive state sponsorship of collective remembrance projects and/or processes of transitional justice, European resources have been used in support of efforts to raise awareness of the repressions of communist rule, and transitions from that system of rule, among a wider, international audience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article proposes to look afresh at the legacies of communism in urban spaces in post-1989 Poland. Specifically, it investigates the fate of Red Army monuments and explores how these public spaces have been used in the multifaceted and multileveled process of post-communist identity formation. The article suggests that Red Army monuments constitute sites for the articulation of new narratives about the country's past and future which are no longer grounded in the fundamental division between “us” (the nation) and “them” (the supporters of communism) and which are far from being fixed in the binary opposition of the banished and the embraced past. The reorganization of public memory space does not only involve contesting the Soviet past or affirming independence traditions but is rather the outcome of multilayered processes rooted in particularities of time and space. Moreover, the article argues that the dichotomy “liberator versus occupier,” often employed as a viable analytical tool by scholars investigating the post-communist memorial landscape, impedes our understanding of the role played by Soviet war memorials in the process of re-imagining national and local communities in post-1989 Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates a legacy of transnational activism in Polish-West German relations during the 1950s and 1960s, connected to the borderlands/expellee background of several of the early activists who initiated the relations. At a time when the Polish and West German states maintained no official diplomatic relations with each other, the importance of non-state initiatives and dialogue breaking with the antagonistic nationalism of the two world wars grew disproportionately. These individuals' expellee background, bilingualism, cross-border networks and loosened national identities contributed to their effectiveness in Polish-German relations. Taking exception to the popular conceptions of expellees as necessarily identical with the negative or anti-Polish opinions commonly associated with the expellee organizations, the article also focuses specifically on how certain expellees and former borderlands inhabitants attempted to renegotiate their postwar roles, political stances and even identities by associating themselves with Polish-German relations. They challenged the dualistic and polarizing nature of media discussions about German expellees in politics. In addition, the article and these individuals pose a challenge to international relations/conflict resolution research to look to cross-border communities as key elements in postwar/post-genocide dialogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to clarify the relationship between forms of political legitimacy employed by communist regimes in East and Central Europe and subsequent models of revolutionary change in 1989. The conceptual basis of the analysis lies in Max Weber's theoretical framework of legitimacy. The four cases selected for comparison are Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The attempts of de-Stalinization and reformation of these party-state regimes through the introduction of paternalistic and also more goal-oriented measures could not prevent their disintegration in the 1980s and their subsequent collapse in 1989. But, I argue, it was the withdrawal of ideological support by elites that ultimately brought communism to an end. The differences in revolutionary scenarios and transitions to democracy in the four cases indicate the importance of a shift in both rulers and masses towards interest in dialogue and compromise. Hungary and Poland represent the clearest scenarios in which communist parties acted as agents of regime change in a rational-legal direction. The Bulgarian case stands as an intermediary case between these two and Romania. Finally, Romania represents an extreme case of violent revolution and the overthrow of a traditionalist and sultanistic regime and illustrates the difficulties following a complete collapse of political authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poland's post-communist development is often depicted as a contrast between a unified, engaged society of pre-1989 and a passive, divisive society of post-1989. What explains the displacement of political solidarity with a fragmented political scene? A factor specific to Poland is rooted in the struggle of Solidarity against communist power. The consequences are subsequent attempts to appropriate the values of Solidarnośc as political capital by competing political voices, leading to contestation about the nature of the country. This normative discourse was evident first in the post-communist divide, between forces stemming from the former communist regime and those affiliated with the opposition. More recently, the saliency of the post-communist division has receded, and a new contested discourse has surfaced among voices coming out of the Solidarity tradition. This rhetoric seeks to define a contrast between a “Solidaristic Poland” dedicated to traditional and Christian values affirming notions of exclusivity and superiority, and a “liberal Poland” dedicated to market and pluralist principles based on competition and individualism. In both political divides, the legacy of Solidarity provides useful political capital to advance distinctive visions of Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the ways in which Polish communists made use of national rhetoric and ritual during the first ten years of communist party rule in Poland after the end of World War II. Particular attention is paid to placing this issue within a wider context of Russian-Polish relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. Polish communists faced the dilemma of being viewed by many as the agents of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. The reinvention of Polish patriotism in 1944 is discussed. The founding of the Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers' Party) is described. The events of the year 1956 are said to mark the end of the "great friendship" between the Soviet Union and Poland.

The article presents a study of the history of Greek Communist partisans who became refugees in Soviet-controlled Poland during the early stages of the Cold War. It is said that the Soviet Union did not seriously attempt to help the Communist side prevail in the Greek civil war, pursuant to an agreement negotiated between British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Communist refugees from Greece were, however, provided with sanctuary and government assistance by the Communist authorities in Poland. Archival material chronicling these events is analyzed.

The article reports on the Polish Eastern policy's national identity and interest from 1989-2004. In Poland, the processes of democratic social and political changes have radically altered the foundations and goals of Polish foreign policy. In relation, it mentions that Russia remains very important for Poland, because the pivotal theme of all Polish eastern policy is Russia and the potential threat of Russian neo-imperialism. An overview of other related matter is also offered.

This article seeks to analyze the nature of the German minorities in the Czech Republic and Poland. In order to achieve this goal, the relationship between Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic and Poland with the Bundesrepublik Deutschland forms an essential intellectual backdrop to the main theme. As for the minority populations themselves, in many ways, the situation of Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland between 1945 and the late 1980s was very similar. Both groups suffered as ethnic minorities in states whose ideological premises purportedly placed notions of class above those of ethnic identification.

Focuses on the P.P.R., P.Z.Z. and Weilkopolska's nationalist revolution in Poland. Official confiscation and distribution of German property via colonization of the Recovered Territories; Representation of nationalist revolution a costly boon for the P.Z.Z.; Impact of ethnic cleansing and westward expansion.

Focuses on the architecture and discourses of national identity incorporated in the medieval socialist artefacts in Poland. Representation of 'Palace of Marriages' of the only one part of the monumental Old Town; Process of reconstruction ans creation of monuments and residential quarters linked to resistance and protest during the conflict; Meaning of 'truly polish'.

Examines the role of Jews in the construction of German identity in the province of Poznania. Strategic alliance between Jewish and Christian Germans to counter the Polish threat; Polish and German antisemitism in Poznania; Statistics for the Jewish population in the city of Poznan.

Presents several books that are published in Poland depicting nationalities problems. Condemnation of Polish prewar and postwar policies toward minority nationalities; Factors influencing the alienation of Silesians, Ukrainians, and jews in post-1945.

Focuses on the influence of the 1883 commemoration of the relief of Vienna in Cracow on the conception of Polish national identity. Role of religion in nation building; Importance of a folk pilgrimage in bringing villagers into the public sphere; Domination of the clergy and conservatives in Galician politics.

Examines the language and national identity of Masurians in Poland. Affiliation with Germany despite Polish language use; Explanations for Masurian exceptionalism; Development of national identity counter to native language; Creation of separate Masurian consciousness by Polish organizations.