The Post-Communist Condition: Public and private discourses of transformation (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture)

The Post-Communist Condition

Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture (DAPSAC) The editors invite contributions that investigate political, social and cultural processes from a linguistic/discourse-analytic point of view. The aim is to publish monographs and edited volumes which combine language-based approaches with disciplines concerned essentially with human interaction – disciplines such as political science, international relations, social psychology, social anthropology, sociology, economics, and gender studies.

General Editors Ruth Wodak and Greg Myers University of Lancaster

Editorial address: Lancaster University, County College South, Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster LA1 4YL, UK. [email protected] and [email protected]

Associate Editor Johann Unger

University of Lancaster [email protected]

Advisory Board Irène Bellier

Teun A. van Dijk

Luisa Martín Rojo

Michael Billig

Konrad Ehlich

Jacob L. Mey

Jan Blommaert

Mikhail V. Ilyin

Paul Chilton

Andreas H. Jucker

Aston University

University of Zurich

Ron Scollon †

J.W. Downes

J.R. Martin

Louis de Saussure

Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, France Loughborough University Tilburg University University of Lancaster University of East Anglia

Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona Free University, Berlin Polis, Moscow

University of Sydney

Universidad Autonoma de Madrid University of Southern Denmark

Christina Schäffner

University of Genève

Volume 37 The Post-Communist Condition. Public and private discourses of transformation Edited by Aleksandra Galasińska and Dariusz Galasiński

The Post-Communist Condition Public and private discourses of transformation Edited by

Aleksandra Galasińska Dariusz Galasiński University of Wolverhampton

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The post-communist condition : public and private discourses of transformation / edited by Aleksandra Galasinska, Dariusz Galasinski. p. cm. (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, issn 1569-9463 ; v. 37) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Discourse analysis--Poland. 2. Discourse analysis--Political aspects--Poland. I. Galasinska, Aleksandra. II. Galasinski, Dariusz. P302.15.P7P67   2010 943.805’7--dc22 2010009953 isbn 978 90 272 0628 2 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 8817 2 (Eb)

© 2010 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents Notes on contributors Table and figure Living between history and the present: The Polish post-communist condition Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński

vii xi 1

part i. History and ideology at work “Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród”: Polish contemporary discourses about soil and nation Michał Buchowski

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Collective memory in transition: Commemorating the end of the Second World War in Poland Anna Horolets

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“In the name of the truth one has to say…”: Anti-Semitic statements in the memorial discourse about the crosses in Auschwitz Imke Hansen

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Sitting on the fence: Identity and Polish narratives of the 1st-May celebrations Dariusz Galasiński

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part ii. Mentors and mediators Denying the right to speak in public: Sexist and homophobic discourses in post-1989 Poland Natalia Krzyżanowska

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Discursive construction of post-communism in pastoral letters of the Polish Episcopate’s Conference 1990–2005 Katarzyna Skowronek

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Fashioning a post-communist political identity: The case of Poland’s Democratic Left Alliance Robert Brier

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 The Post-Communist Condition

Power, knowledge and faith discourse: The Institute of National Remembrance Marta Kurkowska-Budzan

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part iii. Living post-communism It’s all about work Aleksandra Galasińska Transition to nowhere: Homelessness in post-communist Poland as the hand of fate Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek New discourses of migration in post-communist Poland: Conceptual metaphors and personal narratives in the reconstruction of the hegemonic discourse Małgorzata Fabiszak

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Post-communist masculinities Dariusz Galasiński

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Index

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Notes on contributors Robert Brier is Research Fellow of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. His research focuses on culture and politics in Poland’s Third Republic and on the impact of transnational discourses and systems of meaning on the prehistory of the Polish transition. He has contributed book chapters to a number of edited volumes and published articles in East European Politics and Societies and Osteuropa. Michał Buchowski is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Poznań and of Comparative Central European Studies at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. He also lectured as a Visiting Professor at Rutgers and Columbia Universities. His interest is in anthropological theories and in Central European postsocialist cultural and social transformations. He has published articles in journals and edited volumes as well as books, among them in English Reluctant Capitalists (Centre Marc Bloch, 1997), The Rational Other (Wydawnictwo Humaniora, 1997), Rethinking Transformation (Wydawnictwo Humaniora, 2001), and To Understand the Other (Jagiellonian University Press, 2004 – in Polish). He is also the co-editor of Poland Beyond Communism (University of Memphis, 2001) and The Making of the Other in Central Europe (Collegium Polonicum, 2001). Małgorzata Fabiszak is Associate Professor at the Department of Cognitive Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland. Her main research interests focus on the role of conceptual metaphors in meaning of abstract nouns. Her most recent publication is devoted to the role of conceptual metaphors in war reports (A Conceptual Metaphor approach to war discourse and its applications, Adam Mickiewicz University Press, 2007). Aleksandra Galasińska is Reader in Discourse and Social Transformation in the University of Wolverhampton. Her main research interests focus on ethnographic and discursive aspects of lived experience of post-communism as well as post-enlargement migration on which she published in Narrative Inquiry, Multilingua, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Ethnicities, Discourse & Society, and Journal of Multicultural Discourses. She is co-editor of Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe (with Michał Krzyżanowski, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

 The Post-Communist Condition

Dariusz Galasiński is Professor of Discourse and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. His published work concerns strategic and deceptive communication and, more recently, national and gender identities. He is currently working on projects on masculinity, post-communism and mental health. His recent books include: The Language of Deception (Sage, 2000); Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis (with Chris Barker, Sage, 2001); Men and The Language of Emotions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Metalanguage (edited with Adam Jaworski and Nikolas Coupland, Mouton De Gruyter, 2004); The Language of Belonging (with U.H. Meinhof, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Men’s Discourses of Depression (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Imke Hansen is Lecturer of East European History at Hamburg University and historical expert for the German Social Court. Her research focuses on postcommunist societies, national socialism and memory of the Holocaust. Her latest article is on universalisation and europeanisation of memory in Hungary (with Regina Fritz). Currently she is completing a book on the Polish memory of Auschwitz and its political functionalisation 1945–1999. Anna Horolets is Assistant Professor at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities. Her main research interests focus on discourse analysis and various issues in political anthropology including national and European identity and political symbolism. She published the book Representations of Europe in Polish public discourse (in Polish, Universitas, 2006) and edited the volume Discourse analysis in sociology and for sociology (in Polish, Adam Marszałek, 2008). Natalia Krzyżanowska received her M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Poznań, and her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toruń. She is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Philosophy of the Poznań Univeristy of Economics. Her main research interests focus on theoretical and analytical approaches to gender in the public sphere and in contemporary art. She has published widely in those areas and is currently preparing a monograph on women in the Polish post-1989 public sphere. Marta Kurkowska-Budzan is Assistant Professor in the Institute of History at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Her recent research interests focus on historical anthropology methodology and memory studies on which she published in Polin. Studies in Polish Jewry, Polish Sociological Review, Historyka. Studies in Methodology. She is the author of History of the People. English Social History (Historia Jagiellonica, 2003) and Polish Anticommunist Partisans: Discourses of Memory (Historia Jagiellonica, 2009).



Notes on contributors 

Maria Mendel is Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Education of University of Gdańsk, where she chairs the Department of Social Pedagogy. Her interests focus on social animation and community education, and on local educational partnerships. Her recent research explores social construction and the pedagogy of places and displacements, and more specifically the issues of homelessness as social heterotopia. She published numerous book chapters and articles, and authored or edited 15 books, including her recent Społeczeństwo i rytuał. Heterotopia bezdomności (Society and Rituals. The Heterotopia of Homelessness, Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2007). Katarzyna Skowronek is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and Linguistics at Faculty of Humanities, AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow. She is also engaged at the Department of Onomastics of the Institute of Polish Language Polish Academy of Sciences. Her current research focus on language of religion and spirituality and discourses of Polish public sphere. Her recent books are: Media and names. Problems of media onomastics (with M. Rutkowski, Lexis, 2004), Between sacrum and profanum. Linguistic studies of pastoral letters of the Polish Episcopate’s Conference (1945–2005) (Lexis, 2006). Now she is working on projects on values and collective memory elements reflected in proper names in Polish and other European languages. Tomasz Szkudlarek is Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Education of University of Gdańsk, where he chairs the Department of Philosophy of Education and Cultural Studies. His interests comprise cultural and political contexts of education, critical pedagogy and contemporary philosophies of education. His books include The Problem of Freedom in Postmodern Education (Bergin & Garvey, Westport, CT, 1993). He also published numerous articles and book chapters in Polish and in English.

Table and figure Table 1. Frequency of Articles in the Press Discourse about

Sex-Affair in Samoobrona (chronologically, according to analysed newspapers Figure 1. Relations between discursive strategies and macro-strategies in the analysis of press discourse about the ‘Sex-Affair in Samoobrona’

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Living between history and the present The Polish post-communist condition Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński University of Wolverhampton

1.  Explorations of post-communism When Molly Andrews (2007) interviewed a former East German political opposition activist in 1992 she was struck by one fragment at the end of the interview: I suspect somehow that people in the West have not yet comprehended that the Wall is gone. They have not yet comprehended that half of…yes, half of the world…yes, that an empire has collapsed. It has not fully penetrated people’s awareness what this really means…(….) People from the West come and want to understand, but they do not want to understand themselves. They only ask us. Well, an empire has collapsed…there is something missing, do you understand what I mean? (2007: 23)

Several years have passed since the date of this interview, but Eastern Europe is still a land far, far away, despite the fact that it has been twenty years since the collapse of the Iron Curtain and more than five since when the first Central and Eastern European countries entered the EU. Although we live on the same continent and in the same political and economic system, the eastern part of the continent is still terra incognita for many Europeans. Indeed, we are haunted by the vision of the impenetrable line alongside the Neisse and Oder rivers, a GermanPolish and an internal Schengen border, where cars pass freely, but all weather fronts stop and the frosts of Siberia are the order of the day between September and May. Sometimes, we wonder why our German colleagues are not asked about the weather in the same way we Poles have been. But the weather, we concede, is only a minor issue in the homogenisation of Eastern Europe into one big, largely unvaried, blob on the map of Europe. Yet the end of communism in Central and Eastern European countries is regarded as one of the most significant changes in 20th century Europe. It marked revolutionary changes in the lives of their citizens, upheavals which only a few years before were even hard to imagine, let alone predict. But the dramatic transformations

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in public and private liberties also meant that comfortable official and private certainties and ideologies of the Cold War were called into question. The “return” to Europe has proved much more difficult and painful than anyone expected, while the relative security of guaranteed employment vanished almost overnight. The social, political and economic alterations in Europe have been accompanied by radical changes in the public and private discourses in these countries. A new ‘more European’ style of political discourse had to be invented; new history; new textbooks; new laws; new constitutions had to be written to both reflect and construct the new realities. The ‘return’ to Europe meant a number of things. Politically, it meant the return to a family of democratic countries and the ability to lean westwards, rather than eastwards. It meant leaving the Soviet bloc and the overwhelming dominance of the Soviet Union. The unquestioned certainties of where the region was to go after the fall of communism were also transferred onto the economic direction. “We all” knew that we wanted capitalism, that capitalism was the only viable alternative to socialism. We wanted the full shelves, big cars, televisions and houses. Just like we saw on TV watching Dynasty, Columbo or even Kojak’s Chicago. There was never any debate as to where to go, nor, indeed, was such a debate possible. The notion of post-communist transition as predetermined, fixed and almost always positive within the context of a triumph of liberal democracy (see for example: Fukuyama 1992; Stark 1992) became challenged by the social sciences. Anthropologists, for example, pointed out elements of continuity and even resistance to change (Hann 2002) arguing particularly that academics should pay more attention to micro-processes taking place within transformation (Burawoy & Verdery 1999; also Bryant & Mokrzycki 1994). Such micro-processes of ambiguous nature are quite often rooted in the communist past and have been direct legacies of the previous system. Moreover, it is argued that a well known point of departure, the communist system, cannot guarantee a certain point of destination (Buchowski 2001). This is why for example the process was called an uncertain transition (Burawoy & Verdery 1999). Post-communist societies have been subjects of investigation by researchers from both sides of the former Iron Curtain since the changes started. A volume of general theoretical work from the perspectives of social-political and cultural studies as well as philosophy (see Kennedy 1994, 2002; Holmes 1997; Sakwa 1999; McBride 1999; Kostecki, Żukrowska & Góralczyk 2000; Webber & Liikanene 2001; Bönker, Müller & Pickel 2002; Clark 2002; Outhwaite & Ray 2005) was followed by analyses of particular topics or regions. Historians tried to grasp post-communist transformations in the broader context of the 20th century’s dramatic upheavals (e.g. the world wars) as well as the democratic struggle within Central and Eastern Europe (Stokes 1993; Crampton 1997; Bideleux & Jeffries 1998). By the same token



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the notion of historical continuity in transition was explored from a political science perspective (Wydra 2000). Interestingly, a historical macro-perspective of the entire region or of a particular country was complemented by a bottom–up vision of these historical changes in Europe explored from a narrative analysis point of view (Andrews 2007). There were also a number of studies into post-communism within sociology, social anthropology and human geography, taking a broad look at social changes within the post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Verdery 1996; Bridger & Pine 1998; Pickles & Smith 1998; Burawoy & Verdery 1999; Sztompka 1999; Berdahl, Bunzl & Lampland 2000; Buchowski 2001; Hann 2002; Bradshaw & Stenning 2004; Svašek 2006; Flynn, Kay & Oldfield 2008). Analyses of market practices (Wedel 1998; Mandell & Humphrey 2002; Humphrey 2002) and work and unemployment (Stenning 2005) were followed by those of homelessness (Mendel 2007). Issues surrounding gender regimes were particularly frequently explored, mainly because the former communist countries boasted that they were ‘genderless’ with their well known slogan about ‘women on tractors’. As the communist governments claimed absolute gender equality in their societies, research on gender was seen as useless. As expected, most of the work in this area is devoted to women (i.e. Funk & Mueller 1993; Saleci 1994; Bucley 1997; Gal & Kligman 2000a, 2000b; Ashwin 2000; Momsen, Szorenyi & Timar 2005), occasionally with a focus on women and the family (True 2003; Pascal & Kwak 2005). However, post-communist men and masculinities have slowly become a subject of academic interest (Kay 2006; Fuszara 2008; Galasiński 2004, 2008). Finally, social behaviours and the “new” mentality were also explored in the context of the post-1989 changes (Koralewicz & Ziółkowski 2003; Łaciak 2005). To a considerable extent post-communist transitions have been happening discursively. Transitions themselves, but also history, especially that of the opposition and of the ‘revolution’, political lustracja,1 the presence of communists in public life and a host of other topics have constantly been present in a multitude of discourses, whether public, institutional or private. There have also been a few studies probing into the ‘transition discourses’. Dryzek and Holmes (2002) tried to identify and analyse political discourses of democratization in several postcommunist countries. From the political sciences perspective, they presented a .  The term lustracja refers to the process of screening a number of professional and occupational groups (from politicians, through police offers to academics) for their collaboration with the secret services under the communist regime. A number of political parties proposed different versions of the process from very stringent to relatively lax. The last attempt at lustracja in Poland failed as the country’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled the process in breach of the constitution.

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study based on ‘the way democracy and democratisation are conceptualized and lived by ordinary people and political activists’ (p.4). In consequence they developed ‘an account of the discourses and democracy’ (p.5) which resembles Bourdieu’s “discursive field” (1990, 1993). Linguists and discourse analysts also made attempts to grasp the results of the ‘Autumn of the Nations’. And so, Chilton, Ilyin, and Mey’s Political Discourse in Transition in Europe 1989–199, (1998) focused exclusively upon the political discourse developed during the early stage of transition. The collection was also predominantly Russian-oriented, stressing changes in Soviet political communication. Later, focusing on Romanian data, Fairclough (2005a, 2000b) examined how discourse analysis can be a useful tool in exploring social change in the era of post-communist transition, while Ieţcu (2006) looked at discourses of trade unions. Issues surrounding national and European identities in Polish parliamentary debates were at the centre of Krzyżanowski’s inquiry (2003, 2008, forthcoming). Also, Kelly-Holmes (1999) looked at the problem of national identity, concentrating on market discourses in a unified Germany. As private discourses of transformation slowly started to come to the fore, again, the notion of identity, (i.e. European, national and regional) was taken up, this time in the context of pre-accession Europe border neighbourhoods (Meinhof 2002; Meinhof & Galasiński 2005; Galasińska 2006; Galasińska & Galasiński 2007). Moreover, Galasiński (2004, 2008) investigated issues of emotions and depression in the context of post-communist masculinities. The subject of continuity of pre-1989 patterns and behaviours in the situation of migration became a leading theme of another article (Galasiński & Galasińska 2007). Finally, the newest collec­ tion Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe (Galasińska & Krzyżanowski 2009) examines post-communist discourses across the region in many public (politics, media, religion, market, civil society) and private settings (narrated individual experience of the post-communist processes). Combining a macro-micro approach to the study of discourse and transformation the book examines a broad spectrum of topics such as institutional change in political bodies and the media, education policies, xenophobia, governance of children, liturgy, representation of history in company narratives, reconciliation with the past, a post-enlargement migration and a post-communist identity as narrated by those who lived through the social and political changes. 2.  Polish discourses in the spotlight What this short review of the literature shows is that there is still a significant paucity of research into the discourses of and within postcommunism. Thus in this volume we take up the issues of postcommunist discourses at various levels



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of operation – from macro-discourses of the state to those most private. In such a way we wish to show the transformations and their discourses in all their complexities and at various levels of operation. This collection therefore concentrates on discourses of one country: Poland. It is in this way that we shall be able to shed light on the multiplicity of locally contextualised transition discourses in their multiple sites of production. The volume offers a number of disciplinary and topical perspectives upon discourse in one unified national context of post-communist transformation. The contibutors approach these discourses from multiple perspectives. Thus, focusing on the central theme of post-communist transformations in Poland, the authors explore them from a multitude of viewpoints, and through this explore them on different levels. In effect this book demonstrates how related social scientific disciplines approach discourse in their study of transformations, how the concept of discourse is understood and used analytically, as well as what philosophical sources underpin the analyses themselves. Poland is interesting for two reasons. First, its almost 40 million population makes it by far the largest country to join the European Union in 2004 and by far the largest provider of new immigration within the European Union. Second, even though it was subject to the same economic rules as the rest of the Soviet bloc, with a centrally planned, non-market economy in permanent crisis and politicisation of virtually all aspects of life, in contrast to other communist countries, it enjoyed privately-owned agriculture and relative freedom for the very powerful Catholic church as well as, from 1980, a relatively free trade union movement. All that fostered an “underground” presence of a variety of anti-communist discourses which now are interpolated enriching the fabric of the current multitude of transition discourses. Together with the on-going political turmoil and clash of left- and right-wing discourses both on the political scene and, more generally, in the public sphere, Poland becomes a particularly interesting country for a study of developing discourses reflecting, constructing and accounting for the system transition the country has been undergoing for the last 20 years. Moreover, the polarisation of the political scene, growing economic contrasts in the country, and the unexpectedly large wave of migration out of the country, put the existing discourses to task. The transitions are constantly debated in the media, with the discussions taking extreme positions. Poland is interesting also because of the place Polish history takes, both in public as well as private discourses. A recent rekindling of “historical politics” by a former centre-right government (led by the Law and Justice party), that is, an idea that state politics should be based on historically-motivated settling of accounts with both external and internal enemies, is just one example of what we talk about here. Schools are tasked to teach and celebrate the “politically correct” version of

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the national narrative (that is one in which all that is good comes from us Poles, and all that is evil comes from others), while institutions such as the state television, films or museums should espouse and celebrate it, and are forbidden by law to offend people’s religious feelings. One of the favourite Polish pastimes is still arguing (till blood is drawn) about Polish recent history, with the Internet providing even more space in which to enter such a debate. Nothing on internet fora attracts more anger, vitriol and invectives than discussions on communism, the WWII and particularly such events as the Warsaw Uprising, or the accession to the European Union. Our primary goal has been for the volume to reflect issues which we think are of relevance in Poland, both in the macro and micro perspectives, and not to us academics. Polish history, with its ‘interpreters’, together with the emergence of unemployment and homelessness, new gender relations, and new possibilities of migration are all ‘hot’ topics to be found in just about every Polish newspaper and private conversation. 2.1  Polish history as we were taught it History is important for Poles, but then Polish history is quite turbulent. Let us offer a “crash course” in Polish history, as we see it, or, to be more precise, as how we see what we were taught as children, then young people, and then what we experienced as young adults, and how we see it now having lived outside Poland for almost 20 years. Placed geographically between the West and the East, between two giants, Germany and Russia, Poland has always had to find a way to exist. Always leaning to the West (Christianity was accepted from the Czechs, while the crown was accepted from Germans at the beginning of the last millennium), Poland has also always been at odds with its neighbours. Yet, a small kingdom at the cross-roads, Poland became a superpower in the 16th century with its borders extending to the Black Sea (the myth of the state from sea to sea is still very much alive in Poland), and its sights trained on the throne in Moscow. Two hundred years later however, Poland, a victim of its ‘gentry democracy’, its institutions paralysed by indecisiveness (as the right to veto any decision was given in effect to every single noble), vanished from the map. Russia, Prussia and Austria in successive decades of the latter part of the 18th century annexed more and more of Polish territory, until eventually it disappeared. Attempts to save the country by instituting what is claimed to be the first modern written constitution in Europe (the so-called 3rd May Constitution) in 1791 failed and in 1795 Poland lost its independence for 120 years. These 120 years mark one of the mythologically crucial periods in Polish history. Poland on



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its knees results in endless uprisings and what is regarded as the best period of Polish literature, one which likens Poland to the Messiah of nations, and Poland’s suffering is portrayed to be redeeming of the world’s ills. This romantic tradition is still very much vivid in Polish mythology, and a source of political discourses (e.g. Jaworski & Galasiński 1998). 1918 brings a new beginning for Polish statehood, the success commonly attributed to Marshal Józef Piłsudski – a leader who is still the paragon (for some quite dubious) to be emulated by other politicians. Life in the new Poland is far from idyllic, however. Soviet Russia’s attack in 1920 results in the “miracle on the Vistula river”, a battle termed by Edgar Vincent as the 18th decisive battle of the world. The Polish army commanded by Piłsudski defeated the Russian army marching westward. Also the internal political scene was far from ideal. With its first president assassinated, the Polish political scene is chaotic. Piłsudski takes a firmer and firmer grip over the country with his coup d’état in 1926. What follows is an authoritarian rule never far away from the army, increasingly anti-communist (culminating in the imprisonment of political – mostly Polish Communists – activists in Bereza Kartuska in the 1930s) and aggressive (peaking with the annexation of Zaolzie, part of Czechoslovakia in 1938). It is to be expected that the Second World War, still in the living memory of Poles, is very significant in the public and private discourses of Poland. So much so that a recent former prime-minister, Jarosław Kaczyński, when negotiating new voting arrangements in the European Union stated that Poland should be assessed in terms of the population it might have had, had it not been for the war. Even though condemned by many, Kaczyński struck a very raw chord. There are still many Poles who are hurt, who feel wronged, for whom the war is still very much a living and extremely relevant context. Thus the meta-narratives of the Second World War abound in stories of Polish bravery, with the battles of Monte Cassino or the Warsaw Uprising (with thousands of Polish lives lost) as the pinnacles of Polish heroism – hardly any Poles dare say anything negative about them even now. On the other hand, stories of Polish martyrology, such as the Katyń massacre (where about 15,000 Polish officers were killed by the KGB) still result in Polish demands that the Russian government own up to the crime and apologise for it. The end of the war marks another loss of independence, except that this time Poland was still on the map, but as a satellite of the Soviet Union. The history of communist Poland is far from easy and homogeneous, with the initial years (Stalinism) a period in which one could be imprisoned for telling a political joke, with the 1960s as the years of austerity, the 1970s the decade of plenty (but with a crippling national debt), the 1980s the decade of Solidarity, the martial law, and the round table talks, which led to the fall of communism in 1989. It is important to remember, however, that throughout this time life actually went on. People

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were born, died, got married and divorced. They worked, went shopping, watched television and listened to the radio. A vast majority of Poles simply continued their lives regardless. They were not involved in the system on either side – the regime or the opposition. It is only the Solidarity movement that brings the masses out, even though only for a limited period. Yet the communist years are also the years of anti-communist movements. The dates of 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976 are the moments of popular protests against the system, peaking in 1980 and the vast Solidarity movement. Even though crushed (just as the others before it) by the introduction of the martial law in 1981 and the internment of most its activists, it started a process that could not be stopped. However, admired and supported across the world, even this apparently most beautiful card of the Polish history has been subject to attack and ‘deconstruction’ after the fall of communism. Ever since 1992, Lech Wałęsa, the international icon of recent Polish history, the leader of Solidarity, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner, and later, President of Poland, has been accused of being an agent for the secret police (the SB). The accusation culminated in a recent biography, published by the controversial Institute of National Memory (IPN), which aimed to give the accusations a “scientific” validity. The talks of the “round table” in the early 1989, instrumental in ending the communist rule, have been decried as national treason. Thus even in Poland, the “fall of the Wall” is regarded as the moment communism fell, even though it happened after the first democratic elections in Poland in June 1989. The only person whose role in the recent history of Poland is still quite unquestioned is Pope John Paul II. There are very few people who dare publicly attack this ‘greatest Pole in history’, but given that the once all-powerful Catholic church in Poland is losing support, the jury might still be out even on the “Polish Pope”. And so, we come to today’s Poland – a country shaken by accusations of antiSemitism and the discovery of such events as the Polish murder of Jews in Jedwabne (see e.g. Gross 2001), a country where moral, political, historical authorities fall daily, and the nation’s history is being re-written both by politicians and by historians in their service. It is a country where history is discussed just about at any social gathering, on which the views are as polarised as they can get. It is in this context that Poland joined NATO (1999) and the European Union (2004). The events were constructed within one of the most prominent discourses that emerged right after the fall of communism: ‘returning to Europe’. Poland was ‘going back’ to the family of civilised nations. Although with some opposition (famously, the leader of a right-wing party encouraged Poles not to vote at all in the accession referendum, as only a referendum in which half of those eligible voted is legally binding), Poles overwhelmingly voted in favour of joining the



Living between history and the present

European Union. And almost in a bitter ironic comment on the Catholic church’s declaration that Poland would bring Christianity to secularised Europe, after the accession about a million Poles left the country looking for work. Readers will notice significant omissions in our ‘crash course’. Economic history, historic minorities (for example, Belarusians, Germans, Jews, Lithuanians, Roma, Slovaks, Tartars, Ukrainians), centuries-long multiculturalism and the longforgotten Polish national and religious tolerance with democratic reforms across the centuries are missing here. This is because they are not part of the Polish historical grand narrative and the national mythology. “God, honour and the motherland” is what drives Poles and their view of their history, as well as everyday activities. This is indeed why we decided to offer this longish historical account. We see it as crucial in understanding Polish transformations from communism, in to… whatever it is Poland is transforming. We take on board the proposition that discourses are always historical and must be seen in the context of and in relation to other discourses in operation, whether earlier or contemporary (Wodak 1996; see also Wodak & Krzyżanowski 2008). We accept the claim of the discourse-historical approach within discourse analysis, which sees text and discourse as recontextualising other texts and discourses (Titscher et al. 2000) and indeed our account of history (especially towards the end) is showing such topics which are likely to be intertextually accessed today. 3.  Focus of the book As any systematic analysis of ‘discourses of transformation’ must illustrate how they are linked to and draw upon previous (historical) and current discourses, a strong focus on history is one of the key characteristics of this volume. Starting from the macro perspective of how history (with a capital H, so to say) is used and played in political debates (Buchowski, ch. 1), how it is remembered, celebrated and portrayed in the media (Horolets, ch. 2 and Hansen, ch. 3) and by ordinary people (Galasiński, ch. 4), we reach historians’ ‘in-house’ debates of history’s subject matter and its role in building and maintaining the national identity (Kurkowska-Budzan, ch. 8). It is in reference to history and particularly past social relations that is the starting point for a critique of the new social reality by leaders of the Catholic church (Skowronek, ch. 6); history is also a source of ideas for a fresh start in the process of reinventing a new (former) communist party (Brier, ch. 7). On the other hand, our book brings to the fore micro-histories of people struggling with problems that were new to the post-communist reality,

