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The legacy of legal-political ideologists is seldom used as an element of argumentation in court. The situation is different in proceedings focussing on political crimes, in particular, the trials taking place in disruptive moments of history. One of such moments was the period after Poland regained independence, when the Soviet Union posed not only a military threat, but also one of doctrinal influence. The objective of the paper was to verify the hypothesis that the trial of communists which took place in Lwów in late 1922 / early 1923 (known as the St. Jura trial) was significant not only in terms of its legal-criminal aspects, but was also important from a historical and doctrinal perspective. The verification of the hypothesis was based on the analysis of court speeches, especially their elements including references to the legacy of legal-political ideas. Additionally, the paper presents legal-political ideas as highly argumentative material that may be, and perhaps should be, used in legal practice today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Law on Religion / Studia z Prawa Wyznaniowego is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lubin / Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawla II and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Res Historica is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bohemistyka is the property of Instytut Filologii Slowianskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the participation of the Polish Artists' Union in the complex transformation of communist Poland in 1980-1981. It is one of the most mythologized phenomena in Polish art history. The main approach to this period assumes that before the of "Solidarity" movement uprising, the Polish Artists' Union was totally dependent on the communist authorities. Then, after August 1980, the Union was to become idealistic, anti-communist organization. The following paper recognizes this kind of historiographical narrative as an example of the 'totalitarian model'. It is a model based on a simple, binary vision of the communist system as a field of permanent struggle between "innocent" society and "oppressive", omnipotent authorities. The analysis presented here uses the perspective of social history (Sheila Fitzpatrick et al.). From this perspective, communism is viewed as a complex tangle of active, causative social actors (groups and individuals), who could be politically engaged, but may not be. One of those actors was the Polish Artists' Union. Based on various kinds of sources, I show how the Union tried to take the optimal political position after August 1980. To examine this issue I use two types of political mentality, which dominated in those days in the Party, in "Solidarity", and also in the Union. One is termed "fundamental", and treats politics in terms of morality, dignity, and so on. The other is called "pragmatic", and is focused on institutional games, while also allowing compromises or concessions. To track the dynamics of how the Union functioned from August 1980 until martial law was declared (in December 1981), I introduce a division into three phases of the Solidarity revolution: September-December 1980, January--July 1981, and September-December 1981. An analysis of the Union's documents, art magazines, and Party's documents (both official and internal), shows that after the first phase, the Polish Artists' Union was ready to join the new configuration of power, based on Solidarity and the Polish United Workers' Party agreement. According to David Ost's theory, I define this project as a "neo-corporatist" model of the state socialism in the art system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Koszalinsko-Kolobrzeskie is the property of Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecinskiego / University of Szczecin Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Adeptus is the property of Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Slavic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Historia i Polityka is the property of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Slavia Meridionalis is the property of Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Slavic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Edward Dembowski is one of the most controversial figures of Polish history in the nineteenth century. Outstanding conspirator, totally dedicated to the democratic and revolutionary ideals, tirelessly tried to trigger off another national uprising, combined with the social revolution. He was primarily a man of action, but also left a number of writings, showing his achievements in the field of philosophy, literature and journalism. Dembowski's figure is surrounded by legend, also because of his tragic death at a young age. But in fact, the "red castellan" is surrounded by two legends--the black one and the white one. According to the first of them, the character of the following article was an insane communist and revolutionary, guilty of bloodshed in the name of utopian ideals. The second legend, positive, presents his person as the heroic envoy, one of the national heroes of the nineteenth-century, totally dedicated to the national and social causes, finally dying in the name of these ideals. Which of the two legends is closer to the truth? I hope that this article, which aims to provide an overview of the most important facts about the life of Edward Dembowski and to present his political, social and philosophical views, will help readers find the answer to this question. The first part of the paper primarily describes the life and activity of Edward Dembowski, while the second one focuses on his philosophical views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Yugoslavia, Muslims were the third largest religious group after Orthodox Christians and Catholics. However, this group was not only composed of the Islamised Slavs from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), but also Albanians, Turks, and others. After the communists took power in the country, one of the new government's priorities was to establish relations with this minority. The body that coordinated state policy towards religion, collected materials, and analysed the present religious situation in the country was the State/Federal Commission for Religious Affairs (D/SKVP) existing in the period from 1945 to 1971. Analysis of the documents from D/SKVP helps us to identify the elements of state politics towards Islamic Religious Community/Islamic Community in Yugoslavia. Throughout the discussed period (1945-1971), IVZ/IZ was the most conciliatory from the large religious associations in Yugoslavia in relation towards the authorities. It is confirmed by a relatively small number of documents related to Muslims and gathered in D/SKVP reaching only a few percent of total amount of materials. The leaders of IVZ/IZ became more assertive in relations with the authorities since the mid-1960's when the government implemented liberalisation of religious politics. In Yugoslavia a kind of religious revival took place which was manifested, among others, in rebirth of religious structures and, to a large extent, their turn towards nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Horizons of Politics / Horyzonty Polityki is the property of Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to approximate and analyse the reasons of the currency reform that took place in 1953 in communist Czechoslovakia, as well as to describe its legal and technical aspects. The basis of the study will be legal-dogmatic and historical-legal analyses of legal acts introduced during the implementation of the reform and other government documents.

