1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910793290703321

Titolo

Poland's memory wars : essays on illiberalism / / edited by Jo Harper

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Budapest ; ; New York : , : Central European University Press, , 2018

ISBN

963-7326-55-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Disciplina

306.209438

Soggetti

Collective memory - Political aspects - Poland

Political culture - Poland

Poland Politics and government 1989-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

Never mind the boleks! / Jo Harper -- What's finished, what's beginning? / Andrzej Rychard -- Authoritarian drive in Poland / David Ost -- The triumph of national communism / Brian Porter-Szucs -- Polish right-wing populism / Artur Lipinski & Agnieszka Stepinska -- Crisis, what crisis? / Nicholas Richardson -- Foreign relations in the age of Kaczynski / Jan Mus -- The new romantics / Joanna Srednicka -- The history men / Jan Darasz -- Poland's culture of commemoration / Ewa Stanczyk -- Poland's theater of death / Dariusz Czaja -- The quest for the "normal" family / Urszula Chowaniec -- Straight talking / Tomasz Basiuk -- An identity reset / Remi Adekoya -- History as we may wish it to be / Jan Gross -- 966 and all that / Neal Ascherson -- The more things change, the more they stay the same / Mikolaj Kunicki -- History repeats itself / Mateusz Kijowski -- Understand the war, understand Poland / Pawel Ukielski -- Defenders of the faith / Neal Pease.

Sommario/riassunto

This volume of essays and interviews by Polish, British, and American academics and journalists provides an overview of current Polish politics for both informed and non-specialist readers. The essays consider why and how PiS, Law and Justice, the party of Jarosław Kaczynski, returned to power, and the why and how of its policies while in power. They help to make sense of how “history” plays a key role in Polish public life and politics. The descriptions of PiS in Western media



tend to rework old stereotypes about Eastern Europe that had lain dormant for some time. The book addresses the underlying question whether PiS was simply successful in understanding its electorate, and just helped Poland to revert to its normal state. This new Normal seems quite similar to the old one: insular, conservative, xenophobic, and statist. The book looks at the current struggle between one ‘Poland’ and another; between a Western-looking Poland and an inward-looking Poland, the former more interested in opening to the world, competing in open markets, and working within the EU, and the latter more concerned with holding onto tradition. The question of illiberalism has gone from an ‘Eastern’ problem (Russia, Turkey, Hungary, etc.) to a global one (Brexit and the U.S. elections). This makes the very specific analysis of Poland’s illiberalism applicable on a broader scale.