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 Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński

such as change in work practices (Galasińska, ch. 9), homelessness (Mendel and Szkudlarek, ch. 10) or new gender relations (Galasiński, ch. 12) discussed also publicly (Krzyżanowska, ch. 5). Finally, history appears in accounts of different generations coming to terms with a new wave of migration (Fabiszak, ch. 11). It is the past which provides informants’ reference points through which the present is assessed and re-assessed. A number of thematic threads run through this volume. First, the book explores how discourses of the state, statehood and their histories are accessed in a variety of contexts, both public and private. We are interested in how the grand narratives of the nation and the state, also the communist state, are negotiated and constructed by agents operating at different levels of publicness. Thus, the collection offers insights into the extent to which we can find the new “postcommunist ideologies” of political freedom and a new liberal market economy sitting next to traces of the ideologies of the previous system in today’s discourses. And so, we demonstrate how Polish independence, translated into an intense bond with the national territory, became a powerful argument within political debates (Buchowski, ch. 1). Diachronically approached, media reports of events marking the end of WW II, offer insight into development and changes in discourses used to describe and to comment on not only the war itself but also its political implications for Poland and its communist regime (Horolets, ch. 2). An examination of public discussions of religious symbols and the symbolic space shows how anti-Semitic discourses are directly linked to and contextualised within the history of the Polish state, and particularly in the loss of its independence (Hansen, ch. 3). Finally, we witness unique accounts of people who tell stories of their enjoyment of the 1st of May celebrations, narratives which go against “official” post-communist discourses of condemnation of the communist past (Galasiński, ch. 4). Second, the volume investigates discourses of institutions playing important roles in the public sphere (for a detailed description of a public sphere notion see Krzyżanowska, ch. 5) and the political scene in Poland, institutions that could or (still) can be seen in terms of Bauman’s “legislators and interpreters” – those whose task is to mediate the social, political and economic realities for the “common” folk. As two of the institutions whose discourses we take up had a vital role in shaping the Polish history before and after the collapse of communism, the third has recently been tasked with the recording and interpreting of the history the communist times. Starting, however, from traditional “interpreters” of reality – the media - Krzyżanowska’s (Chapter 5) brings to the fore post-89 gender discourses. Followed by a stereotypical pillar of Polish cultural identity – the Catholic church with its history of being the guardian of the national spirit – one contribution examines the way this institution has communicated with believers



Living between history and the present

in the era of transition (Skowronek, ch. 6). Also a surprising political rebranding of the communist party, dominant but highly contested before 1989, is explored (Brier, ch. 7). Finally, readers will have a chance to look at very rarely explored data of academic, and political, discourse on the modern Polish historiography. We present an analysis of ideological struggles within the National Institute of Remembrance on the role of historiography and, indeed, Polish historians in the new Poland (by Kurkowska-Budzan, ch. 8). Third, we consider the structural changes of Polish post-communist society, yet we view them through the localised, bottom-up, discourses of post-communism, which have been little examined in the literature so far. Some new and negative aspects of everyday life after 1989 are analysed in this book. Focusing on new discourses of work in the era of rising unemployment (Galasińska, ch. 9) and also on homelessness (Mendel and Szkudlarek, ch. 10), we take up the issue of (under) class formation in the new reality. Similarly, the old issues must be explored anew, and so we examine migration in the context of the EU enlargement (Fabiszak, ch. 11) and new gender relations in Poland (Galasiński, ch. 12). As some of our informants think themselves losers and victims of the transformations, in this section we want particularly to show the perspective of those who lived through the historical changes and, at the same time, show the importance of exploring ethnographic data by researchers of post-communism. Finally, the book consists of interdisciplinary approaches to discourse. Each chapter focuses upon aspects of the ‘discourses of transformation’. However, the interdisciplinarity of the volume has produced a number of approaches to discourse and its analysis. While all chapters are anchored in a broadly understood constructionist understanding of discourse, the approaches to discourse range between a macro-scale Foucauldian view and micro-scale text-based lexicogrammatical analysis. This being so, we thought it best to leave it to the individual authors to explain their approach. We wanted this volume to show a wide range of discursive phenomena in today’s Poland, including topics which are considered difficult in Poland, such as gender relations and in particular sexism, anti-Semitism or the discourses of the Catholic church. There are, however, two socially significant topics that we wanted to include in the book, yet were unble to. One is that of the process of screening certain professional groups for collaboration with the secret police (lustracja); the other is that of coming to terms with the “difficult” histories, notably those discussed in the recent books of Gross (2001, 2007), who in Neighbours describes Polish atrocities on the Jewish population of the village Jedwabne. We have not included these topics in the volume, as we do not know of any discursive research carried out on these events. These issues are in need of urgent attention by scholars.

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 Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński

4.  The arguments The contributions can be seen on two axes. First, the present reality of Poland is mostly rejected and, when rejected, the rejection is strong and unequivocal. Here, it is the content of the discourses analysed which is primarily focused upon. Second, discursively, post-communism, despite the huge changes in just about every aspect of life in Poland or Eastern Europe, is hardly a revolution. It draws upon the discourses of communism. The new reality is mostly described and made sense of through the discourses of the previous era. Here, on the other hand, it is the discursive form which is primarily taken up. The transformations are rejected as a ‘second communism’, but, on the other hand, as a sort of cruel capitalism. Thus, as ‘communism-bis’ post-communism is dishonest, ungodly, mendacious, selling out of Poland and Foolishness. This, interestingly, is done mostly in institutional discourse, whether that of the Insti­ tute of National Remembrance (Kurkowska-Budzan, ch. 8) or the Catholic church (Skowronek, ch. 6 ) or in anti-Semitic discourses on Polish independence and its relationship to religion (Hansen, ch. 3). The new reality here is not ‘new enough’, the new Poland is not new enough, it does not break sufficiently with what was before. Alternatively, as a ‘new’ capitalism the new era is rejected as hostile or uncertain in the ‘private discourses’. This time the rejection is for there being too much change. The transformations have gone too far, there is too much struggle and hardship. Whether it is men whose masculinity is challenged (Galasinski, ch. 12) or whether the transition is constructed as one towards homelessness rather than capitalism (Mendel and Szkudlarek, ch. 10), the new reality causing dissatisfaction and frustration. As we said above, the other axis upon which post-communism is seen and analysed in the contributions to the volume is that of continuation of communism. This time, however, it is predominantly done in the form of discourse. Whether the new left is seeking to create a new image for itself (see Brier, ch. 7) or the anti-communists denounce those who do not defend Polish soil by invoking the imagery of the German who is out to grab it (Buchowski, ch. 1) or in speaking about work ‘arranging’ things (Galasinska, ch. 9), it is discourses inherited from communism that are used. It is, in fact, quite ironic that even in order to reject the new reality as not ‘new enough’, old discourses that must be used. One cannot simply speak of the good things of the previous system (see Galasinski’s account of stories of 1-May celebrations in ch. 4): it seems that there must be an appropriate way in which to do. Finally, women are still silenced by the press (Krzyżanowska, ch. 5).



Living between history and the present 

5.  Overview of the chapters Part I of the volume, History and ideology at work, consists of three chapters devoted to the ideological role of history and it is examined in both public and private contexts. In Chapter 1, Buchowski explores how notions of blood and soil, closely related to ideologies of the Polish state, are used by politicians in parliamentary debates. He argues that blood and soil were among the most conspicuous codes of nationalist ideologies in 19th and 20th century Europe. Blood referred to the principle of kinship and affinity of people belonging to the same nation, while soil relates to the notion of territory. Taken together, they formed a powerful ideological mixture legitimising the notion that each nation needs and deserves its own territory. Buchowski shows how they still are used for political mobilization of people, and in particular, how in the case of Poland, icons of blood and soil were commonly exploited during the EU-accession negotiations. He analyses discourses referring to the past and often building upon emotional fears and uncertainties related to the special historical status of the territories acquired by Poland from Germany after World War II, and economic disparities between East and West. In Chapter 2 Horolets argues that the discursive means involved in commemorating the end of the Second World War in Poland belong to the practices of producing a new national narrative, which is part and parcel of the processes of the post-1989 transformation. Victory Day is an event that encompasses several dilemmas of the transitional period: a construction of new collective identities, a re-definition of ‘us’ and ‘them’, a selection of a national history repertoire as well as harmonizing it with the repertoires of the new ally – Europe. Discourse is understood in this chapter not only as the repository of structural necessities that circumscribe social action – constructions of national history in particular – but also as a source of opportunities and choices available to social actors and enacted by them. The author considers the discursive strategies adopted by both politicians and journalists as aimed at the production of a renewed national identity and exercising the politics of memory. Despite being able to establish some degree of reconciliation within a historical narrative, these discursive strategies still contain several important omissions and inconsistencies that refer to the role of Poland in the former regime. Hansen (in Chapter 3) deals with public discourses concerning the conflict of the crosses at the Auschwitz concentration camp museum. She focuses on the appearance of anti-Semitic statements in the debate. Using a broad range of public sources, including homilies and letters-to-the-editor, she outlines anti-Semitic argumentation patterns and shows how anti-Semitism is functionalised in the

 Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński

debate. Yet, having shown the ubiquity of anti-Semitism in the debate, Hansen eschews easy interpretations and tries to put it in the context of Polish history and particularly its re-gained independence after 1989. In this light, anti-Semitism appears precisely as a means to preserve an independent Poland in which Poles are free to make their own decisions without any external influence. This part of the book ends with Galasiński’s chapter, in which he examines narrated experiences of the 1st of May celebrations – one of the main annual festivals in the Communist calendar in Poland. Galasiński’s aim is to investigate constructions of individual participation in the events and to demonstrate its dilemmatic nature, hovering between acceptance and rejection. Thus, he looks at history as ideology in the private sphere and demonstrates that the interviewees constructed the celebrations of the 1st of May in two different spheres of life: either as a political act, or as a source of entertainment. Moreover, while the participation in the former was invariably represented as forced, with the individual being part of a larger group (company, school) in which responsibility for taking part was not full or unique, only the latter was predominantly an activity for children and narrated through their perspective. Assuming that remembering is a discursive act led by the concerns and relevancies of the context in which it is done, Galasiński relates these findings to the conflictual and dilemmatic identity the informants constructed for themselves – in which socialism was never quite rejected and postsocialism never quite accepted. The second part of the volume, Mentors and Mediators, is dedicated to explorations into discourses produced by important institutions in Polish society, such as the leading newspapers, the Catholic church, the successor of the communist party, and the Institute of National Remembrance. Members of these institutions (journalists, clergy, party activists and academics) were in the past and to some extent are still influential players on the political arena of the country, some as holders of political power (the party), others the holders of symbolic and social capital (the church, academics). After the events of 1989, these institutions’ roles changed considerably and their dominant discourses were transformed accordingly. In the first chapter of the part, Krzyżanowska takes up the media coverage of the so-called ‘Seksafera’ (sex affair): the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza’s revelations that a prominent Polish politician employed his PA on the condition of receiving sexual favours from her. Having collected data from three major Polish newspapers, broadly representing the political spectrum, the author shows the processes of ridiculing and of vilification of the victim (in the left- and right-wing publications, respectively). Only the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, which broke the story, constructed the woman assistant as a victim. Most interestingly, however, Krzyżanowska discovers that all the publications silence the woman, never actually presenting her perspective. Even though right in the centre of the affair,



Living between history and the present 

the victim is only spoken about, mostly by men, and is never allowed space to speak herself. In Chapter 6 Skowronek evaluates the constructions of post-communism in pastoral letters of the Polish Episcopate’s Conference 1990–2005. The author demonstrates that the construct of post-communist democracy in bishops’ letters addressed to the faithful of the Catholic church in Poland after 1989 is ambivalent and inconsistent. For example, the concept of Polish democracy is built as a positive value in contrast to ‘bad communism’, but also is associated with the concepts of hedonism, consumptionism, relativism and “excess of freedom”. For Skowronek, such an ambivalent construct became an effect of the new situation in Poland after ‘89, in which the church is neither the defender of ‘Polish ethnic identity’, nor a political leader, but holds ‘only’ a pastoral, religious role. While Skowronek scrutinised texts produced by the church, Brier in Chapter 7 looks at the Democratic Left Alliance’s discourse. The question of whether there are significant continuities between the communist and the post-communist conditions forms the background for his chapter. Concentrating on the discursive dimension of post-communism, Brier demonstrates how continuity and change coexist in the post-communist transformations showing a way in which social actors are capable of rearranging and thus changing structures of meaning. This theoretical point is substantiated by reconstructing how Poland’s main post-communist successor party reshaped its political identity after 1989. Whereas this process was necessitated by a cultural frame inherited from the pre-1989 period, Poland’s ex-communists managed to reinterpret and appropriate some of its ideas, thus reinventing themselves as pragmatic proponents of representative democracy. In the final chapter of this part Kurkowska-Budzan explores the educational activities of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), based on texts published in the popular-scientific journal Biuletyn IPN (the “IPN Bulletin”). She demonstrates how the IPN explicitly and implicitly expresses its role in the state and society. Moreover, this study also reveals the IPN’s vision of how to practice scientific historic investigations and knowledge transfer, known as the “Polish historical policy”. Examining extracts from the journal, Kurkowska-Budzan shows what is aimed to be a model historic investigation of Poland’s past in the communist period. She concludes by analysing some linguistic characteristics of the IPN’s discourse. In Part III, Living Post-communism, we want to listen to stories of everyday life as told by ordinary people affected by systemic changes. Therefore the focus of this part of the volume is shifted from the macro to the micro perspective and the third type of social actor (after that of history in Part I and institutions in Part II), the contributors are concentrated on. Here, the history of the transformation is delivered in people’s stories. Thus, in Chapter 9, Galasińska discusses

 Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński

about work with interviewees from a block of flats in a city, as well with those from a rural area in the historical context of 2004, when the level of unemployment reached 20 percent. She demonstrates that the topic of work dominates the discourse about the post-communist transformation in Poland and reveals that new working practices and the job market are generally constructed in negative terms. Furthermore, focusing on different, more personal stories of labour, she gives evidence that people also use a more positive discourse of work for displaying their identities. Galasińska problematises work-related discourses not only in the context of the existing high unemployment of the 90s and the beginning of the new century in Poland, but also in the rapidly changing conditions of the labour market during the post-accession time as well as in global economic changes of the post-industrial world. In Chapter 10 Mendel and Szkudlarek present stories told by homeless people with different social statuses, backgrounds, and personal experiences. All informants lost their homes at the time of the economic transition from socialism to capitalism in Poland. In half of these stories the causes of homelessness were directly attributed to the systemic transformation (such as changes in property law, or privatisation of the industry). Although the authors point out that the fact that transformations appear in the data does not mean that it is the sole reason why their informants became homeless, in the narratives, history and personal biographies intersect in dramatic ways, with rarely accessed accounts on what socio-economic transformations may mean in individual lives of those who do not find ways to cope. Fabiszak, in her chapter, offers an analysis of continuity and change in the discourses on migration of the younger generation of Poles and of their parents in post-EU-accession Poland. Methodologically, she combines insights from critical discourse analysis, conceptual metaphor theory and personal narratives analysis. The major findings of her study show a shift away from the historically dominant myths of “migration as exile” and “migration as arduous journey”, while “the streets in the West are paved with gold” myth seems to be undergoing a change related to the socio-economic and political changes of the transformation. She argues that the old myths are ousted by a new discursive pattern based on two conceptual metaphors: “migration is learning” and “migration is holidays”. The relationship between gender identities and the experience of postcommunism is the topic of the last chapter. Anchoring his study in the critical discourse perspective, Galasiński focuses upon constructions of masculinity in the changing social, political and economic situation. He demonstrates that despite men’s narratives largely remaining anchored within the traditional, heavily patriarchal, model of masculinity, there are two ways in which the model is incorporated



Living between history and the present 

into the men’s stories and used in their local construction of identities. On the one hand, it is embedded into the stories of activity and success, with masculinity positioned as a springboard for action. On the other hand, it is part of men’s helplessness and inability to succeed, and is used as an excuse for failure.

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 Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński Flynn, M., Kay, R. & Oldfield, J.D. (eds). 2008. Trans-National Issues, Local Concerns and Meanings of Post-Socialism: Insights from Russia, Central Eastern Europe and Beyond. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Penguin. Funk N. & Mueller, M. (eds). 1993. Gender Politics and Post-communism: Reflections from Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. New York/London: Routledge. Fuszara, M. 2008. Nowi Mężczyźni? Zmieniające się modele męskości we współczesnej Polsce. Warszawa: Trio. Gal, S. & Kligman, G. 2000a. The Politics of Gender after Socialism: a Comparative-historical Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gal, S. & Kligman, G. (eds). 2000b. Reproducing Gender. Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism. Chichester: Princeton University Press. Galasińska, A. 2006. “Border ethnography and post-communist discourses of nationality in Poland.” Discourse and Society 17 (5): 609–628. Galasińska, A. & Galasiński, D. 2007. “Rejecting an identity. Discourses of Europe in Polish Border Communities”. In The Discourse of Europe: Talk and Text in Everyday Life. S. Millar & J. Wilson (eds), 97–113. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Galasińska, A. & Krzyżanowski, M. (eds). 2009. Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Galasiński, D. 2004. Men and the Language of Emotions. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Galasiński, D. 2008. Men’s Discourses of Depression. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Galasiński, D. & Galasińska, A. 2007. “Lost in Communism, Lost in Migration: Narratives of post-1989 Polish Migrant Experience.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 2 (1): 47–62. Gross, J.T. 2001. Neighbours: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gross, J.T. 2007. Fear. Anti-semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. New York: Random House. Hann, C.M. (ed.) 2002. Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Practices in Eurasia. London and New York: Routledge. Holmes, L. 1997. Post-communism: an Introduction. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Humphrey, C. 2002. The Unmaking of Soviet Life: everyday economies after socialism. Cornell: Cornell University Press. Ieţcu, I. 2006. “Argumentation, Dialogue and Conflicting Moral Economies in Post-1989 Romania: An Argument Against the Trade Union Movement.” Discourse & Society, 17 (5): 627–650. Jaworski, A. & Galasinski, D. 1998. “The last Romantic hero. Lech Wałęsa’s image-building in TV presidential debates.” TEXT. 18 (4): 525–544. Kay, R. 2006. Men in Contemporary Russia. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kelly-Holmes, H. 1999. “United Consumers? Advertising Discourse and Constructions of German Identity.” In Relocating Germanness: Discursive Disunity in Unified Germany, P. Stevenson & J. Theobald (eds), 91–108. Basingstoke and London: Palgrave-Macmillan. Kennedy, M.D. (ed.). 1994. Envisioning Eastern Europe. Postcommunist Cultural Studies. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Kennedy, M.D. 2002. Cultural Formations of Postcommunism. Emancipation, Transition, Nation, and War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Koralewicz, J. & Ziółkowski, M. 2003. Mentalność Polaków. Sposoby myślenia o polityce, gospodarce i życiu społecznym 1988–2000. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe SCHOLAR/ Collegium Civitas Press.



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Kostecki, W., Żukrowska, K. & Góralczyk, B. 2000. Transformations of Post-communist States. Basingstoke and New York: MacMillan Press, St. Martin’s Press. Krzyżanowski, M. 2003. ‘“My European Feelings Are Not Only Based on the Fact that I Live in Europe”: On the New Mechanisms in European and National Identification Patterns Emerging under the Influence of EU Enlargement.’ Journal of Language and Politics 2 (1): 175–204. Krzyżanowski, M. 2008. “Konstrukcja Tożsamości Narodowych i Europejskich w Polskim Dyskursie Polityki po Roku 1989: Analiza Dyskursywno-Historyczna.” In Krytyczna Analiza Dyskursu. Interdyscyplinarne Podejście do Komunikacji Społecznej, A. Duszak & N. Fairclough (eds), 269–305. Kraków: Universitas. Krzyżanowski, M., forthcoming. Becoming European: Discourses of Identity and Social Change in Polish Politics after 1989. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Łaciak, B. 2005. Obyczajowość polska czasu transformacji. Warszawa: Trio. Mandel, R. & Humphrey, C. (eds). 2002. Market and Moralities. Ethnographies of Postsocialism. Oxford and New York: Berg. McBride, W.L. 1999. Philosophical Reflections of the Changes in Eastern Europe. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Meinhof, U.H. (ed.). 2002. In Living (with) Borders: Identity Discourses on East-West Borders in Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate. Meinhof, U. & Galasiński. D. 2005. The Language of Belonging. Basingstoke and London: Palgrave-Macmillan. Mendel, M. 2007. Społeczeństwo i rytuał. Heterotopia bezdomności. Toruń: Adam Marszałek. Momsen, J., Szorenyi, I. & Timar, J. 2005. Gender at the Border: Entrepreneurship in Rural PostSocialist Hungary. Aldershot: Ashgate. Outhwaite, W., & Ray, L. 2005. Social Theory and Postcommunism. Malden, MA, Oxford, Carlton: Blackwell. Pascall, G. & Kwak, A. 2005. Gender regimes in transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Bristol: Policy Press. Pickles, J. & Smith, A. (eds). 1998. Theorising Transition. The Political Economy of Post-communist Transformation. London and New York: Routledge. Sakwa, R. 1999. Postcommunism. Buckingham: Open University Press. Saleci, R. 1994. The spoil of freedom: psychoanalysis and feminism after the fall of socialism. London and New York: Routledge. Stark, D. 1992. “The Great Transformation? Social Change in Eastern Europe.” Contemporary Sociology 21 (3): 232–50. Stenning, A. 2005. “Re-Placing Work: Economic Transformations and the Shape of a Community in Post-Socialist Poland.” Work, Employment and Society 19 (2): 235–59. Stokes, G. 1993. The Walls Came Tumbling Down. The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Svašek, M. (ed.). 2006. Postsocialism. Politics and Emotions in Central and Eastern Europe. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Sztompka. P. (ed.). 1999. Imponderabilia Wielkiej Zmiany. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Titscher, S., Meyer, M., Wodak, R. & Vetter, E. 2000. Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis. London: Sage. True, J. 2003. Gender, Globalization and Postsocialism. The Czech Republic after Communism. New York: Columbia University Press.

 Aleksandra Galasińska & Dariusz Galasiński Verdery, K. 1996. What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton, Princeton University Press. Webber, S.L. & Liikanene, I. 2001. Education and civic culture in post-communist countries. London and New York: Palgrave. Wedel, J. 1998. Collision and Collusion: the Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe. London and New York: Palgrave. Wodak, R. 1996. Disorders of Discourse. London: Longman. Wodak, R. & Krzyżanowski, M. (eds). 2008. Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wydra, H. 2000. Continuities in Poland’s Permanent Transition. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

part i

History and ideology at work

“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród”* Polish contemporary discourses about soil and nation Michał Buchowski

Adam Mickiewicz University

1.  Aims and assumptions It is commonly assumed that the period between 1989 and 1991 was a breakthrough in various aspects of life in former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The “Autumn of Nations”, ignited by the electoral victory of Solidarity on the 4th of June 1989 in Poland, has also influenced history on a global scale leading to the shifts in international balance of power and, as it is claimed, universal expansion of the neoliberal principles across the globe. The magnitude of these events prompted scholars to work out new conceptualizations that have taken a form of, for instance, the theory of the “end of history” (Fukuyama 1992) or “clash of civilizations” (Huntington 1996), to mention just two most celebrated among so many of them. The former claims that capitalism has become now an exclusive and unchallenged emperor in the domain of economic life of all societies; the latter asserts that in the face of economic universalism, culture (unfortunately understood in an outmoded and essentialist way – at least from a modern anthropological point of view) will now function as the major factor differentiating human societies. Many scholars (cf. Sztompka 2000, 2004), taken by the Zeitgeist and visions of progressive change, have naively believed that plain acceptance of “Western” patterns of behaviours and models of life will lead to desired positive changes, i.e. economic and social improvement. They perceived the world in a dichotomous way by drawing a picture in which socialism features as the epitome of economic backwardness and social anomy while capitalism as an ideal for human relations that inevitably leads to prosperity and happiness. Troubles in the period of transformation are caused by the persistence of old bad mental habits, the enslaving grip of the famous homo sovieticus. Nevertheless, generations spoiled by these negative routines and practices will slowly die out and we can ultimately expect affluence and contentment afterwards. Its breakthrough, although delayed *We’ll not abandon the land of our kin.

 Michał Buchowski

by the power of cultural inertia and sluggishness of demographic processes, will become reality in the near future. However, as I have tried to demonstrate elsewhere (e.g. Buchowski 2001, 2006, 2006a), “really existing postsocialism”, to paraphrase Rudolph Bahro, is a much more complex and meandering process, which generates new social inequalities and economic problems as well as unexpected cultural turns. In the latter respect, symbolic struggles and struggles for symbols, selective memory and discursive grapples over the interpretation of the past for the legitimization of the present – always mired in national myth and histories – play an important role in these developments. By analyzing debates about the conditions of the Polish accession to the European Union, specifically, the regulations concerning land acquisition by foreigners, I will try to show how intricate all these postsocialist developments are and whether we can find continuity in change, at least at the discursive level. This continuity, as I will shortly show, reaches back not only to the communist period, but much further back. In general, it seems to be rooted in the Polish and Central European understanding of the nation as a community of blood (cf. Hayden 2000: 80–83) attached to its territory. Current discourses, however, take shape specifically in the postsocialist context and were expressed quite vividly in light of the possibility of an institutional association with “Western Europe”. In any society multiple discourses are produced and reproduced in an ongoing process of mutual interactions. Various groups compete for the recognition of their worldview as a hegemonic one. This struggle for domination is carried out with diverse weapons. Discursive practices are the most popular means in establishing an “obvious obviousness” (to use an expression by Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Law and Justice Party in Poland and former Prime Minister), a method of making cultural norms appear as the natural order and at the same time legitimizing current political practices and policy. The latter can be interpreted in critical terms of power relations and dominance, mystification that serves a purpose of sanctioning exploitation, but here I skip this line of inquiry. By the same virtue of obviousness most of these discursive practices remain imperceptible to us, all active participants and co-creators of them. Maybe they become “blindingly obvious”, as Miller and Woodward (2008) call some phenomena from a domain of material culture. In a myriad of existing discourses in Central Europe, according to Peter Niedermüller, one of the most popular is the “national discourse” (Diskurs des Nationalen) that “establishes bonds between history, past and contemporary politics” (1997: 247). Dariusz Łapiński, for example, shares this view and sees national history as “reservoirs of symbols” (2004: 127–131). But national discourse does not equate to any form of nationalism, especially its traditional and often radical manifestations known from the interwar period. Contemporary discourse is a form of a cultural system, a symbolic space, a practice “in which political and

“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 



social reality is constructed” (Niedermüller 1997: 250). Discourses consist of spoken words, texts, descriptions, concepts as well as visual images, rituals and daily practices (249, 251). Together these various components can constitute distinctive national forms and configurations, each of which can be represented as a complex “system of thoughts and arguments” (249). In what follows, I will focus on how national discourse, especially in its verbal and written form and related to soil and blood, functions in Poland today and how current discourses, by reaching out to the reservoirs of symbols present in a historically formed imagined national tradition, are reinterpreted and reused in the context of so-called postsocialist transformation. 2.  A historical outline In Cracow on 15 July 1910 the Grunwald Monument was unveiled to the accompaniment of five hundred voices in a joint choir of persons coming from all three partitions of Poland who sung Rota, a poem in the form of an oath and anti-German anthem written by Maria Konopnicka and composed by Feliks Nowowiejski.1 Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród. Nie damy pogrześć mowy. Polski mi naród, polski lud, Królewski szczep Piastowy. Nie damy, by nas gnębił wróg.