Copyright of Praktyka Teoretyczna is the property of University of Wroclaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Athenaeum: Polskie Studia Politologiczne is the property of Faculty of Political Science & Security Studies Nicolaus Copernicus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

State institutes started emerging shortly after the establishment of the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918) in the form of institutions affiliated to the Ministry of Schools and National Education. They were independent scientific institutions receiving regular state subsidies and their scientific focus and budgets were approved by the state. The State Institute of Archaeology and the National Institute for Folk Songs were founded in 1919. We may already follow the activities of the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Institute of Slavic Studies in the early 1920s. – even though they reached full efficiency only in 1928. The paper shows the organizational and personal transformation of these institutions, in particular from 1948 until 1952 or 1953, when they “voluntarily” became part of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The incorporation of state institutes into the Academy of Sciences thus gives a clearer picture of the centralization of sciences in the 1950s, arranged according to the Soviet model.

The aim of the paper is to show the interplay between the power and the science in the context of cultural memory. The focus is on the Cyrillo-Methodian anniversaries in Bulgaria in the communist period, and the object of the analysis is the anniversary of 1969. The context relates to the process of development of new historiography and the functionalization of the nation-centric narrative. The main issue discussed is how the Communist Party, as a political institution, and the Bulgarian Academy of Science, as an academic institution, cooperated to establish a new vision of society. The discussion offers an interpretation in the light of the Orthodox concept of the symphony of power perceived as a metaphor of the relation between the secular and the spiritual power.

To run? Where? And from what? The experience of Stalinist repressions in the biographies of the members of the Polish party-government elite, 1949–1956 This article is devoted to a specific political experience of Polish communists – Stalinist terror against their leadership in the second half of the 1930s and the dissolution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) following the resolution of the Presidium of the Comintern’s Executive Committee (16 August 1938). The study is based on the analysis of the biographies of 214 members of the Polish communist movement in the interwar period, 22 fellow travellers and five Red Army officers, all of whom were members of the Polish party-government elite in the years 1949–1956. The article presents the stories of seventeen people who were arrested and imprisoned during the Stalinist purges, as well as the cases of those who lost their significant others: spouses and relatives. The author shows how the communists in Poland responded to the atmosphere of that time and how they reacted to the dissolution of the party. The last section of the article is devoted to the attitudes of members of the Polish party-government elite after the Second World War, when they actively participated in the establishment of the new socio-political order, and their collective memory related to the KPP’s fate. Going beyond the historical description, this paper makes an attempt to interpret the phenomenon under consideration as a generational experience and the key element of political socialisation which shaped their disposition to specific and ambiguous submissiveness to their Soviet patrons: an internalised faith in the system combined with an ability to accommodate. Uciec? Dokąd? I przed czym? Doświadczenie represji stalinowskich w biografiach członków polskiej elity partyjno-rządowej lat 1949–1956 Tematem artykułu jest szczególny element doświadczenia politycznego polskich komunistów, jakim był stalinowski terror wobec ich grupy przywódczej w drugiej połowie lat 30. oraz rozwiązanie Komunistycznej Partii Polski uchwałą Prezydium Komitetu Wykonawczego Kominternu z 16 sierpnia 1938 r. Bazą źródłową tekstu są biografie 214 członków międzywojennego polskiego ruchu komunistycznego, 22 jego sympatyków oraz 5 oficerów Armii Czerwonej, którzy w latach 1949–1956 należeli do polskiej elity partyjno-rządowej (EPR). Autor przedstawia losy 17 osób, które w okresie czystek stalinowskich były aresztowane i osadzone w więzieniach lub łagrach, a także odnotowuje wszystkie przypadki utraty przez członków EPR ich znaczących innych: partnerów i krewnych. Pokazuje, w jaki sposób komuniści w Polsce odbierali ówczesną atmosferę i w jaki sposób reagowali na rozwiązanie partii. Ostatnia część artykułu poświęcona jest postawom represjonowanych członków EPR w okresie powojennym, kiedy uczestniczyli oni w budowie nowego porządku polityczno-społecznego, oraz ich pamięci zbiorowej związanej z losem KPP. Wychodząc poza opis historyczny, tekst stanowi próbę interpretacji przeżyć członków analizowanej grupy z drugiej połowy lat 30. w kategorii doświadczenia pokoleniowego oraz kluczowego elementu socjalizacji politycznej, kształtującego dyspozycję do specyficznej i niejednoznacznej pojętności względem patronów radzieckich: zinternalizowanej wiary w system, współwystępującej z umiejętnościami przystosowania się.