We’ll not abandon the land of our folk. We’ll not let our language be buried. We’re the Polish Nation, Polish people, Royal tribe of the Piasts. We’ll not let the foe hold us down.

Tak nam dopomóż Bóg! Tak nam dopomóż bóg!

So help us God! So help us God!

Do krwi ostatniej kropli z żył Bronić będziemy ducha, Aż się rozpadnie w proch i w pył Krzyżacka zawierucha. Twierdzą nam będzie każdy próg.

To the last drop in our veins We’ll defend our spirit Until into dust Falls the Teutonic storm. Every doorsill will be our fortress.

Tak nam dopomóż Bóg! Tak nam dopomóż bóg!

So help us God! So help us God!

.  Actually, this song was a prime contender for the official Polish anthem, but, finally, in 1926, dominated by Marshal Piłsudski’s legionaries, authorities opted for Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, whose lyrics and melody were more martial and which has been the Polish anthem ever since. However, Rota is deemed by many to be the ‘second anthem’ and as such is presented in many forums, including internet websites. It is also sung as an opening act at various ceremonies held by self-acclaimed ‘patriotic’ organizations (e.g. Młodzież Wszechpolska, or, All-Polish Youth); it is also the official anthem of the Polish Peasant Party. With the exception of Rota, all translations are mine.

 Michał Buchowski

These two artists are representative of many who actively defended Polish national identity in the period when their glorious “imagined community” existed, but whose country had not been present on the political map of Europe for more than a century. On that summer day in 1410, in the fields of Grunwald, in German topography of East Prussia called Tannenberg, Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian troops joined together and defeated the Teutonic Knights, whose presence and politics in the area was later considered in Polish national historiography as one of the most dangerous indicators of the “inborn” Germanic Drang nach Osten borne by their Slavic and Baltic neighbours. The political context of the beginning of the 20th century, being marked by several uprisings and the constant striving of Poles for their independence, growing significance of nationalist forces of Central Europeans haunted by Herderian ideas, repressions faced by ethnic Poles, especially in the Prussian partition where Kulturkampf combined with Wirtschaftkampf and a struggle for property in agriculture, provide us with many reasons to explain why this patriotic event in 1910 could only have taken place in the relatively liberal Austrian part of the occupied country. Eight years after the monument was unveiled, in the aftermath of World War I, Poland was reborn. In the second Republic property rights in agriculture were regulated by a law approved in March 1920, allowing the purchase of land by foreign citizens under condition that they marry a Polish citizen, and that they not be hostile to other Polish ethnic groups. Polish citizens, their nationality notwithstanding, kept their unlimited rights to own property. Nobody at the commencement of the last century and the dawn of independence expected that at the beginning of 21st century similar arguments about nation, land, blood and soil would be evoked in the process of European Union accession negotiations. 3.  Krew i ziemia, or blood and soil The issue of nationalism immediately surfaces when a discussion about soil and blood is raised. Metaphors bringing to mind la terre et les mortes, the land in which our ancestors lived and are buried, are common in all nationalist ideologies (cf. Barrès 1902; Bauman 1992: 684–685). Historically, as several scholars have argued (cf. Bell-Fialkoff 1996: 75–78), nationalism substituted religion as a major identification force in modern Europe. I would add that it brought down the image of equality from heaven to earth: in spite of all the differences in social standing, education and wealth, we are all equal by the Nation, in the Nation and in front of the Nation – here and now. This is the miraculous working of the state whose task is “to consolidate internal social differentiation as national unity …” (Kearney 1991: 53). Nationalism is based on blood affinity of the people belonging to



“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 

one “imagined community” (Anderson 1983). Kinship metaphors in the national factory of identity are commonly used in practically all European languages (cf. Herzfeld 2001: 311; 2005: 7). Imagined as rooted in blood, national unity is much more powerful than unity based merely on the idea of social solidarity, which can be dismissed at any time. As soon as the nation is imagined as a homogenised unity, Kokoschka’s complex, colourful mosaics has to be replaced by Modigliani’s calm, monochrome surfaces (Gellner 1983: 139–140). The idea of nation-building and a desire to secure its own political roof legitimates the claims of each ethnic group to the exclusive possession of a given territory and the formation of a nation-state. In the historically shaped melting pot of the chaotically arranged European ethnic groups, it created a contradiction that had to be put in order in an Enlightenment spirit. It was based on the concept that blood and soil, as well as language, culture or even race should coincide or be isomorphic. As nationalism rolled over Europe, nations became “spatially incarcerated” (Appadurai 1996) and nationalities in this “age of empire” (cf. Hobsbawm 1987) competed for lands. In extreme cases the fight for national territories took the form of genocide, ethnic cleansing, expulsions, resettlements and population exchanges. Yi-Fu Tuan was one among many who noted that “rootedness in the soil and the growth of pious feeling toward it seem natural to sedentary agricultural people” (1977: 156). In the colonial and postcolonial context sedentarism and tribal nomadism were immediately put into a hierarchical order that gave an absolute moral, rational and political superiority to the arrangement based on the European values system (Asad 2002: 137). Attachment to land and the cult of native soil assume various forms. Some of them are, as Lisa Malkki (1997: 55) notes, “nondiscursive practices”. According to Katherine Verdery (1999), one of the most conspicuous among them is a reburying of “exiled” dead bodies of national heroes in their native land; this has become a widespread preoccupation of many postsocialist authorities and nationalist activists. Kissing the native land upon arrival back home after a long period of time is also quite common. Migrants often take a fistful of their home soil with them. All in all, soil, nation and state have become naturalised in our discourses and gained hegemonic status. This has lead to the situation we often think in terms of genealogies, roots and arborescent metaphors: “Thinking about nations and national identities may take the form of roots, trees, origins, ancestors, racial lines, autochthonism, evolutions, developments, or any number of other familiar, essentialising images; what they share is a genealogical form of thought …” (Malkki 1997: 57). Rooting national culture in soil in order to legitimize the state’s claims for territory was a very important political function of artists and scholars in the past two centuries. Historians, archaeologists and ethnographers, along with journalists, poets, writers and painters – all caught in nationalist idiom – took part in

 Michał Buchowski

these enormous intellectual battles of utmost importance. For some and in many places they have not yet ceased and probably never will. 4.  Poland: The “typical exceptional” case The history of Polish nationalism and struggles for territory show some specific features, although they generally fall within the European, particularly Central and Eastern European, pattern. Pre-partition (i.e. before 1795) nationalism was, as Andrzej Walicki (1994) claims, on the republican ‘French path’ to national unity and homogeneity, close to the civil, non-ethnic concept of nation. Elites in the then eastern lands of the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth – stretching well into present-day territories of Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Belarus – underwent a process of cultural Polonisation. Loyalty to the Commonwealth enabled them to be gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus, a Polish citizen of Ruthenian origin. The invocation of the Polish national epos Pan Tadeusz, written by Adam Mickiewicz, an exiled poet born in 1798 in nearby Polish Nowogródek, then already in the Russian Empire, now in Belarus, starts with the words “Lithuania, my fatherland …” Hardly any better concentration of the state of affairs in the national question can be found for one place and a single person. However, 123 years of independence lost and the captivating force of Herderian ideas caused the country to be reborn under the banner of ethnic nationalism. Caught in this kind of nationalism Poles were involved in several phenomena described above. They have become victims and perpetrators at the same time, of ethnic turmoil and massacres, particularly during and after World War II. In conjunction with German and Soviet invasion, the Jewish holocaust, atrocities on Poles committed by both the Nazis and the Soviets that were openly aimed at ethnic cleansings (like for example in Wielkopolska and the Zamość region [cf. Conte & Essner 1995], or in the Lviv region), then the expulsion of Germans after 1945 from East Prussia, Pomerania, eastern Brandenburg (now Lebuser Land) and Silesia, the “resettlement” of Poles from Lithuania, Volyhnia, and Podolia (now western Ukraine) and today’s western Belarus to the northern and eastern territories of contemporary Poland “regained” from Germany – all this has contributed to the creation of a virtually mono-ethnic Poland, something unknown to previous Polish societies and something that has made it highly sensitive to territorial issues. Polish Communist authorities, like many other powers in Europe and postcolonial countries “shared the basic terms of a historical argument … and the modern European language of territorial rights” (Asad 2002: 137). Partial compensation for territories lost to the mighty Soviet Union at the expense of the defeated Germany was rationalized by the assumed

“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 



return to the Piast2 lands centuries ago conquered by Germans. A whole scientific and propaganda industry was involved in this enormous undertaking intended to convince people of the validity of the historical argument and justify considerable territorial changes, the new shape of the country and the migration of peoples. Arborescent, rooting as well as blood and soil metaphors were commonly used in these discourses. Polish soil was a trope in many literary works and poems. The 1924 Nobel Prize winning four volume novel Chłopi (Peasants), written by Władysław Reymont, an obligatory reading in education curricula ever since, is about peasant life and greed for land. In various poems land was presented as Polish Arcadia, a land of graves and crosses, soaked with blood, sweat and tears, full of pain and suffering, threatened by poverty, but always providing bread (cf. Ziejka 2005). Polish soldiers took fistfuls of native soil when forced to travel. Szymon Tokarzewski, for example, an exile to Siberia wrote in his memoirs that “we all had on our chests in small sacks sewed up soil” that we spread over coffins of companions of distress (Ziejka 2005: 2). With regard to German expansion, Jan Kasprowicz wrote in the poem Excelsior: Nie ma tygodnia, nie ma chwili, Aby nie przyszły smutne wieści, Że tam gdzie wczoraj swoi żyli, Dziś się już obce gnizado mieści. Ach! Każdy zagon drży z boleści, Najmniejsza grudka jęk wydaje Na dzień bez chwały dzień bez cześci; Kiedy pług obcy ziemię kraje …

There is no week, not a single moment, Without an arrival of sad news, Where yesterday our folks lived, Today is an alien’s nest. Oh! Each bed trembles with pain, The smallest land’s lump gives a moan For a day without glory, a day without honour; When a foreign plough carves the land …

Already cited above, Maria Konopnicka wrote in another patriotic poem Chodziły tu Niemce… (Germans were coming…) published in the collection Z łąk i pól (From meadows and fields): Chodziły tu Niemce, Chodziły odmieńce: Sprzedaj chłopie rolę Będziesz miał czerwieńce

Germans were coming, Aliens were coming: Peasant, sell us soil You will have bucks

.  The Piasts established the Polish state in the 10th century with the capital in Gniezno near Poznań, and accepted Christianity in 966. Their hold on power lasted until the 14th century when Queen Jadwiga married the Lithuanian Prince Władysław Jagiełło in 1382 and ultimately gave birth to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, prompting eastern-oriented Polish territorial expansion and the reign of the Jagiellonian dynasty.

 Michał Buchowski

And as according to the famous novel Placówka (Outpost), written by Bolesław Prus, and also an obligatory reading in school curricula, an anonymous but paradigmatic peasant refuses the offer and despite hardships keeps the land in Polish hands. Nie sprzedam ci roli … Weź, Niemcze talary … Kto ziemię sprzedaje, Ten nie naszej wiary!

I won’t sell you soil … German, take your dollars … One who sells land Is not of our faith!

For the next four decades after 1945 communist propaganda recycled arguments about the Polishness of the “Regained Territories”, but at the same time frightened people with the constantly looming threat of Western German revisionists claiming rights to these lands. As a matter of fact, only in 1991 was the Polish-German Border Treaty finally signed. Symbols of reverence to the native land and association of blood and soil were also visible in popular behaviours, independently of the political regime. “The Polish Pope” John Paul II upon arrivals regularly kissed the land (actually, mostly concrete of the airport runway). In movies one can witness scenes showing Poles resettled from the former eastern lands carrying a bag of their native soil, e.g. in the very popular comedy Sami swoi (Our Folks, 1967, directed by Sylwester Chęciński). In the same movie, a dying old widow, whose husband was buried in their native Vilnus region, is seriously concerned that if she is buried in an alien land she might not be able to meet her spouse in the afterlife. However, her burial in this new soil establishes symbolic roots with the land. From now on the graves of forefathers will also be here and the new soil is so dear that even a pre-war émigré to the United States, a brother of the main hero, takes a bag of it with him back home across the Atlantic (cf. Pełczyński 2002: 79–80). Artistic expression of the value and love to the Polish land is succinctly summarized in the poem of Stanisław Ryszard Dobrowolski, a leftist, later also procommunist and pro-authoritarian poet: Myśmy w tę ziemię pot sączyli, myśmy w tę ziemię krew sączyli – dlatego jest sercu bliska. Myśmy się na niej urodzili, myśmy się o nią ciężko bili – dlatego nam ojczysta. We had soaked our sweat in this land, we had in this land our blood soaked – this is why it is so dear to us. We were born on it, we fought for it hard – this is why it is a native fatherland to us.

Also joining this patriotic choir were, for example, philosophers opposing communist regime and supporters of the independence movement Solidarity. Referring



“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 

mostly to 19th century authors engaged in the cause of independence, such as Cyprian Kamil Norwid and Karol Libelt, Józef Tischner (1982) wrote about the absolute value of Polish land and soil for the Polish people, those who, to cite Libelt’s thoughts, have been moulded by it (Libelt 1967: 11). It is then no wonder that general cultural images have not radically changed after 1989. On the wave of patriotic tide there are of course further acts that demonstrate the connection between people and land. Most conspicuous were exhumations and new burial ceremonies of émigré anti-communist heroes who died a long time ago. Generals Władysław Sikorski’s (Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile in London during World War II) and Bór-Komorowski’s (head of the Polish Home Army and of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944) ashes were brought home and buried in their “native soil” (Verdery 1999: 14). A president of the post-war Polish Government in Exile from London, Edward Raczyński, was buried after his death in 1993 in his family mausoleum in Rogalin in nearby Poznań. Examples can be multiplied and burials like these turned immediately into official and spontaneous patriotic events. Freedom of expression also opened a possibility for extremist nationalist activities and statements. Some of them are openly racist and propose a “nation of a pure blood”. “We also fight for an ethnic purity of the nation, since we are against the mixing of races, cultures and languages.” Land becomes an important element of this worldview: “Only a nation that owns its patch of land with clearly delimited borders has the right conditions for its development, can build, create, and erect monuments of its existence. Defence of the fatherland is a duty for all of us and it is our forefathers’ heritage” (Szaniec n.d.). Radical National Camp, another organization of this type, declares that “Blood and Soil are symbolic words. Blood means pure and a big Nation, and Soil is our Fatherland” (Obóz n.d.). Młodzież Wszechpolska (All-Polish Youth), a successor of the interwar nationalist organization, also declares “Land is our place on earth, patrimony, in which blood and ashes of our ancestor rest. It deserves a homage and protection against foreign appropriation” (Młodzież 2002). Thus, the combined motives of land (soil), blood, ashes and nation have been present in the Polish national discourses for a long time and are deeply entrenched. Views about these issues seem to be, at least to a certain extent, “independent” of the political views of their holders and are used for various political aims and by various political regimes. In that sense, discourses about land show conspicuous continuity. This overall cultural and historical background, at least partly helps us to understand discourses about native soil and national land that (re-)emerged at the turn of century, particularly in the process of negotiations of the accession treaty with the European Union.

 Michał Buchowski

5.  Déjà vu: Polish parliamentary debates about land In my case study I focus mostly on the discussion held in the Polish Lower Chamber of the Parliament (Sejm) during its 4th term, 16th session, held between the 12th and 15th of March 2003,3 but I will also make some additional references. The debate was incited by the negotiation of the accession treaty between Poland and the European Union. There were several issues at stake, but the major one was about how long the free flow of capital in agriculture should be restricted. In other words, if at all, and if yes after how many years should foreigners be allowed to purchase land in Poland after its accession to the European Union? The left-wing government, supported by more liberally-oriented political groups, was accused of treason of national interests by rightist opposition from the parliamentary factions of Law and Justice (in Polish, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin), Self-defence (Samoobrona), Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe); they were strongly supported by extremely nationalistic parliamentary groupings, such as the National Catholic Movement (Ruch Narodowo-Katolicki), the Patriotic Movement (Ruch Patriotyczny) and Native House (Dom Ojczysty). It is noteworthy that these first three parties, with Law and Justice as the major power, won the first elections in 2005 after EU accession and ruled the country for the following two years. Torn by internal conflicts, the coalition collapsed and currently, after early elections in November 2007, a more liberal (although still conservative) coalition of the Civic Platform and Polish Peasant Party compose the government. In these parliamentary discussions old ghosts and myths from the past were revived. Various threads present in history were evoked in politically heated debates. Long duration structures showed their lasting power in the new historical context transmitted almost directly from the 19th century. However, for many liberally minded people the behaviour of rightist defenders of Polish soil appear now as a historical farce in Marx’s sense. Let us illustrate some of

.  4th term, 16th session, 2nd and 3rd day (15.03.2002), 19th point of the order of the day. Consideration of members of the parliament proposal to hold a nationwide referendum, in which Polish citizens will answer the question: “Do you agree to sell Polish soil to foreigners?” (print no. 277). See: http://ks.sejm.gov.pl:8009/search97cgi/vt…ViewTemplate=kadview%2E hts&ServerKey=Sejm, and all materials are cited from this source. This motion was rejected and in this sense failed. However, the Polish government was prompted to negotiate toughly and Poland was the only country among the ten that joined the European Union in 2004 that was granted a 12 year grace-period with regard to free flow of capital in agriculture. All other Central European countries have ‘merely’ a seven-year grace period. The discussion on land acquisition in Poland has been mired in nationalist arguments. For the outline of a more down-to-earth view of this problem see Buchowski 2006: 146–147, Footnote 33).

“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 



these motives and metaphors whose roots can be easily traced in the past – components of which have been outlined above. 5.1  Metaphysical and religious arguments In many cases nationalism and religion are often inseparably intertwined. In Poland Roman-Catholicism is regarded as a “national” religion. No doubt, native historical accounts present the Church as a chaperon of national values ever since it arrived on Polish territory in the 10th century. However, today the Catholic Church hierarchy and clergy represent various attitudes towards different issues related, inter alia, to the nationalistic question. Activists and supporters of “Radio Maryja” based in Toruń are especially involved in discursive practices aimed at upbeating, redefining, popularizing, strengthening, making absolute and exclusively legitimate nationalist values defined by themselves (for more details see Łapiński 2004). For years this radio broadcasting and its press arm Nasz Dziennik, both led by Redemptorist Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, expressed their concerns about planned EU enlargement, particularly a possibility of selling land to foreigners. No doubt, Father Rydzyk’s media represent the worries of certain social groups, but simultaneously moulded discourses about nation and land, and contributed to rising fears. Their narrative modes can be seen also in the parliamentary debate reported below and it is clearly visible in statements deeply embedded in religious language and biblical metaphors. Zygmunt Wrzodak delivered the longest (20 pages of printed, single-spaced text) parliamentary speech about soil which in itself could be analysed separately. This was a whole lecture about earth, land and soil, and man’s place on it (I sense the language of the priest Czesław Bartnik from Nasz Dziennik in it, but official authorship is obviously given to Wrzodak).4 “Soil is the reality of our existence … a symbol of the world and creation. In the beginning God created earth and only after it, on it and in it God could create Man … Earth is a natural divine grace of the Creator in space, God’s palm on which Man lives; it is a part of and a place of Man. A person who rejects the creation of Earth ultimately removes human intimacy from it. Moreover, earth appears as humane, as a Man’s home, a fundament of our times past.” Forty thousand years ago humanity underwent the first agricultural period, and 10 thousand years before Christ the second one occurred; it spawned the idea of land property. This can be interpreted from the Bible. Surprisingly, agriculture

.  In what follows, in indented paragraphs I put literal citations in quotation marks, while the summaries of my arguments and binding sentences aimed at making the narrative flow do not appear in quotations.

 Michał Buchowski

roused anxiety. Bad Cain who had cultivated land and built a city killed the nomadic shepherd Abel.

Now Wrzodak makes a switch in his fundamental opposition: From the sedentary vs. nomadic to the countryside vs. city. It is a necessary move for him to defend farmers, after all inheritors of Cain. Thus, “the city was a different world and a new type of Man – without his own soil, living in a sort of artificial community. A kind of atheistic attitude appeared, in which Man put himself above the Creator, as the story of the Babel tower shows. As a result, two worlds emerged as well as a double stance towards soil. For a farmer soil is God’s gift, a source of life, mother. For a townsman, soil and its fruits are a matter of loot, a pillage of the old world. Therefore peasants used to say: we are grapevine stock, and you are our shoots.”

This parable serves Wrzodak to outline a contemporary contrast: “Why do I reach so deep into history? Because history repeats itself – only it takes different forms of struggle for soil, for selling markets or expansive practices. The Babel tower of today is the European Union that builds the ideology of the big city, which has much in common with economic imperialism and strives to eradicate the phenomenon of village totally. This ideology assumes a utopian, modern society – the city can survive without soil, without a farmer as a land owner.” This is the source of all misfortunes. “For socio-economic atheism, land is devoid of God and is a survival of evolution in the same way as a countryman, which is perceived as a subhuman, a witness of old nature. Man of biotechnology and city will produce a new man, post-man, super-man. He will be a man eating artificial products, without a need to own land, he will produce artificial food, which will not only be genetically modified, but also chemical. Traditional land will be substituted with concrete, asphalt, highways, airports, recreational facilities, hunting areas, artificial bodies of water. Farmers and landowners will be at best displayed in open air museums”.

Wrzodak was supported by another member of the parliament: Land is a “Godsend and the Creator’s blessing on which man lives” (Halina Szustak).

These kinds of arguments comprise a moral foundation for a political position. It grounds the latter in the first and grants it moral superiority. As I mentioned, similar arguments can be found in Nasz Dziennik. Father Tadeusz Rydzyk compares the government with Menelaos, about whom one can read in 2nd Machabean Book 5: 15, and who for personal profit became “a traitor of law and fatherland” (Bartnik 2001). Land is not merely an economic good, but “it is also a bread-giver, social tie, freedom, security, human space, workplace and small homeland” (Bartnik 2001). From this perspective, selling land is not just an economic transaction.

“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 



Land is something God-given and God-fearing people and nations should always use it with due respect. Sacred things are not subjected to economic or political transactions. People who till the land form a spiritual unity with it. Land has a special value for individuals who were born on it. Casting native soil on the coffin of a buried person, mentioned in the historical part of this essay, symbolises this unity.5 By analogy, the nation is an extension of kin relations. In this sense, people and land stay in sanctified metaphorical-metonymic relations. Therefore collectives have to value and protect their lands, because their native soil supports them. It also comprises a vital part of their identity, if not a part of them. People and land constitute a mysterious unity. 5.2  Land as a mother Land as a mother, as we have seen above, is one of the most popular metaphors used in Polish tradition. In the Polish and Catholic context, it may be a part – even by the virtue of semantic association – of a larger complex of symbols including also the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God (also figuring as the Queen of Poland), and an iconic image of “Mother-Pole” (Matka Polka), i.e. a women devoted to bearing and rearing Polish children, a chaperon of hearth and home, and protecting and carrying Polishness at the grass-roots level (cf. Walczewska 2000). Together with land and soil they form an image of immaculate, mighty and exempt from criticism mother. “Land is like a mother and you never sell your mother.”

(Zygmunt Wrzodak).

Zdzisław Podkański cited this proclamation as the Peasant Battalions veterans of the Lublin region gathered for the 60th anniversary of their fights: “We have not given our lives in our fight against Hitler’s extermination and Soviet collectivisation, stood in defence of patrimony and fatherland, not to today waste gains and property accumulated by many generations of Poles … including mother-earth.”  (Zdzisław Podkański). “Land is a mother that feeds Man. Can we sell it to an alien?” (Gertruda Szumska).

In a sense, these arguments belong to the same order as the previous one. Comparing land to mother once again evokes moral order. The emotional result is based on kinship relations and an association of people as infants and children being maternally breast fed – in this case, children of native land.

.  In February 2008 I took part in the burial ceremony of my aunt, a Polish postwar émigré to London. A sister of the deceased, also an émigré, brought with her a small bag of soil from their family estate back in Poland and threw it over the urn.

 Michał Buchowski

5.3  Pure and pristine Polish land Sanctity of land “naturally” makes it pure and pristine. As a result, holy national soil bears unadulterated and unpolluted fruits. This image extends to agricultural products that due to the metonymical associations are pure. The same ideas, translated into desacralised language of science and dietary cuisine, produce narratives of healthy and tasty food. “[F]ood produced by Polish farmers is of a high quality and is healthy food.” “Land tilled in the West … is overdosed with chemicals and produced fruits are unhealthy …” (Zofia Krasicka-Domka). Mr. Minister “is it true … that foreigners who own big farms in northern Poland by stuffing land with chemicals, have a three-times higher productivity and produce, so to say, of chemical potatoes of a monstrous size?”  (Zofia Krasicka-Domka).

Father Tadeusz Rydzyk also claims: “Who defends our land: This beautiful land that can bear good, non-poisoned fruits, differently than in Europe. And healthy food means healthy people” (Rutkowska 2001). God sent land that recalls one’s mother is natural and immaculate. Supposedly unspoiled Polish land tilled by pristine and Christian Polish farmers who produce natural and healthy products is contrasted with the dirty products of EU farmers (and, one should not forget that EU is a contemporary Babel tower). One can refer to Mary Douglas’ (1966) points made in Purity and Danger: culturally defined impurity is always dangerous. Therefore, we should not allow impurity at free will, but fight it. Here, the argument assumes rational, almost scientific attire. 5.4  Poles’ rural nature Some nations tend to represent their historical development by a special relationship with land. Soil becomes a part of their soul and an important ingredient of their national character. Poland is an example of this attitude. “Poland grew out of fields and Poles will never be listless farmhands of western lords and they can only be fellow lords. A Pole that has at least a patch of land feels like a fellow lord, free and independent from anybody” (Zygmunt Wrzodak). Being a farmer “is a beautiful profession.” Meanwhile “the farmer is humiliated” (Gabriel Janowski).

Arguments like these can be called rustic or bucolic. Polish countryside life is glorified and Polish peasants were often made carriers of tradition. In national mythology the Piast royal family, also with roots in peasantry, were peaceful, just

“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 



and God-willed. This quality extends to all those who till land. Their degradation is carried out by those who do not understand the national spirit, by rootless cosmopolitans who are advocates of the “biblical-Babylon-like” European Union (see Wrzodak’s first statements above). It is against human nature and national tradition. This association of countryside with immaculate life can be interwoven into a more nationalist argument. Peasant troops fighting for Poland in the 19th and 20th centuries put on their banners a slogan Żywią i bronią ([They] feed and defend). 5.5  Land and nation One of the most powerful images is that of an inherent connection between land and collectives living on it. Polish members of parliament have provided exemplifications for such ways of thinking. “There is as much independence as land. A nation without land is a nation of beggars doomed to service foreigners” (Antoni Maciarewicz). “Land is the bedrock of a nation. It feeds the nation and comprises its territory” (Zygmunt Wrzodak). “We are united by history, religion, culture, language and native soil. Nobody gave us unlimited freedom and property. This is why we should care about it and be vigilant… Attachment to patrimony has also shaped our attitude to our beloved fatherland” (Zygmunt Wrzodak). “Land has to stay in our Polish hands”

(Zdzisław Podkański).

“Polish land is not a property of the government. It is owned by the nation …”  (Marek Suski). Polish land is cheaper than in the European Union, but it is not the Poles’ fault. “We are not a backward nation which has to wait for a good uncle from Brussels to come and civilize us.” When Polish authorities quarrelled, Brussels’ envoy Günther Verheugen had to come and reconcile them the same way “as a big white brother reconciled North American Indian Chiefs …” Polish leaders have to defend national interests (Michał Tomasz Kamiński). “To allow the sale of land is to allow loss of territory.” Does the Polish government “also want to make Polish farmers slaves and reduce its territory by one-third? Land once sold will not be given back” (Gertruda Szumska). “Land is a reality of existence and the nation’s existence”

(Halina Szustak).

 Michał Buchowski

Poles should be allowed to buy property, “so Polish land is in Polish hands”  (Halina Szustak).

Territorial arguments prove to be extremely powerful and widespread. The Parliament of Polish Peasants, a self-organized organization, declared: “Land is for the Nation a priceless value. Nations which lost it were condemned to wandering, poverty and even annihilation” (Goss 2001). A connection between land and the nation’s existence is made clear, since nation and land are intertwined. The metaphor of feeding appears again: land nourishes nation. Therefore the loss of territory, i.e. of land, means the ultimate end of national existence. Even individual foreigner owners pose a threat. Giving up land to alien people means treason that will make the whole nation weak-willed, a puppet in their hands or even a slave. Property rights acquire national character and individual rights are subjugated to collective ones. 5.6  Blood and soil As mentioned above, a part of the nationalist symbolic universe is an intrinsic relationship between blood and soil. “Logically”, if a community of people having a special connection with “its” territory is the community of blood, then blood assumes both metonymically and metaphorically special relations with soil; the first marks ethnically the second and legitimises rights for it. As indicated in the first part, not only poems and novels, but also Polish historical books are filled with descriptions of blood spilled for homeland. “Have our ancestors not spilled blood for this soil, have they not fought for it? Shall we today as Poland give up our land?” (Andrzej Lepper). A Polish government that agrees to sell out Polish land to foreigners forgets the “blood and sweat that is soaked in our motherland. Polish land has to be in Polish hands” (Zygmunt Wrzodak). Land is the highest good “for which many of our fathers and grandfathers spilled Polish blood for, gave their own lives and their remains are buried in this soil” (Eugeniusz Kłopotek). The World War II veterans of partisan Peasant Battalions issued a proclamation in which we can read that “Today, standing on soil covered with our blood, we unambiguously declare that we do not want a European Union that brings unemployment, poverty and hunger” (Zdzisław Podkański). Only Polish land is left “for which millions of Poles gave their lives” (Józef Skowyra).

“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 



Rights to territory are sanctioned ultimately by the blood spilled in it. Particularly Poles had to fight for their place on earth and this is why land has such a special quality and should be guarded. Selling it is akin to the betrayal of tradition and of the sacrifice of our forefathers. This is the metaphysics of memory and historical obligation. 5.7  German threat Polish history is commonly presented as constant struggles with two “big” and often hostile neighbours, Russia and Germany, and Poland is always the victim of these two aggressors. The Russian threat is for the time being an immediate issue, and Germany, at the moment seeking peaceful cooperation, threaten Polish sovereignty by having the legal prospect and economic power to buy Polish lands. These elements are integral parts of the blood and soil image, only put in a more current form. “We” have had to fight for land and spilled our blood into “this” soil in struggles with Germans (and Russians), therefore it is treasonous to simply give up it. “Today Polish land cannot be sold … and already almost 0.5 million hectares are in foreign hands, mostly Germans. We do not advocate anti-German sentiment, but we know history …” Hitler produced tanks to conquer Polish lands and today this is done with Euros and dollars. “Are times of the plebiscites so distant in the past? Is the resettlement of Germans so impossible? Is the rush of these compatriot and expellee organisations to western and northern Poland, Warmia and Mazuria, a fiction, something invented, or are these facts?” (Andrzej Lepper). “How should we act in order not to let the best areas in Mazuria, Lower Silesia and the Szczecin region be fenced off with an inscription, usually in German: private” (Antoni Maciarewicz). “Today you sell Polish land, you allow its sell out. You would rather let it be sold to Germans, Russians, Jews or anybody else than give it back for safe keeping to those who are legitimate owners and inhabitants of this country” (Marek Suski). “Why … was Commissioner Verheugen so interested in signing a treaty about selling this land? Why have Germans not paid compensation for war damages caused during World War II?” (Gertruda Szumska). “Approval of Polish negotiators [to sell land] creates ideal conditions for a takeover of the Polish land for nothing” (Halina Szustak). “Why do we not discuss the sale of property on a large scale in big cities? One can already hear in the big city centres words like ‘your streets, our buildings’. What is the scale of German and Jewish territorial demands?” (Anna Sobecka).

 Michał Buchowski

Polish historical experience was particularly harsh with Germans. This is why negotiations with the European Union should be particularly firm and uncompromising. Germans, using their economic power can regain territories they had to give up after losing the war in 1945. Germans want to re-establish Greater Germany by “recapturing back our Polish lands in the west and the north.” Meanwhile, “[t]here are not any reasons for the unification of Polish lands with Germany”, and “we will not allow ourselves to be pushed into German clutches” (Wieluński 2002: 1). Germans have some inborn yearning to be landlords using Polish farmhands (Bartnik 2001). Old fears, strengthened by the argument about the special status of “regained territories”, are evoked under new circumstances in order to deter liberal treaties with the Teutonic West with respect to land acquisition. 5.8  Outpost In the view of treasons already committed against the nation during World War II, the communist period and since 1989 as well as dangers looming on the horizon, land and agriculture are now the last stronghold of the Polish independence. Land property, along with our heads, is one of the last strongholds of a Pole’s assets. “What does a sell out of land mean? It is the depravation of one of these strongholds.” Poor law and poverty will cause that “for a poor man the only perspective will be a sell out of land …” (Dariusz Grabowski). “We have already sold all industry, banks ‘are gone’ and what is left is only land …” (Józef Mojzesowicz) . “All governments after 1989 were selling out our workplaces and banks. We have only our Polish land left … Polish land is not for selling.” (Józef Skowyra).

As in the past every patch of land should become the stronghold of Polishness, especially since other sectors of the economy have been already lost. According to Ślimak, the main hero of Bolesław Prus’ novel Outpost, we have to defend land. In concert with other historical and contemporary images that Poland defended true Europe and Christianity, it contributes to the creation of the image of a surrounded bulwark. “Without the victory in Vienna [in 1673 over the Ottomans, achieved mainly owing to Polish troops] Europe would have been Turkmenistan. If we had not won in Grunwald, we would have had Germania. Without a victory over the Red Army in 1920 by Warsaw, Europe would have been the Soviet Republic”. This bulwark now opposes also the libertine and rotten West in which people “treat Poland as a tidbit” (Rutkowska 2001).



“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 

6.  Conclusions On the 10th of December 2001, on the initiative of farmers’ Solidarity, the Committee for the Defence of Polish Land, “Outpost”, was formed in Poznań. “The meeting started with the singing of Rota …” Its aim was to “protect the possession of Poles on Polish land.” The meeting was necessary because of “the real threat to national sovereignty by the loss of the Polish land” (Goss 2001a). This was only one such initiative. “The League of Polish Families announced the establishment of committees all over the country for the defence of land.” It also declared “a vehement protest against any form of selling land to foreigners.” The accession treaty with the Union will, according to Gabriel Janowski, “crown its ten’s years policy of partitioning Poland” (Goss 2001b). These and the above-mentioned materials show an amazing affinity with past discourses and a continuity of metaphors. Singing Rota in 1910 and in 2001, in two radically different political contexts raises questions about the power of historically shaped images, their functions and structure. The post-Cold War global situation is no doubt different from a hundred years ago, but similar icons are used. Poland is independent and her political existence is not endangered in any rationally foreseeable way. Territorial integrity is guaranteed by international treaties and the overall political situation. Still, fears of a foreign, particularly German threat, is alive, at least among some groups of Poles. They show extreme anxiety about losing their land, the foundation of national existence, not “merely” the state. Arjun Appadurai suggests that we should make a distinction between territory and soil. “While soil is a matter of a spatialized and originary discourses, territory is concerned with integrity, surveyability, policing, and subsistence” (Appadurai 1996a: 46). Territorial integrity and discourses of territory appear more often in situations of border conflicts and citizenship issues. At the same time, “[d]iscourses of the soil tend to flourish in all sorts of populist movements …” In contrast, “[t] erritorial integrity is increasingly not a simple expression of national integrity …” (Appadurai 1996a: 57). The Polish case tends to draw some different conclusions: the line between territory and land (soil) is constantly blurred. A hold on land equals not only the state’s territorial integrity, but is also a matter of the nation’s survival. It is not “citizenship [that] attach [people] to territorial states” (Appadurai 1996a: 57), but a matter of the ethnic character of the state’s territory, especially since citizenship and nationality are entwined for the people being discussed as well. In this view, natural and social orders are homologous, as structuralists would put it. For nationalists social relations extend to land; soil acquires ethnic characteristics. Such ethnicisation can go even further and similar qualities can be ascribed to “fruits of land” and “our livestock”, whenever we eat “Polish potatoes”,

 Michał Buchowski

savour “Hungarian pork” or drink “Dutch milk”. Plants and animals are included in a cultural order of ethnic classifications. References to metaphors of blood and soil, a land feeding people and a nourishing nation serve to naturalize cultural images. They work also the other way round and make nature cultural. Grounding them in history is a discursive stratagem that reaches out to the repository of a national memory produced and reproduced in school curricula, media debates, prose, poetry and scholarly publications. In short, repeated in various forms of discourses. An important part of such images is a historical experience of lost and regained independence, a loss of vast historical territories, and struggles for one’s own place among rival empires. Besides Russia, it is Germany with which Poland has competed for territories. Not surprisingly, in the view of western integration, the German threat became the most conspicuous one. These worries match the vision that national identity is endangered by a consumer and libertine western culture. Together they form a tight collection of interwoven images, national myths that prompt people to act. Sahlins (1985: 120– 135) calls them “mytho-practices”, cultural scripts for social acts. However, on the one hand, different social groups realizing their collective interests can interpret these screenplays in their own terms, since symbols are multivocal (Turner 1967: 50–52). People reach out to a repository of myths, in this case national mythohistory, in order to enforce their own views and fulfil self-interests. Land with related metaphors, such as Blut und Boden, external threats, fatherland, motherland, nation and cultural identity, have played an important part in Polish political discourses and political struggles. It has appealed to various groups’ social imagery that is rooted in national representations of the past. Simultaneously, and on the other hand, only myths and “facts” that fit current interests are utilized from the storehouse of images. In this process the symbols show tremendous flexibility and adaptability. This explains why Rota can be sung on so divergent occasions, and for participants of both it is equally important and serious. For critics of such a nationalist view this repetition of history appears as its own parody. It was hard to predict that blood and soil would assume such a conspicuous role in the discourses occurring in the period of postcommunist transition and EU-accession negotiations. They – at least to a certain extent – undermine the image of transformation as a revolutionary change, indicate how dominant and simplified perceptions of political arrangements and of social processes should be relativized, and show that popular national images are much more powerful than many would like them to be. Due to all these phenomena, we can see that there is continuity in change. The case analysed here shows also that the nationalist discourse about land is not a vanishing or whimsical phenomenon, as Appadurai and Kearny predicted by referring to inevitable globalisation, transnationalism and deterritorialisation of identities. It may disappear, but it may very well not and nobody can foresee when and where a group of people will stand up and sing Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród.



“Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród” 

Annex It is hard to outline precisely a political map of the Lower Chamber of the Polish Parliament (Sejm) in its fourth term (2001–2005), since many MPs kept changing their affiliations. Several Members left their original parliamentary clubs and formed radical groupings and some were later elected to the European Parliament and are still in it. In the September 2005 elections many of them were re-elected to the 5th term of Sejm, but in the subsequent early elections (November 2007) many of them were not re-elected. Only those MPs who, in the meantime, have joined Law and Justice are in the Lower Chamber. Below is a list of the cited parliamentary speakers. Dariusz Grabowski – Polish Peasant Party; later elected to the European Parliament. Gabriel Janowski – Patriotic Movement (elected to the Parliament in 2001 as a candidate of the League of Polish Families – hereafter LPF). Andrzej Kalemba – Polish Peasant Party. Michał Tomasz Kamiński – Law and Justice; later elected to the European Parliament; currently minister in the office of the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński, a twin brother of the former Prime Minister (2006–2007) and leader of Law and Justice, Jarosław Kaczyński. Eugeniusz Kłopotek – Polish Peasant Party. Zofia Krasicka-Domka – Native Home (elected in 2001 as a candidate of LPF). Andrzej Lepper – Selfdefence; leader of the Party; later Minister of Agriculture and Deputy Prime Minister between 2005 and 2007; facing several lawsuits and involved in some moral conduct scandals. Antoni Maciarewicz – Patriotic-Catholic Movement (elected as a candidate of LPF); in 2005 appointed as a secretary for reconstruction of secret service and military counter intelligence; now MP of oppositional Law and Justice. Józef Mojzesowicz – Polish Folk Bloc (elected in 2001 as a candidate of Selfdefence); later joined Law and Justice and in 2007 served shortly as a Minister of Agriculture; now also the MP of Law and Justice. Zdzisław Podkański – Polish Peasant Party (later elected to the European Parliament). Józef Skowyra – Native Home (elected as a candidate of LPF). Anna Sobecka – League of Polish Families; now MP of Law and Justice. Marek Suski – Law and Justice; one of the leading politicians of this party. Gertruda Szumska – Native Home (elected in 2001 as a candidate of LPF). Halina Szustak – Native Home (elected in 2001 as candidate of LPF). Zygmunt Wrzodak – League of Polish Families.

 Michał Buchowski

References Anderson. B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Appadurai, A. 1996a. “Sovereignty without territoriality: Notes for a postnational geography.” In: The Geography of Identity, P. Yaeger (ed.), 40–58. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Asad, T. 2002 [1991]. “From the history of colonial anthropology to the anthropology of Western hegemony”. In: The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique, J. Vincent (ed.), 133–142. Oxford: Balckwell. Barrès, M. 1902. Scènes et doctrine du Nationalisme. Paris : Emile Paul. Bartnik, C. 2001. “Nie zdradzać ziemi ojczystej”. Nasz Dziennik 29–30.12 (no. 303). Bauman, Z. 1992. “Soil, blood and identity.” The Sociological Review 40(4): 675–701. Bell-Fialkoff, A. 1996. Ethnic Cleansing. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Buchowski, M. 2001. Rethinking Transformation: An Anthropological Perspective on Postsocialism. Poznań: Humaniora. Buchowski, M. 2006. “When myth becomes reality: Polish identities during and after EU accession.” In Das Erbe des Beitritts, A. Kutter & V. Trappman (eds), 135–153. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Buchowski, M. 2006a. “The Specter of Orienatalism in Europe: From Exotic Other to Stigmatized Brother.” Anthropological Quarterly 96(3): 463–482. Conte, E. & Essner C. 1995. La Quete de la Race. Un Anthropologie du nazisme. Paris: Hachette. Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge. Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism: New Perspectives on the Past. Oxford: Blackwell. Goss, M. 2001. “Bunt na dole.” Nasz Dziennik 22–23.December (no. 299). Goss, M. 2001a. “Zablokować niebezpieczny proceder. Powstał Komitet Obrony Polskiej Ziemi.” Nasz Dziennik 12 December (no. 290). Goss, M. 2001b. “Puszczą wici. Echa modyfikacji stanowiska negocjacyjnego w sprawie sprzedaży ziemi cudzoziemcom.” Nasz Dziennik 20 December (no. 297). Hayden, R. 2000. Blueprints for a House Divided: the Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflict. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Hobsbawm, E. 1987. The Age of Empire: 1875–1914. New York: Pantheon. Herzfeld, M. 2001. Anthropology: Theoretical Practice in Culture and Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Huntington, S.P. 1996. The Clash of Civiliyations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. Kearney, M. 1991. “Borders and boundaries of state and self at the end of empire.” Journal of Historical Sociology 4(1): 52–74. Libelt, K. 1967. “O miłości Ojczyzny.” In: K. Libelt, Samowładztwo rozumu. Warszawa: PWN. Łapiński, D. 2004. Das Weltbild und die Wirtschaftsauffassung des polnischen Rechtspopulismus. Berlin: Weißensee Verlag. Malkki, L. 1997. “National Geographic: The rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees.” In: Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, A. Gupta & J. Fergusson (eds), 52–74. Durham: Duke University Press. Miller, D. & Woodward, S. 2008. “A Manifesto for the Study of Denim”. Social Anthropology 16(1): 1–16.



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Młodzież Wszechpolska. 2002. Deklaracja Przyjęta w Osiemdziesięciolecie Powstania. (http:// www.wszchpolacy.pl/t.php?id=42; viewed on 18.03.2006). Niedermüller, P. 1997. “Zeit, Geschichte, Vergangenheit. Zur Kulturellen Logik des Nationalismus im Postsozialismus.” Historische Anthropologie. Kultur, Gesellschaft, Alltag 5(2): 245–267. Obóz. n.d. Obóz Narodowo Radykalny Oddział Suwałki (http://onrsuwalki/webpark.pl; viewed on 18.03.2006). Pełczyński, G. 2002. Dziesiąta muza w stroju ludowym. O wizerunkach kultury chłopskiej w kinie PRL. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza. Rutkowska, M. 2001. “Głosimy Ewangelię. Rozmowa z ojcem Tadeuszem Rydzykiem CSsR, dyrektorem Radia Maryja.” Nowy Dziennik 24–26 December (no. 300). Sahlins, M. 1985. Islands of History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Szaniec (n.d.), Szaniec. Stowarzyszenie Patriotyczne. (http://www.sps.za.pl/sps_wartosci.php; viewed on 18.03.2006). Sztompka, P. 2000. Trauma wielkiej zmiany. Społeczne koszta transformacji. Warszawa: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN. Sztopmka, P. 2004. “The Trauma of Social Change: A Case of Postcommunist Societies.” In Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, J.S. Alexander (ed.), 155–195. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tischner, J. 1982. “Polska jest Ojczyzną.” Tygodnik Powszechny. Katolickie Pismo SpołecznoKulturalne. (http://www.tygodnik.com.pl/ludzie/tischner/jt1982.html; viewed on 18.03.2006). Tuan, Y.-F. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Turner, V.W. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndemu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Verdery, K. 1999. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. New York: Columbia University Press. Walczewska, S. 2000. Damy, rycerze i feministki. Kobiecy dyskurs emancypacyjny w Polsce. Kraków: Efka. ������������������� Dame: UniverWalicki, A. 1994. The Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Nationhood. Notre sity of Notre Dame Press. Wieluński, J. 2002. “Europejczycy czy Cały naród niemiecki – Das gesamte Deutsche Volk. Europa czy Całe Niemcy – Gesamtdeutschland, Co się z nami stało?!” Nowy Przegląd Wszechpolski 3-4. (Archiwum Nowego Przeglądu Wszechpolskiego, see: http://www.npw.pl/ ARCHIWUM_NPW/2002_03_04/PIS-Wielunski-Europejczycy-czy-caly-narod-niemiecki). Ziejka, F. 2005. “Pieśń o polskiej ziemi (Z dziejów symboliki ziemi w literaturze polskiej XIX wieku).” Pryzmat. Pismo Politechniki Wrocławskiej no. 195 (październik) (http://pryzmat. pwr,wroc.pl./Pryzmat_195/195ziejka.html, viewed on 13.05.2007).

Collective memory in transition Commemorating the end of the Second World War in Poland* Anna Horolets

Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities

1.  Introduction The Second World War is still a vivid historical reference point for most Poles (cf. Ensink & Sauer 2003) despite the fact that the number of people who actually lived through these tragic events gradually decreases over time. The end of the Second World War has been celebrated in Poland both before and after 1989. It is an event that produces current public debates that have their political repercussions and, at the same time, an event that is oriented towards the past and involves the processes of collective remembering (and forgetting). The discursive means involved in commemorating the end of the Second World War belong to practices of producing a new national narrative that is part and parcel of the processes of transformation (or transition). When speaking of transformation, Claus Offe’s concept of triple transition (democratization, market economy and nation state building) can serve as a point of departure (1991). These aspects of grand change may be supplemented by two more dimensions: military and cultural transformation (change of military alliances and opening towards the West). Among these five aspects of transformation Victory Day encapsulates four (all but economic change). Due to the processes of democratization there was a possibility for the pluralization of public discourse and critical assessment of the meaning of the end of Second World War for Poland (Ziółkowski 2001: 3; cf. Szacka 1997). The processes of nation building called for the establishment of a new calendar of meaningful events, holidays, anniversaries and celebrations, which would present a new historical narrative and legitimize *I would like to express my gratitude to Aleksandra Galasińska and Dariusz Galasiński for their comments on the draft of this essay as well as to two anonymous peer reviewers for their useful and thoughtful suggestions; I would also like to deeply thank Robin Morris for proofreading the text.

 Anna Horolets

the new political order (cf. Hałas 2000, 2001, 2004; Kubik 1994, 2003; Kubik & Linch 2006; Main 2004). The new military alliances of Poland radically changed the definitions of ‘us’ and ‘them’, including the definitions of friends and foes after the Second World War. With the opening towards the West in cultural terms Poland faced the variegated western European narratives of Victory Day. At the same time the narratives that come from Russia remain an important – if negative – point of reference. Transformation cannot be assessed as univocally normatively positive, as anthropological literature reminds (Hann 2002: 1; cf. Buchowski 1998, 2001). The search for novelty has to be supplemented by the attention to the modes of continuity and reluctance to undergo changes and the strong threads of continuity that mark even the most dramatic of social ruptures. (Hann 2002: 5).

Victory Day is an event that encompasses several dilemmas of the transitional period: the construction of new collective identities, re-definition of ‘us’ and ‘them’, the selection of national history repertoire as well as harmonizing it with the repertoires of the new ally – Europe. The discursive means of constructing this event in public discourse deserve particular attention.

2.  Collective memory as cultural practice and text Before turning to the analysis of discursive mechanisms of constructing the remembrance of the end of the Second World War in Poland several theoretical and methodological remarks have to be made on the nature of collective remembering in the transitional countries and the role of discursive practices within these. In Benedict Anderson’s influential book (1991) history, memory and forgetting – time itself – are presented as central to the process of social construction of an “imagined community” such as nation. Nation building processes are a paradigmatic case of social change in modern societies, therefore for a student of social change – of systemic transformation in post-communist countries in particular – the anthropological analysis of these processes provides a valuable tool-kit. Calendars, state holidays and anniversaries, museums, history textbooks, popular novels and newspapers are listed among the paraphernalia used for setting and activating new images of time – thus preserving continuity and introducing change – in collective consciousness. An anthropological approach to social change is thus accounting for the symbolic means by which change is made sensible in society and can be coped with not only by elites but by wider circles of social actors. Following the suggestions of Ensink and Sauer it has to be added that historicism is intrinsically linked to oblivionism, i.e. creating a national historical



Collective memory in transition 

narrative is usually accompanied by a series of selections that are introduced into the public imagination by commemorating some events and putting others into oblivion. (Ensink & Sauer 2003: 3). In other words: Historiography very often provides factual material but the process of invention, the creation of an ideologically appropriate image consists in the selection of facts and people, combining them together so as the mythical structure of a desired symbolic meaning emerges. (Mach 1993: 64).

The other integral part of the theoretical and methodological framework of this essay is discourse analytical approach. It allows treating broadly understood texts of social remembering and forgetting as both the inscriptions and triggers of the processes of social change. Following the tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), discourse is understood here as language in use in social situations (van Dijk 1997). In the words of Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak “CDA sees discourse – language use in speech and writing – as a form of social practice” (Fairclough & Wodak 1997: 258; cf. Wodak & Meyer 2001). The cultural, socio-political and economic processes of transformation lead to changes in the narratives of the nation. At the same time, the directions of transformation are being negotiated and established by social actors through discourse practices, among other means. Discourse is understood here not only as the repository of structural necessities that circumscribe social action – construction of national history in particular – but also as a source of opportunities and choices available to social actors and enacted by them. Through discourse social actors engage in various modes of commemoration and history making as well as carry out politics of memory (Ensink & Sauer 2003: 9–10; cf. Heer et al. 2008; Martin & Wodak 2003).

3.  Victory Day in Europe: Polish perspective before and after 1989 A brief historic outline of the changes in meaning of the end of the Second World War in Poland will be presented below in order to demonstrate the legacy of contradictions and ruptures that this historical event brings into post-1989 Polish national narrative. In most of the Western European countries Victory of Europe Day is celebrated on the 8th of May. This was the date of the capitulation of Germany in 1945. Characteristically, Victory is not named by an overcome enemy but by the winner – Europe. Contrary to this, in Soviet and Russian tradition “Victory Day” (День Победы) is celebrated on May 9th. The usage of an extended name of the holiday – The Day of Victory over the German Fascist Invaders (День Победы над немецко-фашистскими захватчиками) – clearly defines invaders in national

 Anna Horolets

and ideological terms. The discrepancy in dates was initially caused by the time zones difference: the capitulation was signed at night, while in Europe it was still 8th, in Russia it was already the 9th of May. The difference in names is clearly ideological. Both differences have become symbols of irreconcilable historicities of the two conflicting blocs during the Cold War period. After the end of the cold war the historical memories of Russia and Europe still remain different and conflicting. Poland had fallen into the Soviet sphere of influence as a result of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences (Roszkowski 2005). Predictably, immediately after the war the commemoration of the end of the Second World War was modelled according to Soviet tradition. “The first symbolic invention being an implementation of the innovative strategy of communists was the establishing of the National Holiday of Victory and Freedom by the decree of National Council […].” (Hałas 2001: 57). In the years 1945 and 1946, May 9th was a state holiday and a day off work. However, since 1947 it was “degraded” to the status of a regular anniversary and was a working day until the 1970s. The historians explain this change by reference to the concentration of important holidays in the beginning of May: 1st of May (International Workers’ Day), May 3rd (the Day of the Polish Constitution) and May 9th. In order to diminish the significance of the May 3rd – which has strong independence connotations – the communist party elites decided to promote May 1st, as the most important in this triad. May 9th was inadvertently sacrificed in order to augment the importance of May 1st (Rogowska 1997: 296). The name of the day has also been changing, from Victory Holiday (Święto Zwycięstwa) (1945) to Peace Holiday (Święto Pokoju), Festivities of May 9th (Uroczystość 9 Maja), Victory Day (Dzień Zwycięstwa) and Celebration of Victory (Uroczystość Zwycięstwa) and even Holiday of the Polish Soldier (Święto Żołnierza Polskiego) (1946). In 1947 the official name of the anniversary was established as “an anniversary of the victory of the United Nations over fascism and Hitlerism” (Rogowska 1997: 297–8). The anniversary was often linked to the celebration of the Return of the Northern and Western Lands to the Motherland (Powrót Ziem Północnych i Zachodnich do Macierzy). The symbolism of these was ambiguous, since the gaining was commemorated, while the loss (of the eastern lands that joined the Soviet Union) was silenced and forgotten. Moreover, the commemorated “return” of lands silenced the exile of some ethnic groups, mainly Germans, from their place of living. The historical narratives of officialdom and ordinary people significantly differed (Bronowicki 2005). Yet, the influence of the nationalist history and politics of the communist state cannot be underestimated. Supported by terror, it managed to considerably change the terms of public discourse including historic memory (cf. Arvidsson & Blomqvist 1987; Lane 1981; Baczko 1994). The commemoration of the end of the Second World War in the People’s Republic of Poland was not as unambiguous as it was in the USSR. The ambiguity



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resulted in a modest role this date played in the collective consciousness despite the fact that the war itself was of paramount importance. Interestingly enough, after 1989 the Victory Day has been left intact in the Polish calendar on May 9th, though its public role dwindled. The Parliament has not made any decision with regard to this date, although other communist holidays were abolished. May 9th is not formally withdrawn, referring collective memory to the end of the Second World War in an inadequate manner – exclusively as a fight against Hitlerism and Fascism, while the end of war with Germany was at the same time the beginning of the communist slavery. […] The holiday remains a relic of PRL.  (Hałas 2001: 63).