This paper discusses the collective memory of communism in Sweden after 1989 and its role in the process of Europeanization. Sweden lacks the direct experience of communism and any such recollections are bound to be mediated. Such memories of experiences outside the Swedish political and social context (para-contextual or para-topic instances) are examined in terms of transnational collective memory. That is why the analysis treats these memories as part of the process of Europeanization. The material amounts to institutional and rhetorical examples featuring the memory of communism. Three sets of concepts help scrutinize these sources: Klas-Göran Karlsson’s view of three-wave European integration (economic, political and cultural), Avishai Margalit’s distinction between ‘thick’ (family, nation) and ‘thin’ (humanity) communities of remembrance where the ethics of memory can work transnationally in a context of human rights, and Jeffrey Andrew Barash’s connection between ‘public memory’ and ‘imagination’. By discussing the material within this framework, the argument concludes that paratopic recollections and the dynamics of Europeanization converge, highlighting a new aspect in this process of integration.

Copyright of Slavia Meridionalis is the property of Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Slavic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

“Wiping clean the slate of the past”. Reflections on the fringes of selected literary texts from Slavic People´s Republics Formulas of “forgetting” in the totalitarian half-century as well as post-1989 have changed shape and intensity. Strategies of disavowal and rejection of the proximate and distant past differ depending on the intensity of the ideologising processes in the structure of the phenomenon. The systemic mechanism of ritual burial and announcement of the end of “bad past, bad times” includes a number of phases (from construction to reconstruction). This paper examines the strategies under the first of these phases (1944–1956), during which the process of incorporating an external matrix created in revolutionary conditions (Soviet culture) into local culture/literature was the strongest. The practice consists of an unconditional transfer from the model of a maximum number of factors which sanction acts of disavowing the proximate and distant past and legitimise subjection to the chosen / ideal system (denial/discreditation of the old world order, new genres, a new way to explain the past, clear vision of the future). „Przeszłości ślad dłoń nasza zmiata”. Refleksje na marginesie wybranych tekstów literackich z obszaru słowiańskich krajów demokracji ludowych Formuły „zapominania” w półwieczu totalitaryzmów, ale także po 1989 roku, w dekadach post-, zmieniały kształt i natężenie. Strategie dezawuowania i odrzucania bliskiej czy odległej przeszłości różnią się w zależności od stopnia natężenia procesów ideologizacji. Systemowy mechanizm rytualnego grzebania i głoszenia końca „złej przeszłości, złego czasu” przechodził kilka faz (od konstrukcji do rekonstrukcji). W artykule została podjęta próba opisu najstarszej fazy zjawiska, gdy do kultur lokalnych zostaje inkorporowana matryca zewnętrzna, wypracowana w warunkach rewolucyjnych (wzorzec sowiecki). W praktyce oznaczało to bezwzględne przeniesienie z „wzorca” maksy­malnej liczby czynników sankcjonujących akty dezawuowania przeszłości, a legitymizujących podległość wybranemu/idealnemu systemowi (wyparcie, dyskredytowanie starego porządku świata, nowe gatunki, formy, sposoby tłumaczenia przeszłości skutkujące zrealizowaniem idei „świetlanej przyszłości”).

Communists have no homeland: a portrait of Wanda Wasilewska The paper offers an analysis of a number of biographies of Wanda Wasilewska, written in different historical periods. An attempt was made to reconstruct the mechanisms that governed the functioning of Wanda Wasilewska’s communist figure in the Polish political discourse; explain how she was perceived by the society, and how it altered in the course of the Polish cultural and historical transformations. A biography of an individual gains coherence as a result of the community’s search for its identity: it serves as a building block for a coherent biography of the entire community. The writing and rewriting of the biography of Wasilewska has long been a kind of “production of communism” in Poland, and communism has been one of the most important aspects of Polish identity in the recent decades. „Komuniści (nie) mają ojczyzny...” Wanda Wasilewska jako polska (anty)bohaterka narodowa Autorka analizuje powstające w rożnych okresach historycznych biografie Wandy Wasilewskiej. Usiłuje odtworzyć mechanizmy konstruowania figury komunistki w polskim dyskursie publicznym, zbadać, jak funkcjonowała ona w społecznym odbiorze, a także ustalić, jak zmieniało się jej znaczenie w procesie przemian historycznych i kulturowych. Autorka pokazuje, że tworzenie spójnej biografii jednostki – szczególnie jednostki ważnej w historii danej zbiorowości – dokonuje się w odpowiedzi na tożsamościowe poszukiwania wspólnoty: służy wytworzeniu zbiorowej biografii jako koherentnej całości. Zwraca uwagę, że pisanie biografii Wasilewskiej jako komunistki było i wciąż jest swoistym „wytwarzaniem komunizmu” w Polsce. Komunizm zaś w szerokim planie jest ważnym – jeśli nie najważniejszym w ostatnich dziesięcioleciach – komponentem polskiej zbiorowej tożsamości.