Contrary to the latter statement of Elżbieta Hałas are the actual practices of commemoration. Presently, May 9th is more easily recognized (at least by the Internet browser) as a Europe Day.1 The end of the Second World War anniversary is popularly associated with and officially celebrated on May 8th usually by state officials paying tribute at the Tomb of an Unknown Soldier and commemorative ceremonies of a modest scale at other sites of battles and martyrdom. In these ceremonies the attempts of re-defining the meaning of the end of the Second World War take place. Two “round” anniversaries of the end of the Second World War were chosen for the analysis: each belonging to a different moment of Polish transformation – one before and one after the accession to the EU. In the following sections of this essay the historical and political context of these anniversaries will be presented. Two genres of public discourse – press reports and commemorative speeches – from each anniversary will be analysed. The comparison between these two genres will aim at contrasting press discourse and officials’ discourse and in finding the similarities and differences in representing the past. The particular questions to be asked are: who are “us” and “them” and how are these represented (what are the new identities); can the change overtime be observed, does a new opposition emerge; is there a difference across genres and does the genre of discourse influence the clarity of the opposition between “us” and “them”? 4.  The political context of Victory Day celebrations in 1995 and 2005 The 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War was celebrated widely in Europe. Among other things, there was a high profile meeting of four state .  This holiday of the European Union commemorates the presentation of the plans of establishing the European Community of Coal and Steel by Robert Schumann, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in May 1950.

 Anna Horolets

leaders (USA, Great Britain, France and Russia) in Berlin organized by Helmut Kohl. Polish president Lech Wałęsa was not invited to this meeting, despite the efforts of Polish diplomacy (e.g. Władysław Bartoszewski) to advocate his presence. The resemblance of this situation to the exclusion of Poland from deciding about its own destiny after the Second World War has increased the importance of the topic of history and memory in the public agenda. In 1995 Poland was aspiring to membership of the European Community and NATO (the concrete political terms of the accession had not been settled yet). Russia who waged the first war on Chechnya, was criticized in the Polish press and the participation in the military parade of European political leaders was seen as a morally questionable endeavour. Polish internal politics was characterized by the split between the president and a government constituted by post-communists. There was no unanimity in the evaluation of the legacy of the Second World War among political elites. Moreover, 1995 was a presidential election year and the election race was influencing the prospective presidential candidates Lech Wałęsa (post-solidarity candidate) and Aleksander Kwaśniewski (post-communist candidate). In 2005 Poland had been an EU member state for one year. The 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War was celebrated in Europe, but most festively and with an imperial grandeur – in Russia. In the spring of 2005 the relationships of Poland with Russia could be characterized as appropriate but with some tensions caused inter alia by the support Poland granted to the Ukrainian and Georgian “colourful” revolutions. A national debate was instigated by the decision of president Aleksander Kwaśniewski to take part in the celebrations in Moscow. 2005 was both a presidential and parliamentary elections year. Aleksander Kwaśniewski was not going to run for office since he had served two terms already. The two main rivals for presidential office, Lech Kaczyński and Donald Tusk, both from post-solidarity right wing parties, attacked the incumbent president for the decision. The references to memory and forgetting were used in a political advertisement by Lech Kaczyński in which Kwaśniewski was attacked for going to the Moscow celebrations. The rhetoric of the public debate has made the post-communist cleavage2 more acute, since Aleksander Kwaśniewski belonged to the post-communist side of the divide.

.  The term “cleavage” has been introduced to political sociology discourse by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (1985 [1967]) and refers to continuous, irreconcilable political and ideological divisions rooted in history and social structure and canalized by political actors (parties in particular). Some of the students of post-communist transformation ascribe the status of cleavage to the division between post-communist and post-oppositional parties and their electorates (cf. Grabowska 2004).



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5.  Reports about the celebrations Press reports play a double role in reflecting events as well as constructing them. The first instance of construction is the selection of issues. The second instance of construction is the framing of the selected issues, i.e. choosing the discursive means of representing them. In this section the analysis will concentrate on the selections of events and actors made in press reports, as well as the discursive means of representing them. The comparison of two anniversaries will establish if some changes occur overtime and if so, what vector they take. Press reports from two Polish major daily newspapers – Gazeta Wyborcza (GW) and Rzeczpospolita (Rz) – from March 15 to May 15 1995 and a respective set of articles from 2005 were studied with several3 being chosen for discourse analysis. The categories for analysis are borrowed from Martin Reisigl and Ruth Wodak (2001: 44) and include (a) nominalisation strategies “by which one constructs and represents social actors” (Reisigl & Wodak 2001:  45), (b) predication strategies of “labelling social actors” (ibidem.), and (c) argumentation strategies “through which positive and negative attributions are justified” (ibidem.). The authors define strategies as “a more or less accurate and more or less intentional plan of practices (including discursive practices) adopted to achieve a particular social, political, psychological or linguistic aim” (Reisigl & Wodak 2001: 44). The nominalisation strategies are used for Self and Other presentation. They are involved in a discursive practices of conferring identities on the actors, phenomena and processes that are being named. The predication strategies play an important role in evaluation of social actors as well as phenomena and processes. Argumentative strategies are a tool of persuasion (Reisigl & Wodak 2001: 69–70). The representatives of pragmadialectical approach point at logical as well as contextual mechanisms of making a persuasive argument through connecting an implicit but widely shared premise to an argued standpoint: Argument schemes pertain to the kind of relationship between the explicit premise and the standpoint that is established in the argumentation in order to promote a transfer of acceptability from explicit premise to the standpoint. Argument schemes are more or less conventionalized ways of achieving this transfer.  (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004: 4).

.  From the wider group of texts the following were analysed in more detail: GW 10.05.1995 Official celebrations of Victory Day in Moscow “The hammer and sickle day”, Bartosz Węglarczyk; GW 09.05.1995 Monumental London Celebrations “The globe with red spot”, Marek Rybarczyk; Rz 09.05.1995 “In front of the Tomb of an Unknown Soldier”, Jerzy Pilczyński, Kazimierz Groblewski; GW 7–8.05.2005 “The parade of AK”, Wojciech Czuchnowski; GW 10.05.2005 “Russia won the war”, Tomasz Bielecki, Wacław Radziwonowicz.

 Anna Horolets

In other words, through argument schemes the receiver of a text is swiftly brought to the conclusion intended by a sender of the text. The nominalisation strategies of Self and Other presentation are of particular interest in the case of the press reports of Victory Day celebrations. Several common features of articles from the two anniversaries can be distinguished. The specific way in which the contrast between Europe and non-Europe in constructed is one of them. Russia is constructed as an archetypal “Other” of Poland (and Europe). The key individual actors in the Moscow ceremonies were the Russian president (Putin more often than Yeltsyn), and the generals. The nominalisation strategies include referring to the last name (personalisation) as well as to the position (institutionalisation). The key group of actors were anonymous veterans and soldiers (i.e. collectivisation, militarisation and historical relationalisation). The general public, one the variegated groups of society are not mentioned, other than a short note about foreign journalists being arrested for having fake accreditations (GW 10.09.2005). Russia presents itself as an indistinguishable mass of militant people overviewed and coordinated by strong leaders (or the leader). The word “soviet people” appears in these texts alongside and sometimes interchangeably with “Russians”. Among the symbols used in both Moscow parades, the hammer and sickle are firmly linking contemporary Russia to the legacy of the USSR, as do ZILs (oldfashioned military cars) and T-80 tanks. The selection of these symbols in press reports is one of the instances of placing the communist past in a new narrative of nationhood. It places Russia in the sphere of the exotic and frightening, thus opposed to the “self ”. Regardless of its importance as a political player of the present, contemporary Russia becomes an incarnation of the communist past from which Poland has to distance itself. The report of the Victory of Europe Day celebrations in Great Britain (1995) encapsulates the image of a civic and friendly Europe. In the report, two individual actors are mentioned: the 95 year old Queen Mother and war-time singer Vera Lynn. The collective actors include “the British”, “tourists”, “two thousands veterans, including dozens of Poles”, “Londoners”, “children of the whole world” and “representatives of their states”. These strategies of nominalisation accentuate geographic belonging of different scale (the toponyms ranging from city through nation state to the world as a whole). They also point at actors in relational terms (“representatives”) as well as through function or type of activity (“tourists”). Thus the actors are presented as non-state, multiple and heterogeneous. The general image that is derived from this description is more “friendly” and inclusive than the previous one. The paraphernalia of the celebration are also heterogeneous. They include “15 airplanes from the Second World War from Spitfire fighters to Blenheim bombers”, “dozens of events”, “two minutes of silence to pay tribute to



Collective memory in transition 

the victims”, “dancing in Hyde Park”, “The Unification Ceremony”, “the globe made of flowers” and “hundreds of pigeons”. The contrast with the symbols of the Russian parades is two-fold. Although the technique of war is represented by war time machines in both cases, in the Russian case there are “heavy” tanks and cars, which are in a way “less modern”, while in the British case they are airplanes – “lighter” and more advanced vehicles. The second contrast refers to the trendy, elaborate and entertaining character of the British celebration. The Russian celebration is highly monotonous (soldiers and veterans are marching, it seems, for the whole ten years dividing 1995 and 2005), outdated and dehumanised. Despite the fact that the context has changed considerably, press reports from both anniversaries create a generalized image of Russia as a key opponent of Poland. The counter-image of Europe (represented by Great Britain) is amicable and contains a mixture of civility and good humour. Poland is stretched between the inhumane soviet past and cheerful European future (or present in 2005). Intertextuality (references to other texts) and reflexivity are characteristic features of press reports. Putin’s proclamation of the victory of the soviet people, and more particularly, the Red Army and his omission of the role of Central and Eastern European countries in the war is foregrounded and critically assessed in the press: Baltic countries have not heard anything about incorporating them into the Soviet Union. Poles and inhabitants of the countries of the former eastern block have waited for the words about Stalinist crimes in vain. (GW 10.05.2005).

In the foreground there is also the rejection of such a version of history on the Polish part. The address of the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Adam Rotfeld, to the UN is represented in press texts as follows: He reminded that the Second World War started from a conspiracy between Hitler and Stalin, and appealed to Russia ‘to recognize the Ribbentrop – Molotov Pact as lawless’. He assured that Poles will not lack the good will of reconciliation with Russian and German peoples, but, ‘it is only possible through the truth and common understanding of history’. (GW 10.05.2005).

However, rather often the painful memories of Stalinist crimes are retrieved without the direct mentioning of communism, the perpetrator is backgrounded and omitted. Additionally, the assessment of the rather neutral standpoint of Western leaders on Russia’s politics of forgetting is elliptic if not missing completely. The actors representing these global players are backgrounded too. The texts avoid assessing – and often even naming – the Red Army as an immediate actor who – fulfilling the will of Stalinist totalitarianism – played a crucial role in the fight against Hitler’s army from June 1941 as well as supporting communist rule

 Anna Horolets

in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe after the war. The co-location of these two roles is obviously a challenge for press discourse, especially when space/ time constraints of newspaper production call for clear and unambiguous narratives. Similarly, the producers of press discourse are ill at ease with assigning the blame for the results of the Yalta agreements to Europe and the USA. In 1995 this might be a consequence of the aspirations to become a part of European and NATO structures, while in 2005 rather a by-product of insider optics. The strategy of dealing with the contradictory narrative adopted by those press reports studied is in presenting Russia – whose image is merged with the Soviet Union – as “them” and placing it into a mythical “past”. This strategy also allows the presentation of a clear opposition between “the past” and “the future”, “Russia” and “Europe”. The participation of Poland in the communist regime is backgrounded and muted. Despite its frequent use by the mainstream press (both in 1995 and 2005), this strategy does not lead to the state of mnemonic reconciliation (Kubik & Linch 2006), since the postcommunist narratives of the end of the Second World War, where the Red Army and the soviet past play a less negative role, cannot be easily incorporated into it. 6.  Commemorative speeches Commemorative speeches perform several socially and culturally significant functions: The commemorative addresses […] [are] a self-presentation and self-promotion vehicle, [they] have an ‘educational’ function, that is seek to convey certain political values and beliefs, to construct common characteristics and identities and create consensus and a spirit of community, which in turn is intended to serve as a model for the future political actions of the addressees.  (Perelman 1990: 28f, cited in Wodak et al. 2002: 288).

Just like press reports, commemorative speeches represent the past through the creative processes of selecting and framing historical events. Additionally, in them the nation (and its past) is represented by a speaker, who is usually a state official (Ensink & Sauer 2003: 23). This second meaning of representation is particularly important for it emphasises speaking for the nation as well as drawing a particular vision of the nation by speakers. Commemorative speeches imply not only greater responsibility (moral and political) for the words pronounced, but also have to be oriented towards producing reconciliation. Commemorative addresses by the respective Polish presidents in 1995 and 20054 demonstrate a considerable degree

.  The address of Lech Wałęsa was first made in the Parliament and repeated at the Victory Day celebrations at Piłsudski Square in Warsaw on the 8th of May. The abridged transcript



Collective memory in transition 

of unanimity between them as well as compared to press reports. There are some notable differences, however. The classical tradition of rhetoric distinguishes three main genres on the basis of time orientation, theme and the function the speech performs: (a) judicial, (b) deliberative and (c) epideictic (after Wodak et al. 2002:  287). Commemorative speeches are often ascribed to the epideictic genre, since their main aim is in the confirmation of an existing situation and celebration of some event (Ensink & Sauer 2003:  28). Interestingly, those commemorative speeches analyzed contain several features of judicial rhetoric, they are oriented towards the past and the theme of historical injustice is often heard in them. They perform the function of defending the Polish cause. However, following the epideictic function of establishing and celebrating, they contain some ambiguities in posing accusations: New Poland has to be built on truth and justice, the guilty have to be punished and the victims are entitled to compensation. (Wałęsa, 25–27).

In Wałęsa’s speech the agents of historical injustice include “the guilty”, “grand imperial interests”, “immediate interests of the Great Four”, “alien great power” (obce mocarstwo), “communism”, “soviet generals”, “communist rulers of Poland” (komunistyczne władze), “the great of this world” (wielcy tego świata), and “the West”. Thus, other strategies of presentation, nominalisation in particular, consist primarily of relativisation (the guilty), ideologisation (communist, imperial, soviet), politization and militarisation (cf. Reisigl & Wodak 2001: 46–52). Simultaneously these strategies diminish the role of toponyms, especially state names, by being rather elusive or even openly dissociating “the communist rulers” from Polishness. This symbolic dissociation of political forces from nations as if they exist separately and self-dependently, is of particular importance, especially in the view of the intensive use of the word “sovereignty” and “independence” in Wałesa’s speech. In Kwaśniewski’s speech, the strategies of other presentation include the following nominations: “Hitlerism”, “Nazism”, “Hitler”, Hitler’s army”, “Stalin”, “(totalitarian) Stalinism”, “Ribbentrop-Molotov pact”, “parade of German and Soviet soldiers”, “Moscow”, “Lubianka casemates” and “Gulag Archipelago”. The nominalisation strategies focus even more consistently on ideologies, contain references to persons responsible for these ideologies and exclude nations (in all cases but one) from the image of the “Other” responsible for the historical injustice.

of the speech in the Parliament was published in GW 09.05.1995. The speech is further cited on the basis of this version as “Wałęsa” followed by relevant line-numbers. The address of Aleksander Kwaśniewski was made in Wrocław during official celebrations on May 7th and repeated at Piłsudski Square in Warsaw on May 8th. The abridged transcript of the speech in Wrocław was published in GW 09.05.2005. The speech is further cited on the basis of this version as “Kwaśniewski” followed by relevant line-numbers.

 Anna Horolets

Interestingly enough, the word “communism” is not mentioned among these ideologonyms, while the symbolism of totalitatian repression is foregrounded. The change overtime lies in more thorough backgrounding while not totally excluding European actors from the list of agents of historical injustice being done to Poland. This will be addressed below in more detail. The two speeches are very similar in identifying the symbolic events of the post-war past. Both mention the rueful betrayal and imprisonment of the representatives of the Underground State (Państwo Podziemne) in the immediate aftermath of the war; both refer to such dates as June 1956; December 1970 and 1981 as the dates of martyrdome of Polish people. There is a slight difference in defining the victims. In Kwaśniewski’s speech the victims are described as democracy and freedom fighters, while in Wałęsa’s speech they are referred to as martyrs to the sovereignty of the Polish state and victims of communism. (compare Wałęsa’s use of a “mythical framing” of martyrdom in commemoration of the Warsaw Uprising, Galasiński 2003). The ambiguities of these speeches, especially in 2005, as to how to treat historical events are even more palpable in two specific instances: the assessment of the results of the Yalta agreements and of the Red Army. The results of the Yalta conference in Kwaśniewski’s address are described as ambiguous: Another painful [episode] (bólem) for Poland was also Yalta, primarily because of the breach of the declaration of an independent and democratic Poland (niedotrzymanie deklaracji o Polsce niepodległej i demokratycznej). It has to be honestly stated that our country thanks to the Yalta and Potsdam agreements builds its statehood and has found new possibilities of development in the North and West. Yet, we had to leave Eastern lands (kresy), which was accompanied by a gigantic wave of resettlements. (Kwaśniewski, 50–54).

In this fragment of the text, the President adheres to the post-communist interpretation of the end of the war as having its good sides too for Poland, such as the possibilities of nation-building and the expansion of its territories (conceptualised as the return of lands which were originally Polish) (Grabowska 2004). “Solidarity” icon Lech Wałęsa also holds that this anniversary has “a complex and ambiguous meaning”, but emphasises that the fate of Poland after the Second World War was disastrous primarily because Poland had lost its independence. National sovereignty is essential to Lech Wałęsa’s address and the results of the war are defined primarily in terms of the loss of sovereignty. Unlike Kwaśniewski, Wałęsa sharply differentiates between the communist rulers of Poland and ‘us’ (listeners of the address, true Poles?): We were not hosts in our own home, we were not able to decide about our own fate or conduct foreign policy in accordance with Polish interests, and our army was dependant on soviet generals. (Wałęsa, 42–43).



Collective memory in transition 

Two presidents differ in their assessment of post-war Poland, which can be ascribed primarily to the fact they belong to opposing sides of the post-communist cleavage. Yet, one may argue that the imperative of a decisive break with the communist past results in particularly ambiguous discursive strategies used by a post-communist President, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, e.g. in his references to the Red Army:5 600 thousand fighters (bojownicy) of the Red Army died on our land in battles with Hitler’s army. [They were] Ordinary front-line soldiers who heroically paid with their blood, loyally fulfilled their soldiers’ duty on the road to Berlin and wished us well (dobrze nam życzyli). […] [W]e cannot forget the photographs where German and Soviet soldiers march side by side after strangling the Polish resistance. (Kwaśniewski, 23–25, 40–42).

Any continuity between the Red Army in 1939 and 1945 is not preserved in this fragment. In the first fragment “the fighters of Red Army” are glorified, made martyrs, as well as personalised, emotionalised and related to Self through the phrase “they wished us well”. Here a first-hand memory is implied. In the other fragment several lines later the soldiers are depersonalised, militarised and made malicious by predication (they strangled the resistance). Moreover, they are known from photographs (i.e. not personally). The instances of blaming the Other for the injustices of the past include holding Europe responsible. Yet, the discursive means of assigning blame to Europe are quite peculiar. In the 1995 address, this peculiarity reveals itself at the level of syntax when the sentences referring to Europe and to Poland are co-located without any discursive means of expressing of relations between them, i.e. such as relations of causality, conditionality, elaboration and the like (Fairclough 2003: 89). The capitulation of the III Reich on May 8th 1945 meant the end of the war for Europe. In many European capitals this day was welcomed with joy and hope. In the belief that it brings peace and liberation. Poles also believed that this day meant the end of the occupation for them and the beginning of a sovereign state.  (Wałęsa, 1–4). But Victory Day was not only rosy for Poland, it did not bring liberation and hope. It was the same for the other countries of the region. In the memory of Poles the dramatic contrast of these feelings remained. It was different in Paris, London or Washington, where the joy of victory was not disturbed by anything.  (Kwaśniewski, 28–31).

.  Interestingly, in the analysis of the street names changes in Poland after 1989 Elżbieta Hałas has demonstrated that “Red Army” was among the toponymes most often changed (70 instances of changes in the sample, cf. “Heroes of Stalingrad” – 30 instances), while “Home Army” (Armia Krajowa) was a toponyme often installed (51 times in the sample) (Hałas 2004: 140–145).

 Anna Horolets

These constructions leave the work of drawing the conclusion to the listener. The dramatisation is achieved by articulating beliefs and expectations, referring to emotions, signalling the equality of Poland and Europe as well as juxtaposing the consequences of the end of war for both. Another peculiarity lies in the depersonalisation of the deeds of Europe through passive voice or other means that allow describing action without naming the subject of this action (e.g. Polish reflexive particle się, e.g. zapomina się – it is forgotten): Our fate has been decided in Teheran and Yalta […] We have been given off (oddano (Wałęsa, 7–8). nas) under the influence of the alien power. When on May 9th 1945 the Victory parade took place in London, the Poles were missing (zabrakło) there. We were not invited, despite the fact that Polish soldiers fought for London, Paris and Rome… (Wałęsa, 9–11). Europe has been cut by an iron curtain.

(Kwaśniewski, 63–64).

The merits of our country in bringing down communism on our continent are (Wałęsa, 64–65). also forgotten (zapomina się).

The direct accusation of Europe is not desirable because Polish public discourse is by and large Eurocentric. Broadly defined, Europe is an unquestionable point of reference (Horolets 2006). Yet, the speakers undertake a delicate task of reminding Europe of the injustice (performed or tolerated by it) towards Poland and persuading Europe to compensate for past injustices (especially in 1995). Symbolic politics use martyrdom of the past for the justification of present and future political goals (cf. Galasiński 2003). The complex interplay between the present and the past provides the means for the legitimation of Poland’s aspirations in joining Europe (in 1995) as well as rightfully belonging to Europe (in 2005): When in Poland the war was already collecting the bloody harvest, when the first mass execution of civilians started, – the Western front was silent. A strange ‘sitting war’ continued. However, those who did not want to die for Gdańsk, had to die later for Paris and London. Let it be the lesson for all of us for the future. For Europe and the world. Those who think that it is worthwhile to compromise (się ukorzyć), in order not to irritate the beast, sooner or later become the victims of this beast. (Wałęsa, 59–63). One cannot please the beast. Thanks to Poland, Europe and the world have finally understood that. (Kwaśniewski, 11–12).

The argumentation strategies used in these speeches are aimed at providing solid grounds for Poland’s place in Europe. Following Martin Reisigl’s and Ruth Wodak’s suggestion, one can look for topoi – “parts of the argumentation that belong to the



Collective memory in transition 

obligatory, either explicit or inferable, premises” (2001: 74–5). Topoi, or loci, are viewed in rhetoric studies as common places from which arguments can be said to arise (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969: 83–84). They provide the basis for understanding facts and hierarchies. Topoi are “general principles on which reasoning relies but which are themselves not reasoning […] almost always presented as being an object of consensus in a more or less large community” (Anscombre 1995:  35, cited in Amossy 2005:  88). The taken for granted nature of topoi, or underlying premises of argumentation, is fertile soil for argumentation fallacies or manipulative use of language. Three such premises dominate in the speeches analysed: topos of justice (e.g. all nations should be equally treated), topos of deserving (e.g. Poles deserve a rightful place in Europe because they were fighting for Europe’s freedom), and topos of history (e.g. history teaches us lessons). The topos of justice can be illustrated by the fragment: We aimed at building a new and better Europe […] Europe [however] is still divided into the better and worse, into the poor and the rich, into the less and the more privileged. (Wałęsa, 70–72).

The use of the topos of deserving includes references to the important role Polish troops played in the Second World War: they fought on all fronts; they were devoted and heroic and sacrificed their blood; they paid a high price for freedom; they were martyrs of the beastly system; they fought for freedom in 1956, 1970 and 1980 and aimed at the unification of the continent. Lastly, the topos of history is represented by the following fragments: The negligence of our aspirations harms not only us, but injures the interests of the whole continent. […] Every time in the past this was attempted, it led to the breach of balance on our continent, to conflicts and destabilisation.  (Wałęsa, 75–78).

Wałęsa summarises the legitimacy of Poland belonging to Europe: Poland has a historical, moral and political right to take part in decisions (współdecydować) about the fates of Europe, about its present and the future, about its security and stabilisation. (Wałęsa, 74–75).

The difference between the 1995 and 2005 speeches is predictable and stems from the change of external as well as internal context. In 2005 the legitimation of Poland belonging to Europe was not as urging as it was in 1995, yet the inculcation of the legitimacy of Polish importance within Europe was maintained by references to the past. In 2005 the history of Europe was constructed in the commemorative address of the President as a purposeful development toward

 Anna Horolets

unification and freedom that was attained through the efforts of several generations of Poles: It took the faith and strength of Pope John Paul the Second, who […] said that Europe had to breathe with two lungs, that East and West had to integrate. It took decades to destroy the walls dividing peoples. It took the Polish “Solidarity” movement. The desire for freedom developed by it finally led, at the beginning of the 1990s, to the autumn of Peoples in Central and Eastern Europe.  (Kwaśniewski, 67–73).

7.  Concluding remarks In the last quotation the narrative of history encapsulates the ideas of democratisation and Europeanization in one image of purposeful and heroic historical development. The speech from 2005 by a post-communist president is repeating some parts of the speech from 1995 by the post-solidarity president almost literally, thus inscribing these words into the repertoire of commemoration. The post 1989 historical narrative includes the recognition that Poland lost its independence in the aftermath of the war, the negative assessment of Stalinism and soviet domination, the positive assessment and pride for the Solidarity movement (although until recently it had not been inscribed in official symbolic forms of commemoration, cf. Kubik & Linch 2006) and the presentation of Europe as a place of Poland’s rightful belonging. At the same time, the two speeches differently assess the legacy of communism in Poland. In 1995, president Wałęsa openly accuses the post-communist ruling party as being part of the former regime. In 2005 communism is more forcefully placed in the realm of the Other (both in spatial and temporal terms, e.g. Soviet Union, Stalinism, but not present day Russia) by Aleksander Kwaśniewski. This strategy is aimed at minimising the connotations between the communist regime which is condemned and those Polish citizens who benefited from it to a greater or lesser extent in the aftermath of the war. The alternative narrative to representing those who were against the Solidarity movement and its ideas is not articulated straightforwardly, rather it is elliptically included into “us” and opposed to “them” (Soviet Union) which is spatially and temporally distanced from contemporary Poland. Thus the communist past of Poland and the involvement of Poles in the former regime can be called a skeleton in the cupboard of the Polish collective memory (cf. Ziółkowski 2001). Compared to speeches, press reports maintain the task of retrieving the past for the present in a slightly different manner. Press texts seek clear cut oppositions. Thus contemporary Russia is merged with the Soviet Union and viewed as the Other of Poland. If the 1995 and 2005 reports are compared, the identity between



Collective memory in transition 

contemporary Russia and the Soviet Union is articulated more forcefully in 2005 (which is partially due to the objective changes in Russia over the decade), while the role of the West (Europe) in the Yalta agreements is presented in even more elliptical terms. The discursive strategies create a simplified image of a bi-polar world largely resembling the one from the Cold War period, with Poland placed within the Western part of the opposition. Similarly in Kwaśniewski’s speech, the participation of Poles (Polish governments) in the exercise of soviet regime is backgrounded if not completely omitted in press texts. The discursive practices exercised by both politicians and journalists are aimed at drawing new definitions of “us” and “them” aimed at the production of a renewed national identity. They are also brought about as a means of exercising the politics of memory. Despite being able to establish some degree of reconciliation within a historical narrative, these discursive strategies still contain several important omissions and inconsistencies that refer to the role of Poland in the former regime. Abrupt social change such as the collapse of the communist regime in Poland in 1989 calls for the creation of a demarcation line between the past and present that would coincide with the boundary between the “wrong” and “right”, “totalitarian” and “democratic”, “poor and “affluent” as well as “unhappy” and “happy”. Such mythical divide is however a trap for the further processes of transformation that call for the creation of a new type of national narrative that would be more inclusive and heal the historical injustices by means of reconciliation rather than pure oblivion. The creation of a pluralistic historic narrative (Ziółkowski 2001) is not an easy task however. In historical narratives about the end of the Second World War in Poland in 1995 and 2005 the ambiguity of the past is dealt primarily with by means of omissions, ellipsis and inconsistence.

References Amossy, R. 2005. “An argumentative dimension of discourse”. In Argumentation in Practice, F.H. Van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (eds), 87–98. Controversies series, Volume 2. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V. Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso. Arvidsson, C. & Blomqvist, L.E. (eds). 1987. Symbols of Power. The Aesthetics of Political Legitimation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell. Baczko, B. 1994. Wyobrażenia społeczne. Szkice o nadziei i pamięci zbiorowej. trans. M. Kowalska. Warszawa: PWN Academic Press. Bronowicki, M. 2005. “How do Polish ‘normal people’ remember the Soviet day of the Victory – 9 May 1945?”. Karta 44: 70–77. Buchowski, M. 1998. “Divided Europe: The Social Case of the Present Perfect Tense”. In The Task of Ethnology. Cultural Anthropology in Unifying Europe, A. Posern-Zieliński (ed.), 7–26. Poznań: Ethnological Sciences Commission of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

 Anna Horolets Buchowski, M. 2001. Rethinking Transformation: An Anthropological Perspective on Postsocialism. Poznań: Humaniora Foundation Press. Ensink, T. & Sauer, C. (eds). 2003. The Art of Commemoration. Fifty Years after the Warsaw Uprising. DAPSC series, Volume 7. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V. Fairclough, N. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. & Wodak, R. 1997. “Critical discourse analysis”. In Discourse Studies. A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Volume 2, Teun A. Van Dijk (ed.), 258–284. London: Sage. Galasiński, D. 2003. “The Messianic Warsaw. Mythological framings of political discourse in the address by Lech Wałęsa”. In The Art of Commemoration. Fifty Years after the Warsaw Uprising. DAPSC series, Volume 7. T. Ensink & C. Sauer (eds), 41–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V. Grabowska, M. 2004. Podział post-komunistyczny. Warszawa: Scholar. Hałas, E. 2000. “Transformation in Collective Imagination”. Polish Sociological Review 3: 309–322. Hałas, E. 2001. “Symbole publiczne a polska tożsamość. Zmiana i niejednoznaczność w kalendarzu świąt państwowych III Rzeczypospolitej.” Kultura i Społeczeństwo 3–4: 49–67. Hałas, E. 2004. “Polityka symboliczna i pamięć zbiorowa. Zmiany nazw ulic po komunizmie.” In Zmiana czy stagnacja. Społeczeństwo polskie po czternastu latach transformacji, M. Marody (ed.), 128–152. Warszawa: Scholar. Hann, C. 2002. “Introduction. Postsocialism as a topic of anthropological investigation”. In: Postsocialism. Ideas, Ideologies, Practicies in Eurasia, C. Hann (ed.), 1–28. London and New York: Routledge. Heer, H., Manoschek, W., Pollak, A. & Wodak, R. (eds). 2008.  The Construction of History. Remembering the War of Annihilation. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Horolets, A. 2006. Obrazy Europy w polskim dyskursie publicznym. Kraków: Universitas. Kubik, J. 1994. The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power. The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. University Park: The Pennsylvanian State University Press. Kubik, J. 2003. “Cultural Legacies of State Socialism. History Making and Cultural-Political Enterpreneurship on Postcommunist Poland and Russia”. In Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. G. Ekiert & S.E. Hansen (eds), 317–351. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kubik, J. & A. Linch. 2006. “The Original Sin of Poland’s Third Republic: Discounting ‘Solidarity’ and its Consequences for Political Reconciliation”. Polish Sociological Review 1: 9–38. Lane, C. 1981. The Rites of the Rulers. Ritual in Industrial Society – the Soviet Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lipset, S.M. & Rokkan, S. 1985 [1967]. “Cleavage Structure, Party Systems and Voter Alignments. An Introduction”. In Consensus and Conflict. Essays in Political Sociology. S.M. Lipset (ed.), 113–185. New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction Books. Mach, Z. 1993. Symbols, Conflict and Identity. Essays in Political Anthropology. New York: State University of New York Press. Main, I. 2004. Trudne świętowanie. Konflikty wokół obchodów świąt państwowych i religijnych w Lublinie (1944–1989). Warsaw: Trio. Martin, J.R. & Wodak, R. (eds). 2003. Re/reading the Past: Critical and functional perspectives on time and value. DAPSC series, Volume 8. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V. Offe, C. 1991. “Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe.” Social Research 58: 865–892.



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Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination. Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London: Routledge. Perelman, Ch. & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. 1969. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame. Rogowska, B. 1997. „Funkcje polityczne obchodów dnia Zwycięstwa w Polsce w latach 1945– 1984.” In Studia historyczne i politologiczne, R. Gelles & M.S. Wolański (eds), 295–305. Wrocław: Wroclaw University Press. Roszkowski, W. 2005. The Shadow of Yalta. A Report. Warsaw: Warsaw Uprising Museum. Szacka, B. 1997. “Systemic Transformation and the Memory of the Past”. Polish Sociological Review 2: 119–131. Van Dijk, T.A. (ed.) 1997. Discourse Studies. A Multidisciplinary Introduction. London: Sage Publications. Van Eemeren, F.H. & Grootendorst, R. 2004. A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The pragmadialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (eds). 2001. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London-Thousadn Oaks-New Delhi: Sage Publications. Wodak, R., de Cilla, R., Reisigl, M. & Liebhart, K. 2002. “The Public Arena. Commemorative Speeches and Addresses”. In: Critical Discourse Analysis. Critical Concepts in Linguistics. Volume IV: Current Debates and New Directions, M. Toolan (ed.), 287–328. London and New York: Routledge. Ziółkowski, M. 2001. “Pamięc i zapomnienie. Trupy w szafie polskiej zbiorowej pamięci.” Kultura i Społeczeństwo 3–4: 3–21.

“In the name of the truth one has to say…” Anti-Semitic statements in the memorial discourse about the crosses in Auschwitz Imke Hansen

Hamburg University

Auschwitz is one of the most important memorial sites for non-Jewish Poles. As a place where until 1942 mostly Polish political prisoners were detained, and where a significant number of them died, the concentration camp became present both in family and collective memories. As such, Auschwitz turned into a symbol of Polish martyrology and stands for numerous other places where Poles were killed during the Second World War (see Huener 2003). Auschwitz’s importance in Poland’s official memorial culture was apparent in the time of the People’s Republic, whose government instrumentalised the memorial to celebrate Communist fight and victory and made it into a state symbol (Kucia & Olszewski 2005). From the 1960ies on, the Polish Communist government used the memorial in Auschwitz in order to appeal to the population by adopting a national-Polish accentuation: the suffering of ethnic Poles became the common denominator. With the fall of the Communist system the official interpretation of World War II and of Auschwitz was largely discredited, however, the focus on national memory retained its centrality. The opening of the borders contributed to an increased international presence at Auschwitz. Therefore, in the 1990ies the Polish national memory of Auschwitz clashed with the internationally dominating perception of the place as symbol of – or even synonym for – the Shoah. This clash was most clearly displayed in the so-called Cross Conflict about the presence of Christian symbols at or within sight of the former concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. In what follows, I analyse the Polish public debate about the crosses in order to show how and in which context anti-Semitic statements appear in the memorial discourse of Auschwitz. The essential intention of anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements is undoubtedly the positive presentation of the self or the ingroup and a contrasting negative representation of the other or the outgroup (Reisigl & Wodak 2001). Based on this assumption the central questions dealt with are: how is

 Imke Hansen

anti-Semitism functionalised and how are the ingroup and the outgroup represented by anti-Semitic statements in this discourse? This paper uses historical discourse analysis to approach the public memorial debate regarding the crosses at Auschwitz.1 Historical discourse analysis focuses mainly on the following questions: which utterances appear at which time and which place; what kinds of knowledge and realities are constructed; why were particular concepts shaped and why did alternatives not prevail in each historical and political context (Landwehr 2008: 19, 92)? The first part of the paper gives a short historical overview of the conflict. The sections that follow present and analyse anti-Semitic statements in the controversy and are organised according to four functional frameworks: defending nationality, sovereignty and soil, constructing historical continuities, and assigning blame and identifying anti-Polonism. The sources used in the analysis range from oral and written statements of politicians, homilies of priests and cardinals, commentaries made by publicists and journalists, to leaflets and statements by different groups, and readers’ letters sent to different newspapers. Most of the material was taken from Polish press articles in the years 1997–1999. Only texts and statements, which directly refer to the cross conflict, are taken into consideration. The choice of the sources aims to show the participation of a wide range of people in the discourse. The statements of “ordinary citizens” and the letters to the editors are of great importance in the analysis as they supplement the picture of social discourse, which is all too often limited to the voices of politicians and intellectuals. The utterances of priests enjoy a particularly special legitimacy and weight, which is suggested not only by the authority of the Catholic Church in Poland, but also by performative elements as the institutional frame of the mass, the special clothing and rituals of the priests, and the linking of religious with social and political contents. All in all, the broad spectrum of sources should give an impression which argumentation patterns are used by which group and how the statements of diverse actors (political, clerical, civil society etc.) differ from each other.

.  Discourse is shaped by the difference between what could be theoretically thought, said and done, and what people actually think, say and perform (Becker-Mrotzek 1992: 4; Foucault 2001:  874; Bourdieu 1993:  69). Discourses, which are not limited to language but include every social practise, do not simply reflect knowledge and reality but rather participate in constructing them, and thus establish and manifest power relations (Bourdieu 1990, 1992: 153; Landwehr 2008: 92). Methodologically the research follows the work of Reisigl and Wodak (2001) about anti-Semitism and racism in discourse, which presents a fundamental and detailed set of tools and perspectives.



“In the name of the truth one has to say…” 

The paper should not lead to the assumption that the conflict could be explained by anti-Semitism or that it was limited to it. Most of the journalists and publicists and also several readers criticised the actions of the “defenders of the cross” even pointing to the liveliness of anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Polish society.2

1.  The crosses of auschwitz The conflict about the crosses (1998–1999) has its roots in a preceding controversy. In 1985 the establishment of a Carmelite convent in a building called the “Old Theatre”, situated just outside the fence of Auschwitz, aroused international protests (see Rittner & Roth 1991; Bartoszewski 1990). During the Holocaust the “Old Theatre” served as a storehouse for prisoners’ belongings and for the gas Zyklon B. The trigger for the protest was a call for donations for the Convent, which was published by the Belgian branch of the international Catholic relief organisation “Church in Need”. In this leaflet the organisation laid claim to “presenting” the Pope with a convent in Auschwitz: “The Convent will be a fortress for God, a source of blessing for the world’s church, a pledge for the conversion of our honoured brothers, and a proof of our goodwill to undo the disgrace, which is continuously done to Jesus Christ’s deputy” (Chrostowski 1991: 72). Auschwitz as a place of mass murder of Jews was not mentioned in the bulletin. The ensuing protest – which came as a complete surprise to the Polish Catholic community – was led mainly by Jewish organisations, which assumed an intentional offence of Jewish feelings and an attempt to Christianise Auschwitz, and demanded the relocation of the nuns. Catholic and Jewish representatives agreed at two meetings in Geneva in 1986 and 1987 that Auschwitz-Birkenau should be free of religious symbols and permanent places of worship (Rittner & Roth 1991: 24). Within two years, the convent should become a part of a new Catholic centre for information, education, meeting and prayer to be built close to the former camp. After the two years had passed without an attempt to build the

.  See for example Hierarchowie zbierają plony swej polityki, Trybuna 28.08.1998 (The Hierarchies are bringing in the harvest of their politics, Tribune 28.08.1998); Krzyżówka,Wprost 23.05.1999 (The Crossword, Open 23.05.1999); Dar strachu i zagubienia, Gazeta Wyborcza, 17.–18.10.1998 (The Gift of fear and being lost, Election Newspaper, 17.–18.10.1998); List czytelnika, Gazeta Wyborcza, 20.04.1998 (Reader’s opinion, Election Newspaper 20.04.1998). Among the strongest critics were Father Stanisław Musiał, Bishop Józef Życinski, Father Józef Tischner and Jerzy Turowicz.

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centre and relocate the nuns, the protests against the convent grew and the conflict intensified. The escalation was brought about by two illegal demonstrations organised by the New York Rabbi Avi Weiss who broke into the ground of the convent with a small group of people and was removed by Polish workers after a couple of hours. International press portrayed the incident exaggeratedly as an act of violence and anti-Semitism and quickly drew a connection to a “traditional Polish anti-Semitism”. The Jerusalem Post, for instance, wrote: “Nor can the recent violent attack by workers on a visiting group of protestors at the site be disconnected from the gruesome historical background of centuries-old Polish anti-Semitism” (Pawlikowski 1991: 68). In August 1989, the Polish cardinal Józef Glemp commented on the conflict during his homily at Poland’s most important place of pilgrimage in Częstochowa: “We have our guilt towards the Jews, but today I want to say: Dear Jews, do not speak to us from the position of a nation raised above all others and do not require conditions we cannot fulfil. Honoured Jews, don’t you see that an action against the sisters is hurting the feeling of all Poles, our so painfully regained sovereignty? Your power is the mass media which you have at your disposal in many countries. They shall not serve to feed anti-Polonism. Recently a group of seven Jews from New York committed a seizure on the convent, which did not reach murder only because they were impeded – but do not call aggressors heroes!” (Chrostowski 1991: 88). The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, replied that Poles already sucked in national anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk. (Rittner & Roth 1991: 24). By the end of 1989, the conflict quieted. Cardinal Glemp conceded, and the building of the Centre was undertaken. The nuns, however, refused to move until they were urged to do so by Pope John Paul II in June 1993. The subject of the ensuing conflict, which began in 1998, was an eight-metre tall cross, which was erected at the height of the convent controversy in the former gravel pit right next to the Old Theatre, where, among others, Catholic Poles were executed during the Holocaust. As it was clearly visible from the Museum, many Jewish and non-Jewish groups outside Poland demanded its removal. When a representative of the Polish government, Krzysztof Śliwiński, mentioned the possible replacing of the cross with a stone, a broad protest started in Poland. Parliamentarians, politicians and other figures of public life, among them Lech Wałęsa, came out against the displacement. The Polish Catholic ultra-conservative radio station Radio Maryja called for pilgrimages to the gravel pit and for the erection of more crosses. And a group that called itself the “Committee to Defend the Cross” and later “Committee to Save the Polish Nation”, as well as nationalist pilgrims from throughout Poland held demonstrations and collective prayers and began to erect



“In the name of the truth one has to say…” 

an increasing number of crosses around the big one. Kazimierz Świtoń, a former solidarity activist and the main “Defender of the Cross” moved into a caravan at the former gravel pit, controlled who entered the grounds and coordinated the erection of more crosses. He and his comrades decorated the fence and the former gravel pit with national flags and posters showing nationalist and anti-Semitic slogans and informed visitors about their mission. The activities at the gravel pit caused massive protests, both internationally and in Poland. Simultaneously, the site became a top attraction for tourists as well as for the media. Journalists and photographers were present almost uninterruptedly, giving Kazimierz Świtoń and the “Defenders of the Cross” the opportunity to present their anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to a very broad public. When there were already about 300 crosses and growing pressure from the outside, the government finally reacted: the parliament enacted a law of protective zones around former concentration camps. The crosses – except for the big one – were removed and brought to another monastery nearby. The conflict calmed down when the focus of attention switched to the history of Jedwabne (see Gross 2001), even though the cause – the big cross – was and is still there. The State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which is nowadays in charge of the Old Theatre and the gravel pit, planted trees along the fence; hence the cross is no longer visible from the museum. The conflict displayed that different groups claim Auschwitz as their memorial place and want to keep their “right” to Auschwitz. These groups fear the “Christianisation” or “Judaisation” of the site, and the vanishing of what they see as their own history and memory. This results in a “competition of victims” (Chaumont 2001) as Jewish claims to Auschwitz as a place of mostly Jewish suffering and death are not consistent with the Polish view of the camp as a symbol of Polish martyrdom and heroism. 2.  Defending national identity, sovereignty and soil Christian tradition, and particularly the cross as a symbol, played a central role in the process of reformulation and recovery of national identity, which was of vital importance in Polish public discourse after the fall of Communism. The cross conflict became a platform for these processes due to the fact that it was the first great memorial conflict of the 1990ies and directly connected with the symbol of the cross. The Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek wrote in a letter to a local initiative from Oświęcim that had approached him in this matter before: “The cross was and is for us not only the most important religious symbol, but also a symbol of

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national identity and sovereignty.”3 As the group he referred to as “us” are most probably “the Poles” he excludes people for whom the cross might not be the most important religious item. He thus homogenised Polish society and stressed the centrality of Catholicism in Poland, both in the past and the present. By stating that the cross is also a symbol of national identity and sovereignty, Buzek gave it a political meaning. In doing so, he legitimised the political instrumentalisation of the cross that was criticized over the course of the conflict by several people, and most of all by Father Stanislaw Musial. Furthermore, his statement indicated that claims concerning the relocation of the cross affect Polish national identity and sovereignty. An author of the Dziennik Bałtycki wrote it more explicitly: “At least in my opinion the cross at a cemetery such as the camp in Auschwitz is not a symbol of Catholicism any more. It is a symbol of Polishness that is, of course, intrinsically tied to the Polish Christian tradition”.4 Whereas Buzek stated the cross would be a symbol of religion, national identity and sovereignty, the author of this statement argued that the cross at a place like Auschwitz, which he puts at one level with ordinary cemeteries, would not be a religious symbol “any more” but rather a symbol of Polish national identity. This implies that the meaning of the cross depends on the place where it stands. The fact that the author claimed that precisely at Auschwitz the cross has not as much a religious meaning as a “Polish” one points to the above mentioned role of Auschwitz as one of the most important lieux de memoire for Catholic Poles. The “Polish Christian tradition” he and many others referred to is usually given much deeper historical roots than it actually has, as the strong tie of Catholicism and Polish national identity dates from the conception of the “Polish messianism” by Adam Mickiewicz and national-Polish literary circles as a reaction to the failed Polish uprising against the rule of the Russian Empire in Poland of 1830/1831 (Steinlauf 1997: 9–11; Walicki 2006). Ryszard Bender, politician of the party Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland (Ruch Odbudowy Polski, ROP) and dean at the Catholic University Lublin, related to this retrospectively prolonged Christian-Polish tradition, uttering: “We must not get rid of symbols that have accompanied us for one thousand years

.  Krzyż zostanie w Oświęcimiu, Dziennik Polski 21.04.1998 (The Cross will stay in Oswiecim, Polish Daily 21.04.1998); List premiera w sprawie Krzyża, Gość Niedzielny 10.05.1998 (The premier’s letter in the matter of the cross, Sunday’s Guest 10.05.1998); Czy krzyż pozostanie? Głos ziemi oświęcimskiej 24.04.1998 (Will the cross stay? The voice of Oswiecim’s lands 24.04.1998). .  Kolejne krzyże, “Za”, Dziennik Bałtycki, 03.08.1998 (Again Crosses, “For”, Baltic Daily 03.08.1998).



“In the name of the truth one has to say…” 

under the pressure of fanatical people”.5 Bender exaggerated the scale of the conflict by portraying the relocation of one cross as a general “getting rid” of religious symbols. Like Buzek he referred to the Polish nation as “we”, whereas to those who demanded the replacement of the cross, commonly understood as Jewish representatives, he refers as “fanatical people”. Thus Bender constructed a contrast between the “fanatical other” and the “rational self ” and suggested that the “fanatical other” is putting pressure on Poland, which implies that they have the power to do so. Bender continued his statement: “The cross to us is the dearest symbol. Under this cross we died in uprisings and during the two World Wars”.6 Again like Buzek he excludes everyone from the “we” for whom the cross might not be the “dearest symbol”. Claiming that “we died” he constructed the Polish nation as an immortal community and identified the living Poles with the ones who died “under the cross” – a formulation close to that of martyrdom and dying “for the cross”. This added historical meaning to the Polish relationship to the cross and dramatic emphasis to the conflict as it suggested that the cross is something to die for in a conflict. It may be inferred from this statement that any compromise on the location of the cross in the current conflict would dishonour the Poles who died for the cross in the past. Other statements went a step further, declaring an assault on Polish national identity, as in the case of a declaration by a local Solidarność group: “The Poles are the landlords of Polish soil, and every dragging of national symbols and symbols of our faith is an attack on our national identity”.7 And the national-Catholic movement of Antoni Macierewicz appealed to the parliament and government saying that the displacement of the cross would be “an act of religious desecration and national humiliation”.8 Lech Wałęsa, the leading figure of Solidarność and most popular authority in Poland of the 1990s, was already taking this “assault” for granted and thinking about defence, although he did not name the opponent: “In the matter of the cross we must not allow ourselves to retreat even one millimetre. (…) I will always defend it, until the last drop, the saying in mind, that only under this symbol

.  Bender broni Krzyża, Express Wieczorny 16.03.1998 (Bender defends the Cross, Evening Express 16.03.1998). .  W obronie krzyża Oświęcimskiego, Dziennik Związkowy Nr. 51, 16.3.1998 (In defence of Oswiecim’s cross, Federal Daily, 16.3.1998). .  W obronie krzyża, Gazeta codzienna Nowiny 27.05.1998 (In Defence of the Cross, Daily Newspaper News 27.05.1998). .  W obronie Krzyża w Oświęcimiu, Dziennik Polski 16.03.1998 (In Defence of the Cross in Oswiecim, Polish Daily 16.03.1998).

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Poland will be Poland and the Pole a Pole.”9 He affirmed the status of the cross as fundamental and existential for Poland, suggesting – by means of a popular slogan – that without the cross Poland and the Poles would lose their identity and therewith cease to exist. The writers were concrete about who “we” are (“the landlords of Polish soil”), but did not name the “others”. In referring to “the others” they used passive voice, nominalisations (“the pressure”, “the dragging”) and depersonifications (“an act of ”). Therewith “the others” are made vague, constructed as an unknown, unpredictable, and blurred opponent, thus creating a sense of possible threat. A reader of the Życie Warszawy finally names the enemies by asking: “How long will the church hierarchy and our Catholic state listen to the voices of different representatives of Israel,10 who think that at places, where Poles were killed, like my father and mother who were shot in the gravel pit, one cannot array crosses. We are a Catholic nation; Poland can put crosses everywhere, because our fellow countrymen were killed on every part of the soil.”11 The inner group was presented in a very Catholic manner in this statement: the church hierarchy is named before the state as if it was the more important policy maker, and the “state” in the second place is given the adjective “Catholic” though Poland is a secular state, and finally the “we” is declared a “Catholic nation”. Even Cardinal Józef Glemp, primate of Poland, focused on a national rather than religious concept of the cross. During a homily in August 1998 he said: “The cross in Auschwitz cannot be a topic of discussion. The Polish nation loves this cross, wherever it stands. In the dockyard, in Warsaw or in Auschwitz. Perhaps many people do not like the Eiffel Tower but that is not a reason to relocate or change it.”12 By equating it with the Eiffel Tower, Glemp presented the cross in a much more illustrative way than his fellow discussants as a symbol that is identified with Poland. He further enhanced the scale of the cross conflict and integrated it in the Polish historical self-image of suffering and battle by putting it on a level with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and the workers strikes in Gdańsk in 1980. Also Senator Jadwiga Stokarska linked national identity and sovereignty by stating: “We perceive an assault on the cross on Polish soil as an attempt to

.  Wałęsa broni krzyża, Życie 19.03.1998 (Wałęsa defending the Cross, Life 19.03.1998). .  The expression “representatives of Israel” may be referring to Jews in general, but also seems to connect the protests of Jews to the political entity of the state of Israel. .  Opinia czytelnika, Życie Warszawy 06.08.1998 (Reader’s opinion The Life of Warsaw 06.08.1998). .  Adam Szostkiewicz, Dolina Krzyży, Polityka 33/1998 (2154) (Adam Szostkiewicz, The Valley of the Crosses, Politics 33/1998 (2154)).



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humiliate our nation and as an interference in the sovereignty of our state.”13 The latter formulation was broadly used, among others, also by Cardinal Glemp, who said: “This soil is Polish and every imposition of another will be understood as an interference in the sovereignty”.14 The shortest and most concise formula of the very common triangle of sovereignty, soil and national identity in this discourse presented a letter to the editor of the right-wing newspaper Nasz Dziennik: “Do not touch the crosses! Our soil, our homeland, our Poland”.15 As the appeal “Do not touch the crosses!” was directed to someone, who was probably not a frequent reader of Nasz Dziennik, it was not really a request which would still have been part of a dialogue, but more a battle cry. Again, in all three statements the “others” are not named – by using nominalisations or vocative. The possible impact of this triangle on the Catholic Polish reader is only understandable bearing in mind the long and often publicly mentioned history of Polish partition, statelessness and lack of sovereignty that – according to common belief – only ended in 1989. The historical continuity to the partition was even openly constructed. The journalist Jerzy Witaszczyk stated in the Dziennik Lódzki that if the former camp grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau became exterritorial, as proposed by Kalman Sultanik, this would be the first step into a new partition.16 And a reader of the Gazeta w Opolu stated that even the displacement of the cross would give way to partition and foreign rule by Jews,17 similar to

.  Izrael żąda usunięcia krzyży, polski rząd umywa ręce, Prawo i Gospodarka, 7.–9.08.1998 (Israel is demanding the displacement of the Crosses, the Polish Government is washing its Hands, Law and Economy 7.–9.08.1998); Krzyże niezgody, Trybuna 07.08.1998 (The Crosses of Discord, Tribune 07.08.1998). .  Ciężar krzyża, Gazeta Wyborcza 07.08.1998 (The Weight of the Cross, Election Newspaper 07.08.1998); Izrael żąda usunięcia krzyży, polski rząd umywa ręce, Prawo i Gospodarka, 7.–9.08.1998 (Israel is demanding the displacement of the Crosses, the Polish Government is washing its Hands, Law and Economy 7.–9.08.1998). For similar statements see for example declaration of the city council of Ciechanów, Za Krzyżem, Gazeta na Mazowszu 27.03.1998 (Behind the Cross, Newspaper of Masovia, 27.03.1998); Opinia czytelnika Stanislaw Nowak, Słowo Ludu 08.–09.08.1998 (Reader’s opinion Stanislaw Nowak, The People’s Word 08.– 09.08.1998); Las krzyży, Dziennik Zachodu 29.07.1998 (The Forest of Crosses, The Eastern Daily 29.07.1998); List czytelnika K. Rybarczyk, Głos Wielkopolski 10.–11.06.1998 Letter to the editor K. Rybarczyk, The Voice of Greater Poland 10.–11.06.1998). .  List czytelnika, Nasz Dziennik, 20.10.1998 (Letter to the editor, Our Daily, 20.10.1998. .  Z trzeciej strony, Dziennik Łódzki 10.–11.06.1998 (From the Third Side, Lodz Daily 10.–11.06.1998). .  Opinia czytelnika Józef, Gazeta w Opolu 10.08.1998 (Reader’s opinion Józef, Newspaper in Opole 10.08.1998).

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the “defenders of the cross” who prognosticated an imminent partition of Poland organized by Jews.18 Many statements in the context of national identity, sovereignty and soil in the cross discourse might appear more as self-revelations than predications concerning others. However, following this argumentation line, the “other” is predicated step by step in a more concrete and radical way. The predications range from being a pressure, a “dragging” force or a threat to being an assault, humiliation and or even an occupation in face of which Poland should “defend” itself and “retreat not even one millimetre”. The vocabulary chosen in those statements constructed a warlike image of the conflict. Quite harmlessly, a reader of Gazeta Wyborcza stated that “the papal cross should stay, at least for the reason that it is standing on Polish soil”19 whereas the “defenders of the cross” opened up a different level, stating that their fight for the cross is a battle for the continuation of Polish sovereignty and self-determination.20 Still, both statements are part of the same defensive argumentation pattern as they do not consider the arguments brought up against the cross but treat the criticism as an assault directed at Poland itself. This kind of argumentation draws a demarcation line between the “we” and the “others”, portraying the others as Poland’s enemies. Therefore, even statements that do not mention “others” were able to adapt and carry an anti-Semitic connotation, which becomes visible only by intradiscursive contextualisation. 3.  Constructing historical continuities Apart from referring to the Polish partitions, an issue that often appeared in the discourse about the cross addressed the Communist antagonism towards Catholicism in the People’s Republic. The popular priest Father Waldemar Chrostowski, until May 1998 vice-chairman of the council of Christians and Jews, stated that the elimination of religious symbols would be “nothing new” because after the war the Polish government had fought against those symbols all the time.21

.  Krzyż, głodówka i spisek, Kronika Beskidzka, 09.07.1998 (Cross, Hunger Strike and Conspiracy, The Beskid’s Chronicle 09.07.1998). .  Opinia czytelnika Maria, Gazeta w Opolu 10.08.1998 (Reader’s opinion Maria, Newspaper in Opole 10.08.1998). .  Las krzyży, Dziennik Zachodu 29.07.1998 (The Forest of Crosses, The Eastern Daily 29.07.1998). .  Żydzi, Polacy i krzyż, Kurier Polski, 31.03.1998 (Jews, Poles and the Cross, Polish Courier 31.03.1998).



“In the name of the truth one has to say…” 

The discussion about the cross would evoke “bad associations of the time when the Communist government openly combated the cross and the Catholic Church”.22 Chrostowski did not only label the demands to relocate the cross a “fight against the cross and the Catholic Church”, but also drew a direct line between the Communists who “fought the cross” and an unnamed group who is supposedly doing the same today, thus associating “the Communists” with “the Jews”. Herewith he tied in with a very popular stereotype in Poland referred to as “Żydokomuna”: the belief that Jews are or support Communists and vice versa (see Pufelska 2007; Gross 2006: 192ff). The above-mentioned right-wing newspaper Nasz Dziennik illustrated this connection between the Communist suppression and the contemporary debate. The newspaper told a story of how in the People’s Republic the cross, which was usually antagonized, persecuted and eliminated, on the occasion of the visit of John Paul II was allowed to stand but was ordered to be destroyed immediately thereafter. “Thus the cross, already a papal cross, had to hide like a prisoner who escaped from the camp. […] After another year of hiding, when the government was very busy with itself and forgot about the cross for some time, in 1988, the papal cross came out of hiding and stood in the gravel pit which was owned by the Carmelites”.23 By anthropomorphising the cross and comparing it to a camp prisoner, the article’s author suggested that the cross was persecuted during communism in the same way as concentration camp prisoners during National Socialism, therewith also equating Nazism and Communism. Furthermore, he portrayed the cross as a resistance fighter, who sneaked out of hiding when the government was busy with the toppling of Communism. By this referential strategy the author added “historical weight” not only to the symbol but to this very concrete cross, identifying it with the fight for freedom and the suffering of the (political) camp prisoners. He integrated the story of the controversial “papal” cross into the Polish historical self-image of resistance fighters and martyrs and suggested a continual antagonism of Catholic symbols by the same people. Bishop Edward Frankowski made this connection even more explicit in his homily on Palm Sunday 1997 in Zakopane, when he said about the critics of the cross: “The people among us, who have been fighting for 50 years a perfidious battle against the nation, cry out loud. They see the cross as a symbol of bondage, intolerance, draw upon progressiveness, the European spirit, humanism and

.  Krzyż w Oświęcimiu jest – i powinien tam pozostać, Gość Niedzielny, 15.03.1998 (The Cross in Oswiecim is – and should stay there, Sunday’s Guest 15.03.1998). .  Szyderstwo z praw człowieka, Nasz Dziennik 25.10.1998 (Deriding Human Rights, Our Daily 25.10.1998).

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other frauds.”24 The Bishop suggested that those “among us” who criticise the church in the cross conflict, i.e. the Jews or their supporters, are potential “enemies of the nation”. Saying that “the people among us” criticise the Catholic Church for intolerance, and support values like “progressiveness, European spirit, humanism”, the Bishop associated the Jews and Communists with Masonry and thus complemented the picture of the “hostile other” with another popular stereotype. A reader of the Życie Warszawy openly referred to the stereotypical alliance of Jews and Communists, stating that Polish Jews would not be bothered by the crosses, unless they were Communists.25 The ultra-Catholic newspaper Word – Catholic Daily (Slowo – Dziennik Katolicki) wrote about the cross issue: “In this context one has to remember that almost 100% of the terror apparatus – the Security office and the Military Intelligence – was led by Jews between 1944 and 1956. Thousands of Polish patriots fell prey to them. […] When are the Jews going to apologise to the Poles for the crimes they committed?”26 On the occasion of the March of the Living in Auschwitz, in which thousands of people commemorated the murder of the Jews, the “defenders of the cross” hung a banner outside the fence of the gravel pit which said: “Polish Holocaust by Jews 1945–1956” (Zubrzycki 2008: 9). And Senator Józef Frączek, member of the Alternative Social Movement (Alternatywa Ruch Spoleczny) and the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) was quoted in Nasz Dziennik: “I was never able to understand why to the deeds of one side other standards are applied than to the same deeds of the other side.” He referred to a camp in Świętochłowice where a commander of Jewish origin, Salomon Morel, allegedly killed Poles. Therefore, he stated, the purge of the Communist Secret Service was equal to the Holocaust.27 Portraying Jews not only as Communists, but also as agents of the Security Service and persecutors of ethnic Poles, turns victims into perpetrators and the Poles into the only “real” victims.

.  Biskup Edward Frankowski, Polityka 18.04.1998 (Bishop Edward Frankowski, Politics 18.04.1998). .  Opinia czytelnika, Życie Warszawy 31.07.1998 (Reader’s opinion, The Life of Warsaw 31.07.1998. .  Zbigniew Lipinkski, Słowo – Dziennik Katolicki, 09.07. 1998 (Zbigniew Lipinkski, Word – Catholic Daily 09.07. 1998). .  Gwarancje dla Krzyża, Nasz Dziennik 22.04.1999 (A Guarantee for the Cross, Our Daily 22.04.1999).



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4.  Assigning blame In the course of the cross conflict many press articles and letters to the editor reflected the conviction that the whole problem at Auschwitz was caused by “the Jews” whereas “the Poles” were innocent and even accommodating. Primas Glemp stated in a declaration published on August 6th, 1998, that it would be wrong to blame the “defenders of the cross” for the conflict: “In the name of the truth one has to say that this group did not emerge out of fantasy, but because of the constantly growing pestering by Jews concerning the elimination of the cross as quickly as possible”.28 The Club of Catholic Intelligence (KIK) Poznan complained: “The behaviour of some Jewish circles who intend to remove the cross from the gravel pit takes insulting forms (…), despite the gesture of good will by the Polish episcopate to relocate the sisters in conclave close to the Auschwitz camp, and force us to take a determined stance in this question”.29 The accusation of insulting behaviour by the undefined “Jewish circles” served as a legitimisation for the Polish attitude: in face of the exorbitant behaviour of the Jews, the Poles were “forced” to act as they did. The formulation does not leave room for plurality of opinions – a homogenising “we” suggests that due to the behaviour of the others there was no other option but a “determined stance”. A reader of Zielony Sztandar accused the Jews for not being thankful enough for the help that the Poles offered them during World War II: “Currently Jews forgot how many of them owed their lives to Poles. After the war many of them held high governmental positions. As officers of the Secret Service (UB) and the prosecution they consolidated the People’s Government. Now they want to revitalise themselves and for this purpose, a ‘gescheft’ is necessary. Even at cost of those who fed them and protected them from the occupier, living in constant danger. […] And we, Poles, have to pay for ‘their’ Auschwitz and for the provocation of Kielce 1946. They raised a high price for their harm, the biological as well as the material, especially the latter”.30 This reader explained the cross conflict as an attempt of “Jews” to regain their power based on the belief in Communist

.  Wokół krzyży na żwirowisku, Polis (4) 27 1998 (Around the Crosses in the Gravel Pit, Polis (4) 27 1998). .  Oświęcimksi Krzyż pozostanie, Głos Wielkopolski 13.05.1998 (Oswiecim’s Cross will stay, The Voice of Greater Poland 13.05.1998); Oświęcimski Krzyż musi pozostać, Głos Wielkopolski 07.05.1998 (Oswiecim’s Cross must stay, The Voice of Greater Poland 07.05.1998). .  List czytelnika Romach Socha, Zielony Sztandar 28.11.1999 (Letter to the editor Romach Socha, Green Standard 28.11.1999).

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“Jewish rule” in Poland after the war. He referred to the common stereotypical linkage of “Jews” and “Jewish power” with money business and dark deeds. This reference is intensified by the use of the Yiddish word “gescheft” (business) as well as by continuing to operate with a money-connected vocabulary in the following sentences: “at cost”, “pay”, and “raised a high price”. The author further characterised two Polish memorial debates – the cross conflict and the debate about the pogrom of Kielce – as a Polish “paying” for the harm done to the Jews by Germans. Emphasising “their” Auschwitz he created an ironic undertone, indicating that in his opinion Auschwitz is not “theirs”. In this statement he presented Jews as ungrateful and ruthless money-makers who try to gain power from the Holocaust. In this discourse Jews were not only blamed for the cross conflict or for memorial debates in Poland, but also for consciously evoking anti-Semitism. A reader of the Glos Wielkopolski admonished: “I advise the Jewish circles who utter such demands to consider whether they want our Polish society to sympathise with them or are on the contrary eager to evoke anti-Semitism. And maybe there are not the Jewish circles who are very interested in that, but different political groups who try to arouse anti-Semitism for their political interests? After all it has been like this before”.31 Also using the vague term “Jewish circles” this reader assumes that the driving forces in “provoking anti-Semitism” are not the Jews themselves, but other political actors. But by not naming those actors and suggesting that they are invisible behind the visible Jews, he leaves them in a mysterious and potentially threatening darkness. The sentence “after all it has been like this before” is again a hint at conspiracy, most likely referring to the stereotypical link of Jews and Communists. Another explanation for the conflict that unburdened “the Poles” and blamed “the Jews” was the alleged Jewish inability to deal with their past: “In our opinion”, the Dziennik Zachodni wrote, “a secular Holocaust cult is emerging, which carries the extermination of the Jews out of the historical order into a metaphysical dimension. […] Such a fortified secular religion of pain and hatred is not able to deal with its tragedy and blames the whole world for the tragedy’s genesis. This is a cult, which is the literal negation of the symbol of love and expiation – the cross”.32 Here the cross conflict, or rather the “negation” of the cross, was traced back to a constructed antagonism between a “secular Holocaust religion of pain and hatred” and a Christian religion of “love and expiation”. The Dziennik Zachodni accused

.  List czytelnika K. Rybarczyk, Głos Wielkopolski 10.–11.06.1998 (Letter to the editor K. Rybarczyk, The Voice of Greater Poland 10.–11.06.1998). .  Walka na Krzyże, Dziennik Zachodni 17.08.1998 (The Fight with the Crosses, Eastern Daily 17.08.1998).



“In the name of the truth one has to say…” 

“the Jews” of blaming “the whole world” for their tragedy, implying that in fact the conflict has nothing to do with the behaviour of “the Poles” in the past or present, but has its roots solely in the Jewish inability to cope with history.33 5.  Anti-Polonism The suspicion of a hostile attitude towards Poland and Poles was and is not limited to Jews, but included everyone who criticises Poland. This Polono-centric belief in the phenomenon of “anti-Polonism” was especially displayed by Kazimierz Świtoń and the defenders of the cross, as well as by Radio Maryja and right-wing priests.34 They produced a whole conspiracy theory according to which “the Jews” wanted to rule over and destroy Poland35 and plan a Holocaust of Poles.36 Father Adolf Chojnacki preached in the gravel pit that the conflict around the crosses should draw the Poles’ attention away from the “menacing activities of foreign powers”.37 The conviction that the “world finances” were in Jewish hands, “after all no secret”,38 was often mentioned and sometimes taken for the reason why the Polish government showed so much obligingness towards Israel.

.  Similarly Senator Józef Frączek (Alternative Social Movement, Alternatywa Ruch Społeczny and Solidarity Electoral Action, AWS) warned against a Jewish attempt to replace Christian religion with the “Holocaust religion”, Zostanie tylko Krzyż papieski, Życie 23.04.1999 (Only the Papal Cross will stay, Life 23.04.1999). .  Kosynierzy na Westerplatte, Nowiny, 16.09.1998 (Scythe men at Westerplatte, News 16.09.1998). .  Za lżenie i zniewazanie, Gazeta Wyborcza 02.03.1999 (For Slander and Disrespect, Election Newspaper 02.03.1999); Polityka 19.09.1998; Postawić na swoim, Express Wieczorny 10.08.1998 (Sticking to their viewpoint, Evening Express 10.08.1998); Świtoń superstar, Trybuna 21.08.1998 (Świtoń Superstar, Tribune 21.08.1998). .  Postawić na swoim, Express Wieczorny 10.08.1998 (Sticking to their viewpoint, Evening Express 10.08.1998); Krzyż, głodówka i spisek, Kronika Beskidzka, 09.07.1998 (Cross, Hunger Strike and Conspiracy, The Beskid’s Chronicle 09.07.1998); Krzyż Kazimierza Świtonia, Życie 31.07.1998 (Kazimierz Świtoń’s Cross, Life 31.07.1998); Szaleństwo pod Krzyżem, Trybuna Śląska 30.06.1998 (Insanity under the Cross, Silesia’s Tribune 30.06.1998). .  Przybyło obrońców krzyża, Życie 07.09.1998 (The Cross Defenders came, Life 07.09.1998). .  Tolerancja tak, ale z wzajemnością, Zielony Sztandar 19.04.1998 (Tolerance, yes, but mutual, Green Standard 19.04.1998); Wojna Krzyżowa? Kronika Beskidzka, 13.08.1998 (Cross War? Beskid’s Chronicle 13.08.1998).

 Imke Hansen

But the suspicion of anti-Polish campaigns and threats was not limited to ultraright groups. The well-known intellectual and journalist Kazimierz Dziewanowski explained in The Republic (Rzeczpospolita) the background of the cross conflict: “One could have expected that sooner or later there would be an attempt to discredit Poland in the public opinion of the world; an attempt to present our country the way it had been done for many, many years: as a fanatic, intolerant country to which the values accepted in the West and by Christianity were alien, which was aggressive towards its neighbours, full of hatred towards everyone around.”39 In his further comment Dziewanowski constructed the image of a group actively trying to discredit Poland in the eyes of the world, and which was affiliated with everyone in history, who acted in an “anti-Polish” manner, naming the Tsar, Komintern, the NKWD, Stalin, the Communists and others. He held a hidden power responsible for Polish political problems throughout the 20th century including the conference of the Allies in Yalta, the pogrom of Kielce, the antagonism towards Solidarność and finally the difficulties of Poland to enter the EU and NATO. The cross conflict in turn would be another attempt in this long line of events to discredit Poland in the eyes of the world: “In order to renew in the Western and worldwide public opinion the old bias against the Poles, consolidated by many years of propaganda, facts must be created and they must be created by the Poles themselves”.40 Dziewanowski did not mention the concrete actors of the anti-Polish conspiracy and it is not even clear whom he had in mind, but his references to Communism and antagonism towards the Catholic Church may easily lead to the impression that it is “the Jews”, especially for people prone to the stereotype of “Żydokomuna”. An author of the newspaper Life (Życie) was much clearer about the people he expected anti-Polish actions from: “I know one thing – all those who defended the papal cross in the gravel pit in good faith, all those including us who only requested respect for a place where Poles died, can now be easily discredited in the eyes of the world’s opinion. As if I could already hear the triumphant voice of rabbi Weiss. As if I could already see the articles in the American and Israeli press that ascribe the defence of the cross to post-Communist provocation and the naivety of an anti-Semitic society. We are far from any conspiracy theories about heating the atmosphere or attempts to destabilise the country, but it is difficult

.  W cieniu drewnianych krzyży, Rzeczpospolita 14.–16.08.1998 (In the Shade of Wooden Crosses, Republic 14.–16.08.1998). .  W cieniu drewnianych krzyży, Rzeczpospolita 14.–16.08.1998 (In the Shade of Wooden Crosses, Republic 14.–16.08.1998).



“In the name of the truth one has to say…” 

in such a moment to resist the question concerning the passivity of government and church”.41 The author did not only assume that the people who “defended the cross” did it “in good faith”, but he constructs a contrast between the “Poles” who were defending the cross in the best intention and the malicious “Jews” represented by rabbi Weiss and the American and Israeli press, who are happy to discredit Poland as an anti-Semitic country. He intensifies this impression by the illustrative formulation “as if I could hear” respectively “as if I could see”. By bringing up the issue of conspiracy, the author was possibly hoping to make his readers give it some thought, even though he mitigated it by saying that he was far away from thinking about conspiracy.

6.  Criticising critics One cannot overlook the fact that certain opinions were broadly shared in Polish society, ranging from liberal newspapers and intellectuals to ultra-Catholic organs like Radio Maryja and radical right-wing groups. Even though the performance of the cross defenders was fiercely criticised, the erection of the cross itself received almost no criticism. Whoever questioned it made itself a target of criticism, which also bore traces of anti-Semitism. The statement of Konstanty Gebert, a Polish publicist of Jewish origin, that the cross for Jews was a symbol of their persecution in Europe was called absurd. A reader of the Voice of Greater Poland (Glos Wielkopolski) argued that Gebert’s statement casted a negative light not only on himself but Polish Jews in general and that people like him should not live in Poland.42 In projecting Gebert’s statement onto all Jews, the reader represents the conviction that “the Jews” are a homogeneous group and that the actions of one can hold for all. Another reaction to Gebert read: “To understand the sense of particular utterances is worth helping oneself with analogies. So please imagine what would happen if anyone of the serious Polish publicists publicly claimed that a Star of David insulted Catholics. So what would happen? Better not let one’s imagination run wild; it was enough to state that for the following 10 years the author of such a statement could not wash off the image of an anti-Semite, a racist sponger, fanatic

.  Świtoń i Janosz, Życie 11.08.1998 (Świtoń and Janosz, Life 11.08.1998). .  List czytelnika, Eugeniusz Goliński, Głos Wielkopolski 17.08.1998 (Letter to the editor, Eugeniusz Goliński, The Voice of Greater Poland 17.08.1998).

 Imke Hansen

and xenophobe”.43 With this statement the author did not only testify that Gebert was not a Polish publicist for him. He further referred to the argument that Poles could not act freely in the conflict because they were quickly accused anti-Semites. He intensified the result of his comparison with the repetition of the rhetorical question “So what would happen?” Similarly strong were the reactions to the statement of Jerzy Wierchowicz, chief of the Freedom Union’s Club (Klub Unii Wolności), who said that the cross should be replaced in order to achieve peace. The conflict about the cross would just wake up the “demon anti-Semitism”.44 His own party criticised him strongly45 but he received even harsher reactions from right-wing politicians46 and in letters to the editor.47 Solidarities Weekly (Tygodnik Solidarności) as a result stated: “It is not only Menachem Pinkas Joskowicz anymore who demands the removal of the papal cross from the gravel pit in Auschwitz […]. A similar dream has a leader of the parliamentary club of a certain party. Maybe SLD? A pact with the devil would fit them best. Nothing like that will happen. It is Jerzy Wierchowicz, the young star of the Freedom Union from Poznan. Obviously a six-pointed star”.48 The last examples show that keeping the big cross was almost a consensus in the discourse. Whoever considered the relocation of the “papal” cross was strongly criticised or even discriminated against and – at least by some actors – openly identified as someone from “the other side”, with interests different from those of the “Polish”. The cross discourse was perceived as a problem with two fronts: “ours”, the CatholicPolish and “the other”, the Jewish, the righteous “self ” and the malicious “alien”. 7.  Conclusion When analysing the Polish discourse about the crosses at Auschwitz, it becomes visible that the contexts in which anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements were

.  Ciepła Coca-Cola, Nowa Trybuna Opolska, 22.–23.08.1998 (Warm Coca-Cola, Opole’s New Tribune 22.–23.08.1998). .  Lepiej, żeby Polacy ustąpili, Rzeczpospolita 03.–04.07.1999 (Better if the Poles retreat, Republic 03.–04.07.1999; Wierchowicz na cenzurowanym, Rzeczpospolita 07.07.1999). .  Krzyż – problem UW, Życie 07.07.1999 (The Cross – a problem of the Liberty Union, Life 07.01.1999). .  Lepiej, żeby Polacy ustąpili, Rzeczpospolita 03.–04.07.1999 (Better if the Poles retreat, Republic 03.–04.07.1999). .  Opinia czytelnika Marian Łukaszuk, Nowa Trybuna Opolska 07.07.1999 (Reader’s opinion Marian Łukaszuk, Opole’s New Tribune 07.07.1999).. .  Gwiazda, Tygodnik Solidarności 16.07.1999 (Star, Solidarity’s Weekly 16.07.1999).



“In the name of the truth one has to say…” 

functionalised, touch upon key issues of Polish politics and society of the 1990ies. The cross conflict with all its discriminative implications served to discuss the (re) formulation of Polish national identity, but also the image of history and the way to come to terms with different pasts, the power and competence of the Catholic Church in Poland, the relationship between state, church and society, and – framed by democratic rights to participation and free speech – the handling of radical groups. All these issues result from the political change of 1989: the collapse of political and social patterns, the disruption of power structures and the democratic transition. Hence the cross discourse was part of a broad social and political process of developing new ways of handling problems, conflicts and pluralism in Poland. Anti-Semitic utterances can, therefore, partly be traced back to a lack of orientation and to feelings of insecurity, immanent in such processes, which cause a tendency to adhere to simple patterns of thinking, stereotypes and images of the enemy. Especially the discussion of national identity consisted of identifying and labelling “the other” that was most often found in the image of “the Jews”. Another aspect of anti-Semitism in the cross debate was the great sensitivity concerning national sovereignty. Criticism of the cross was often perceived as an interference with inner-Polish affairs. This sensitivity is generally traced back to Polish history and especially to the longing for sovereignty and the repeating struggles for it. However, it displays a certain attitude towards the outside world, which becomes even clearer in the context of historical continuities and antiPolonism. It is characterised by suspicion towards anyone who is not part of the ingroup and the Polono-centric conviction that there are powerful groups of people, if not nations, which consciously want to harm Poland. Anti-Semitic statements were often put in a historical context, either to emphasise an element of Polish identity, for example the close ties to Catholicism and the cross, or to define the antagonist. The latter appeared, for example, with subsuming the criticism of the cross under the stereotype of “Żydokomuna” – the conviction that Jews-Communists wanted to rule Poland – which again served the image of Poland as an innocent victim of various international deeds and actions. Furthermore, the Polish attitude in the conflict was reduced to a reaction to Jewish action or even described as “paying” for something that others had caused. This implied disencumbering of the ingroup and blaming of the outgroup, hence avoiding the recognition of one’s own mistakes. The anti-Semitic statements in the debate clearly displayed mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, defining the ingroup as Catholic, ethnic Polish and in favour of the cross and everyone else as non-Polish, if not as an enemy of Poland. Thereby the Polish “self ” was constructed very consistently, often by means of a homogeneous “we”, which gave the impression that there was only one unified Polish opinion on the cross conflict.

 Imke Hansen

This “self ” was contrasted to a vague, indefinite but definitely Jewish “they”, thus enhancing suspiciousness and coevally open to unlimited projection. Jews were not only blamed for having caused the conflict, either by their incapability to cope with their past, by developing a “secular Holocaust religion” (against which defence was imperative), or simply by their striving for power. By portraying Jews as perpetrators, for example in the context of the deeds of the Communist Security Service, their status of a victim, which is obvious in the context of Auschwitz, was mitigated. The material showed that opinions were not limited to a certain group, but that there were great similarities between statements of politicians, clerics and letters to the editor. Interestingly not only the opinions were broadly shared, but the formulations, comparisons and references were also very similar. The public debate about the crosses at Auschwitz was the first memorial discourse after the fall of Communism, which displayed such a concentration of racist and anti-Semitic statements. Even if most media approached the radical voices of cross defenders in a critical manner, they still contributed to spreading their ideas and showed that those things could be publicly uttered without sanctions.

References Bartoszewski, W.T. 1990. The Convent at Auschwitz. London: Bowerdean Press. Becker-Mrotzek, M. 1992. Diskursforschung und Kommunikation in Institutionen. Heidelberg: Groos. Bourdieu, P. 1990. Was heißt sprechen? Die Ökonomie des sprachlichen Tausches. Wien:Braumüller. Bourdieu, P. 1992. Rede und Antwort. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, P. 1993. Sozialer Sinn: Kritik der theoretischen Vernunft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Chaumont, J.M. 2001. Die Konkurrenz der Opfer. Genozid, Identität und Anerkennung. Klampen Verlag: Lüneburg. Chrostowski, W. 1991. Der Streit um das Kloster in Auschwitz, Eine Chronologie der Ereignisse 1984–1990, in: Probleme des Friedens 3–4. Foucault, M. 2001. Schriften: Dits et écrits Bd. 1 1954–1969. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Gross, J. 2001. Neighbors. The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gross, J. 2006. Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. New York: Random House. Huener, J. 2003. Auschwitz, Poland and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979. Athens: Ohio University Press. Kucia, M. & Olszewski, M. 2005. “Polska Pamiec Auschwitz”. Gazeta Wyborcza, 27.01.2005 Landwehr, A. 2008. Historische Diskursanalyse. Frankfurt/Main: Campus-Verlag. Pawlikowski, J. 1991. “The Auschwitz Convent Controversy: Mutual Misperceptions”. In Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy. C. Rittner & J. Roth (eds), 63–74. New York: Praeger.



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Pufelska, A. 2007. Die Judäokommune – ein Feindbild in Polen. Das polnischeSelbstverständnis im Schatten des Antisemitismus 1939–1948. München: Schöning. Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination. Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London: Routledge. Rittner, C. & Roth, J. (eds). 1991. Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy. New York: Praeger. Steinlauf, M. 1997. Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Walicki, A. 2006. Mesjanizm Adama Mickiewicza w perspektywie porównawczej, Warszawa: IBL PAN. Zubrzycki, G. 2008. The crosses of Auschwitz. Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sitting on the fence Identity and Polish narratives of the 1st-May celebrations Dariusz Galasiński

University of Wolverhampton

1.  Introduction During the life-span of three generations, Eastern Europe has undergone most fundamental changes in their socio-political environment. These changes affected the public definition of peoples’ identities such as their nationhood and their belonging to different state and social systems. Following the policies of perestroika and glasnost’ started by Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in mid-1980’s, in 1989 countries of Eastern Europe started undergoing dramatic political and social transformations. These processes saw not only the shift from conflictual and oppositional construction of nationhood against other countries to one focused upon collaboration and unification, but, importantly, also a significant shift in the internal public discourses. The political transformations of the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s were a passage between two opposites. Communism, or socialism as it was more often referred to in Eastern European countries, was primarily a system of political control over just about every sphere of life. Repressions against those who opposed the system (at various strengths throughout the period), strict censorship, government-controlled economy, civil liberties severely curbed, and politicisation of most spheres of life were among the often quoted characteristics of the system purporting to be the dictatorship of the proletariat. But socialism also meant a certain ease of everyday life. Guaranteed full employment and pay, free, easily accessible, and by western standards, very generous health and social security systems coupled with a single-party political system (e.g. Holmes 1997) meant that those who were not prepared to ‘rock the boat’ could go through life without taking a single difficult decision. All that mostly in exchange for not showing opposition, and sometimes for some superficial public expressions of support for example in the form of participation in socialist rituals, such as numerous (especially in the 1970s) party-sponsored occasions in honour of the party itself.

 Dariusz Galasiński

The ‘fall of the wall’ demonstrated itself not only in the increase of public and private liberties of the citizens of Czechoslovakia, Germany or Poland or the countries’ political alliances. It was also manifest in the public discourse of the countries. The media and those with a public voice relished in speaking of “returning to Europe”. New laws and new textbooks which would accommodate the new social and political realities, had to be written. Political parties had to espouse new ways of communicating with the voters. Finally, a new official national narrative had to be found. Just as socialism itself, the transformations have also had a flip side. Calling into question the comfortable political certainties and official ideologies of the Cold War and liberalisation of the economies meant significant changes in the lives of the citizens who wanted and in many cases fought for them. The mostly discursive changes have been coupled with those which, although semiotised and ideologised, can be seen as deep changes in the social fabric of the societies. State budgets could not cope with just about any significant expenditure, health and social security systems needed immediate and deep reform. Most importantly, the collapse of heavy nationalised industry meant that jobs were no longer secure and unemployment rose at a frightening rate, reaching the national rate of just under 20 per cent in Poland. The transformations have both been a significant element in people’s narratives and have had a significant impact upon how people construct themselves, their families and communities (see e.g. Meinhof & Galasiński 2002; Galasińska et al. 2002). Despite the initial enthusiasm, what happened in 1989 and later has been undergoing continual re-assessments and discursive reconstructions both in public and ‘private’ discourses, with the spectrum of evaluations moving significantly from enthusiastically positive to more problematic, grey, with negative undertones (see Burawoy & Verdery 1999). 2.  Aims and assumptions In this paper I am interested in retrospective constructions of the cores of the communist rituality, and through them the post-hoc perspective on socialism and its legacy. I shall explore the narrated experiences of the celebrations of the 1st of May, the International Workers’ Day – one of the main annual festivals in the Communist calendar in Poland, as well as in the entire Soviet bloc, with long TV transmissions of the festivities in the ‘brotherly’ capitals of Moscow, Prague, east Berlin, Sofia or Budapest. There is practically no literature on the May festivities in Poland. I have found only one research monograph devoted to the event (Sowiński 2000). The following description of the events is based on this study, and on my own experiences of May celebrations in communist Poland.



Sitting on the fence 

The festivities normally consisted of two parts. The first was a demonstration – a walk along a town’s or city’s main street. The participation in it was normally secured by more or less gentle coercion of workers, students, and pupils. Each factory, school, sports club and most other organisations had to put up a visible representation during the festivities. Lack of participation was not explicitly punished, yet it was understood that one’s career – whether at work or at school – could be hampered by not turning up at the demonstration, although, once again, this changed from more severe repressions in the 1950s to almost complete lack of them in the 1980s. Those who participated were often asked to carry banners, flags (storm flags, they were called, in direct reference to the early revolutionaries who clashed with police carrying red flags) or simply flowers. These were displayed most vigorously when the procession passed along the grandstand where the local nomenklatura were receiving the accolades. The state television had live transmissions from the demonstrations all over Poland, with most time devoted to the demonstration in Warsaw where the it was received by the members of the communist cabinet and the chiefs of the communist party, with the secretary general (in Poland, first secretary) himself. Such transmissions went on for hours taking up the morning and the best part of the afternoon on the main channel of the state television. To make sure that people did not switch over, the other – also state-run – channel (on air from about mid-1970s) would offer deliberately unattractive programming. The other part consisted of fairs, sporting or entertainment events, during which one could occasionally buy goods which were scarce in shops. The events were not politically innocent, of course. Luring with attractions (especially in provincial Poland, likely to be the main entertainment of the year) and the goods, these events enjoyed a healthy turnout. This was invariably constructed as visible and enthusiastic support for the festivities, the 1 May day and the Party, with ‘highlights’ also shown on television. Given the coercion to participate in the main events, and the political bribery to participate in the satellites, one could safely assume that without them, the festivities would not have been significantly attended. Indeed, to an extent they symbolised the mendacity of the system, boasting of support it didn’t have (e.g. Kosiński 2002). In this paper, I shall particularly be interested in the constructions of the individual’s participation in the events and demonstrate their dilemmatic nature (Billig et al. 1988), hovering between acceptance and rejection. The data comes from 30 interviews with members of three-generation families, carried out as part of two studies into constructions of cultural identities in two Polish border towns, funded by the British ESRC and the European Commission. I assume here that experience is constructed predominantly through discourse. Thus I am interested in the experience of communist festivities both at

 Dariusz Galasiński

the level of the content, but most crucially, at the level of the linguistic form. For I assume that every linguistic choice carries with it a host of assumptions, beliefs and values about the reality (see e.g. Fairclough 1992; Hodge & Kress 1993; van Dijk 1993). Thus, every representation is also a construction from a particular point of view (Simpson, 1993), with a particular position taken by the subject (Davis & Harré 1990). In the context of a research interview, when a researcher holds the role of an attentive listener and an interviewee the role of a teller, our interlocutors had a chance to give us their own accounts of their life under communism, they told us their part of their political autobiography (cf. Linde 1993). As narratives are constructive of selves (Linde 1993; Bruner 1991; Bamberg 2000; Wortham 2001; Brockmeier & Carbaugh 2001; Thornborrow & Coates 2005), I am interested in how the self is positioned in a relationship to an event which at some point negatively symbolised communism, one which does no longer happen and has undergone a very thorough re-construction in the post-1989 public discourses of Poland. Finally, I am interested in how the informants’ stories are interwoven with the socio-cultural and political-historical, as well as spatio-temporal context (see Ochs & Capps 2001; Georgakopoulou 2006). Finally, I think of identity as a discourse of (not) belonging, similarity and difference, which is continually negotiated and renegotiated within a localised social context (e.g. Barker & Galasiński 2001; Wodak et al. 1999; Meinhof & Galasiński, 2005). A continual process of becoming, it involves mutual (re-) construction of self and Other, with the Other understood as the self ’s ‘constitutive outside’ (Hall 1996). The continual re-negotiation of identity is not haphazard though. Always provisional and subject to change, it also incorporates, especially at the level of conscious identification, the relatively stable narratives and images of who and what belongs to us (especially when it comes to such constructs as the nation; see Galasińska 2006) and who and what belongs to the domain of Other (see Galasińska & Galasiński, 2003), together with relatively stable discursive resources, as Meinhof and Galasiński (2005) call them, the grammar of identity, with which identities are constructed. Thus identity-discourse also has a tendency to freeze the narratives of ourselves and the nation as well as the narrative(s) of the Other. And it is precisely this tension between provisionality and stability that, I suggest, is at stake in the extracts of interest here. I shall show that the interviewees constructed the celebrations of the 1st of May in two different spheres of life: either as a political act, or as a source of entertainment. Moreover, while the participation in the former was invariably represented as forced, with the individual being part of a larger group (company, school) in which the responsibility for taking part was not full or unique; the latter was predominantly an activity for children and narrated through their perspective. I shall



Sitting on the fence 

then relate these findings to the conflictual and dilemmatic identity the informants constructed for themselves – in which communism was never quite rejected and post-communism never quite accepted. 3.  Forced to be political As I indicated above, for the ‘person in the street’, participating in the May demonstrations was at best the necessary evil, a compromise between being absent (and risking some admittedly minor consequences of being told off at work etc.) and engaging in more serious political activity. The half-hour’s walk was a relatively small price to pay for the peace of mind and not sticking out from the crowd. Only a minority of those who demonstrated did so in order to manifest their genuine support for communism and communist authorities with enthusiasm and zeal. Now, with this and the fact that communism collapsed in mind, one can assume that a straightforward unequivocal admission to participating in May demonstrations is unlikely to be a desirable description of oneself. And indeed, the informants constructed their participation as forced, outside their agency. Consider the following extracts:

(1) AJ, male, oldest generation

AJ: well, this, I once had something like that, because I worked in this block, and they allocated a storm flag with me I: and? AJ: and what? I am standing in this line and what shall I come up with? I said I had a stomach ache. That I have to leave, so she made me give the storm flag to a colleague – I gave. If I had gone home, not stood there, it would have worked out. They went in the demonstration, I was sitting on the side. The following day, onto the carpet.. (…) I: so people didn’t want to participate? AJ: no, I didn’t take part because it was a lie, it was a lie, it is and will still be a lie.

(2) LK, female, middle generation

I: Do you remember [it]? LK: an obligation in school [laughter], at work that the manager will take the bonus away. (…) LK: and when I was the leader of the trade unions, later on I was the chairperson of the workers’ council, so even more so, I ought to set example oughtn’t I?

 Dariusz Galasiński

It is both the contents of both speakers’ utterances as well their agency structures that construct the obligation to take part in the 1 May demonstrations. In fact, they never position themselves as agents in any activity related to the participation. AJ’s account makes a link between working somewhere and the fact that he was given a storm flag, but the account in which he constructs himself as the agent (i.e. someone who is unfettered in her/his actions) is related to his getting out of the demonstration. The demonstration and its management are so much outside his agency that even the handing over of the flag is mediated via the manager’s instruction. In fact, only a few moves later, he explicitly denies participating in the demonstrations and I read it not as much as contradictory to what he said previously, but, rather, as a denial of his willing participation. His participation was forced and as such it did not count. LK, on the other hand, positions the participation in the demonstration as under threat from the manager who might punish non-compliance by withholding her bonus. Also LK’s final move, spoken sarcastically, constructs her under some ‘higher’ obligation to take part in the demonstration, because of her rank in company. Such constructions are quite typical. The informants never participated in the 1-May demonstrations – as political acts, at least of their own will, willingly supporting the communist party or its local dignitaries. But, there were informants who simply stated that they had taken part in the demonstrations. But this time, they constructed the participation as entertainment, rather than a political act. Witness:

(3) IK, female, oldest generation

I: did you go? IK: sure. I: yes? IK: I went with my company. In any case I worked and went persistently because I worked in the council. I always went. But it was nice, it was fun.

This determined participant in the 1 May demonstration constructs them as fun, as an opportunity to have a laugh, rather than as a political act of any sort. Thus, even though IK constructs herself as an agent, someone who has taken a conscious decision to take part in the demonstration, she also signals that the ultimate reason for demonstrating was not political affiliation. But also here the speaker’s agency is somewhat weakened by the reference to her role in a council (probably a reference to one of the higher ranking institutions in the local authority), a position requiring her to show the right ‘political spine’.



Sitting on the fence 

4.  Having fun IK’s reference to the ludic aspect of the 1 May festivities is the other aspect of the narratives under consideration here. As I mentioned above, the political celebrations of the 1 May were also accompanied by a number of events aiming to entertain or provide people with special opportunities to buy goods. The informants not only confirmed participation in those events, but, in fact their participation was willing and rather enthusiastic. At the same time, they are constructed as just about completely apolitical.

(4) IW, male, middle generation

IW: in this town, quite sleepy, there was some life then. A few sports event, cars with drinks, with food at the culture centre, there was entertainment. Sportspeople went on the platforms, boxers, military clubs usually, and something was happening. So, my wife laughs till today, that I [went] to 1 May. But I liked it, when I was a child. Because a lot then and various sporting events, at the swimming pool, in the park everywhere, bike races or something you know, one took part in. something somehow was going on.

(5) MF, female, youngest generation

MF: one went with the family. Because on 1 May one didn’t go to school then, it was a holiday. But no, one just went, it was a free day so one went for a walk, and at the same time one watched something like this [referring to the photograph], but I can’t remember that we went with a group or school or nursery. Perhaps in nursery, but I can’t remember.

What is particularly interesting in these extracts is the level of generality in terms of which the speakers construct the ludic events of the 1 May celebration. IW positions the festivities as just about coming out of thin air. There is no suggestion of who might have been the organiser, what was the ‘allegiance’ of the events. Any possible agency responsible for the organisation of ludic 1 May is absent from the narrative. Rather, it is the special aspect of the festival that is stressed – by the initial repetition of jakaś (‘some’) he stresses the contrast between the events and the sleepiness of the town without them. Whatever they were – at least they introduced some life, excitement. In events so constructed, the participation can be a general social rule. The impersonal form of the verb suggests commonality of the practice. This form is also used by MF, who positions the family participation in the festivities as a dominant practice. This is particularly interesting as MF is too young to remember the practice itself well, so she is more than likely to draw upon family and other social discursive resources of the May celebrations.

 Dariusz Galasiński

Both speakers talk about the festivities in terms of their general public uptake – everybody went, everybody took part. There is no suggestion of any obligation or being forced to take part. On the contrary, by positioning the events as ‘descending’ on the sleepy town, IW constructs them almost as something like a deus ex machina for the benefit of the people. A troupe of artists who will entertain everybody. But then perhaps both speakers are somewhat aware of the potential compromise they were making in attending the 1 May celebrations – after all there was never any doubt that the festivities were organised as accompanying the political demonstrations precisely to lure people out of their houses, so later the stateowned television could show people’s support for the authorities. So they both take on the explicit perspective of a child It seems that the child’s innocence and lack of political awareness might stave off any potential criticism of compromise. Indeed when IW talks about his wife laughing at him for taking part, he justifies it by saying that he was a child. It was innocent fun. This unease with the festivities is also manifested, albeit only slightly. MF undermines the participation in the events. The enthusiastic participation from the beginning of the extract is transformed into strolls and mere observation. The 1 May was just a day when one didn’t work (just like any other), and it was because of this that one went for a stroll. 5.  May identities To sum up the argument so far. Our informants’ narratives of the 1 May celebrations are ambivalent – they hover between their rejection and (uneasy) acceptance. They are rejected on the political level – with people’s participation constructed as forced, it is their ludic aspect which is accepted, albeit somewhat uneasily; they are accepted for the entertainment they provided to the sleepy Polish border town. What I would like to argue now is that such ambivalence requires a certain type of identity work. Now, throughout the corpus the informants’ narratives of 1 May are told with the subject positions of a group. The speakers do not construct themselves as individuals taking part forcibly or not in the celebrations. They invariably position themselves as part of a group. They went to the demonstrations as part of their company, sports club, organisation or the like, moreover, they had never gone on their own accord. In such a way the participation might have been forced, they might not have been opposed it, but at least they were not on their own. They were like others. In other words, I think the informants take up identities strategically, as a means of negotiating the socially difficult narrative of the 1 May demonstrations.



Sitting on the fence 

The identity also allows them to save their face and not show themselves as too compromise-prone. The here-and-now of identity is interweaved with the metanarratives of communism and within them those of 1 May and the social discourses associated with them. The ambivalence of the communist reality seems to be mirrored in the strategic assumption of identities which allow for the dissolution of responsibility – be it as part of a group, with others, or as a child. The identities our informants adopted allowed for them not to construct themselves as taking a decision themselves and for themselves. Furthermore, there seems to be a dialectic relationship between the identities and the narratives of the speakers. On the one hand, the identities – apart from giving the speakers the desired subject position – are enabling with regard to the narratives. It is probably thanks to those identities that the narratives are possible, or at least possible in such forms. But on the other hand, the narratives open certain positions for identities, positions which are socially possible, desirable or acceptable. As much as a certain narrative has social consequences, or, one could say, it is context-renewing in a greater or lesser degree, the subject position from which it is told makes its social dimension more or less acceptable. The fluidity and provisionality of identity might in fact be more constrained, restricted and socially determined than normally assumed in within discourse and cultural studies. And the dialectic of global and local in identity construction might be much tighter than commonly assumed. 6.  Mirror realities But this ambivalent attitude towards the celebrations of the 1 May, just about the epitome of the communist propaganda, is surprising. The rejection of the political act and acceptance, even if somewhat uneasy, of the ludic 1 May cannot be easily squared with the grey reality of the communist period. The fairs and festivals of communist ‘greyness’ (Polish szarzyzna was often used in reference to the world under communism) cannot possibly compete with the full shops of capitalism, the colourful advertisements, various forms of entertainment in the media. Indeed, one of the dominant popular narratives of communist reality was that of its dullness, greyness, unattractiveness in comparison with the Western world of capitalism. It would seem therefore, that the ludic aspect of the 1 May celebrations should also be rejected. There simply cannot be a comparison between free-market festivities with the coarseness of a fair at which some shortage-prone goods are sold from the top of a lorry. Things however are more complicated and it seems that the reality of postcommunism re-wrote some of the narratives of comparison. What I would like to

 Dariusz Galasiński

argue now is that the ambivalent narratives of the 1 May celebrations mirror the ambivalent narratives of the today’s reality, that of post-communism. Witness the following extracts:

(6) IK, female, oldest generation

IK: there was more fun, much more fun than today. Even round the house, neighbours would sit down and you would talk what happened on the day or something, and what you would be doing. Or from your garden you would talk. There is no such thing today.

(7) RF, female, oldest generation

RF.With the youth, with the youth, I’ll tell you frankly, the youth used to have more to do, and they didn’t; have the time to mess around as they do now. Even here, in our street. They sit down on these, because they have nowhere to go, nowhere, a disco, if he goes to a disco there are always fights, always something, never peacefully.

In the narratives of our informants, post-communism has removed both the safe entertainment for all (the narratives of lack of personal safety and huge rise in crime after the fall of communism was one of the informants’ dominant narratives), but it also removed the sense of community people enjoyed in the communist period. But these narratives are very easily seen in those which I have already analysed. The situation is diagnosed explicitly in the following extract:

(8) ER, female, middle generation

ER: How can we talk about safety, that’s why there is no safety, anywhere, but I have observed it, and it hurts that simply there should be increased patrols, more of it all. I: hy is it like that? ER: it’s unemployment rising, unemployment, unemployment, unemployment on end (…).

The diagnosis is quite explicit in blaming unemployment for the situation outside work. The personal security of the informant is threatened because people have not got jobs. The post-communist reality is far from bright. If, moreover, work is seen as the cornerstone of life, lack of it means lack of fulfilment, lower selfesteem, someone without work is just about not a real full person. Unemployment is shameful (our informants have talked about people not claiming their benefits because they are ashamed not to have work, unquoted here).



Sitting on the fence 

The colourful reality of capitalism is summed up like this:

(9) LK, female, middle generation

LK: now we have full shelves, but so what if factories are falling apart, the matter is settled. The wages we had three four years ago, we have half of it now.

The collapse of communism, as coveted as it was, appears much more problematic than the unequivocal support for people’s personal liberties. On the other hand, the narratives of the 1 May celebrations refer to the Polish communism of the 1970s. This was the time of relative prosperity (mostly resulting form the crippling debts the Polish government took out with foreign governments and banks) and introduction of some political ‘slack’ into the system. Western films were shown on television and in cinemas, political jokes were told openly (with some rumours that most of them were actually invented by the communist authorities as a ‘safety valve’ for venting off any dissatisfaction), permissions to go abroad outside the Soviet bloc were given. All this is coupled with almost guaranteed employment and almost complete job security. One could almost go through life with the state taking all the important decisions. And this is the period of Polish communism the narratives refer to. 1980s and the rise and fall of the Solidarity movement not only stopped the ‘fun’ part of May celebrations (for fear of anti-communist disturbances), but they also introduced the need to take a stance. The events of the martial law introduced in 1981 showed a much more dangerous face of communism and the need to take a stance was even more pressing. Moreover, the communism of the 1980s took away the stability introduced by the previous decade, and demanded choice from people, be it whether or not to go to the 1 May demonstration – an act not so compulsory then. The ‘velvet revolution’ in Poland, 1989 and its aftermath introduced a very different reality in which Poles were supposed to find themselves with. As the initial enthusiasm wore off, the new life was getting more and more ambivalent. The image that looms from the data reflects that. The hated communism stopped being so hated, the coveted capitalism stopped being so coveted. 7.  The post-communist dilemmas Now, autobiographies are not stories which merely develop over time, they are, in fact, stories which are malleable, socially-situated and fit for the context in which they are told. They are not so much an ‘accurate’ account of one’s life, rather they are an account which is most congruent with the current view one’s self. (Barclay & DeCooke 1988; also Misztal 2003). Rubin (1988) makes the point most forcefully,

 Dariusz Galasiński

pointing out that autobiography is a much more creative process of constructing, rather than merely reproducing (also Brockmeier 2000). The past is not something fixed and stable, but, rather, it is a resource which is continually framed and reframed from the point of view of the person’s current concerns and relevancies (see also Mischler 2006). The personal narratives of the involvement of the informants in ‘macro-history’ show a juncture which is not yet resolved. They show the past and the present realities in dilemmatic terms. The narratives are underpinned by contradictory and incoherent views of the May festivities and the speakers’ own participation in them. In other words, the narratives of my informants contain opposing views implicitly sitting next to each other. As Marody (1991) argues, as much as communism does not exist in the political sphere, it still exists in people’s lives, their expectations and reactions to social realities. These ‘ideological dilemmas’ (Billig et al. 1988) within the corpus show the difficulty the speakers have coping with, and thus narrating it and giving it meaning (Meinhof 1997). The first dilemma is that between not wanting to go to and be associated with the obviously politicised demonstrations, and yet going with the flow, not standing up to oppression. But then the discursive form implicitly provides the solution: being part of a group, doing things like others do, not standing out in the crowd. The second dilemma is that between enjoying oneself and participating at politically motivated entertainment events. The solution seems to be the identity of child, innocence, simplicity, seeing the world without complexities. Interestingly, the two dilemmas are solved by subject positions taken up by the informants. But they are not a solution in the sense that they offer a way forward out of the dilemma. In that sense, they are not resolvable – after all, they concern the past. Rather, then, the positions the speakers take make the dilemmas irrelevant. The dilemmas do not need to be resolved any more, as they do not pertain the realm in which (adult) individuals operate. Moreover, the identities that serve in the resolution of the dilemmas facing the speaker cannot be seen only as locally constructed discourses, but also, importantly, as underpinned by the spaces allowed by the discourses used to describe the social and political realities. The concerns of the local context seem to be juxtaposed with the concerns of the political macro-discourse. Identity seems to be a negotiation of discourses at two levels – the micro-level of the interview situation and macro-level of the political narrative of the present or the past. Finally, the identity-strategies adopted in the narratives of the past seem to have an anchoring in the narratives of the present. What is particularly interesting in the narratives in point here is that the construction of the past experience is parallel with the construction of the experience of the present. One cannot, it



Sitting on the fence 

seems, understand the narratives of the past without insight into the narratives of the present. The study of the discourses of post-communism cannot, it seems, not involve studying those of communism.

References Bamberg, M. (ed.). 2000. “Narrative Identity.” Narrative Inquiry 10 (1). Special Issue. Barclay, C.R. & DeCooke, P.A. 1988. “Ordinary everyday memories: some of the things of which selves are made.” In Remebering Reconsidered, U. Neisser, & E. Winograd (eds), 91–126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barker, C. & Galasiński, D. 2001. Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis: A Dialogue on Language and Identity. London: Sage. Billig, M, Condor, S., Edwards, D., Gane, M., Middleton, D., & Radley, A.R. 1988. Ideological Dilemmas. London: Sage. Brockmeier, J. 2000. “Autobiographical time.” Narrative Inquiry 10 (1): 51–73. Brockmeier, J. & Carbaugh, D. (eds). 2001. Narrative and Identity: Studies in Autobiography, Self and Culture. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bruner, J. 1991. “ The narrative construction of reality.” Critical Inquiry 18: 1–21. Burawoy, M. & Verdery, K. 1999. Uncertain Transition. Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC. Davies, B. & Harré, R. 1990. “Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20 (1): 43–63. Fairclough, N. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Oxford: Polity Press. Galasińska, A. & Galasiński, D. 2003. “Discursive strategies for coping with sensitive topics of the Other.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 29 (5): 849–863. Galasińska, A., Rollo, C. & Meinhof, U.H. 2002. “Urban Space and the Construction of Identity on the German-Polish Border.” In Living (with) Borders. Identity Discourses on East-West Borders in Europe, U.H. Meinhof (ed.), 119–139. Aldershot: Ashgate. Galasińska, A. 2006. “Border ethnography and post-communist discourses of nationality in Poland.” Discourse & Society 17 (5): 609–626. Georgakopoulou, A. 2006. “The other side of the story: towards a narrative analysis of narrative-ininteraction.” Discourse Studies 8 (2): 265–287. Hall, S. 1996. “The Problem of Ideology. Marxism without Guarantees.” In Stuart Hall Critical dialogues in Cultural Studies, D. Morley & K.H. Chen (eds), 25–46. London: Routledge. Hodge, R. & Kress, G. 1993. Language as Ideology. London: Routledge. Holmes, L. 1997. Post-communism: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kosiński, K. 2002. Nastolatki ‘81. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio. Linde, C. 1993. Life stories: The creation of coherence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marody, M. 1991. “System realnego socjalizmu w jednostkach.” In Co nam zostało z tych lat… Społeczeństwo polskie u progu zmiany systemowej, M. Marody (ed.), 253–268. Londyn: Wydawnictwo Aneks. Meinhof, U.H. 1997. “The most important event of my life. A comparison of male and female written narratives.” In Language and Masculinity, S. Johnson & U.H. Meinhof (eds), 208–228. Oxford: Blackwell.

 Dariusz Galasiński Meinhof, U.H. & Galasiński, D. 2002. “Reconfiguring East-West identities: cross-generational discourses in German and Polish border communities.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28: 163–82. Meinhof, U.H. & Galasiński, D. 2005. The Language of Belonging. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Mischler, E. 2006. “Narrative identity: the double arrow of time.” In Discourse and Identity, A. De Fina, D. Schiffrin & M. Bamberg (eds), 30–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Misztal, B. 2003. Theories of Social Remembering. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Ochs, E. & Capps, L. 2001. Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rubin, D.C. (ed.). 1988. Autobiographical Memory. Cambrigde: Cambridge University Press. Simpson, P. 1993. Language, Ideology and Point of View. London: Routledge. Sowiński, P. 2000. Komunistyczne Święto. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio. Thornborrow, J. & Coates, J. (eds). 2005. The sociolinguistics of narrative: Theory, context and culture in oral story-telling. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. van Dijk, T.A. 1993. “Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis.” Discourse & Society 4: 249–283. Wodak, R. Cillia, R. de, Reisigl, M . & Liebhart, K. 1999. The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wortham, S. 2001. Narratives in Action. New York: Teachers College Columbia Press.

part ii

Mentors and mediators

Denying the right to speak in public Sexist and homophobic discourses in post-1989 Poland Natalia Krzyżanowska

The Poznań University of Economics

1.  Women and homosexuals as the other of the Polish public sphere What social categories such as ‘women’, ‘lesbians’ or ‘gay/homosexual men’ have in common is their generally very limited access to the major areas of the Polish public sphere. Voices and activities of those groups are also gradually becoming less audible and visible in the Polish public domain. Their public audibility, as well as visibility, could enable those social actors to articulate their viewpoints as well as to point to those mechanisms in the broader society which to date hinder or, in fact, eliminate them from a proper functioning within the non-private domains. Such public articulation of their postulates could also help convince the broader society to undertake change in many of its key areas. However, recent national debates about the social ‘other’ – women and gay people alike – in the context of ant-discrimination laws, same-sex marriages or improving gender equality (incl. the idea of ‘parity’ in the political domain, etc.) – have shown, Polish society as well as Poland’s state and legal system are indeed far from acknowledging even some of the basic rights of the aforementioned groups. This chapter aims to point to the major problems encountered in the Polish public sphere by its standard other – mainly women, including lesbians, and homosexual men. The major aim of the article is to show how/where those other are positioned in the Poland’s post-1989 transforming public sphere. The chapter also explores how the public visibility and audibility of the ‘other’ is consequently disallowed or diminished with the key ‘symbolic’ representatives of the suppressed categories pushed regularly into the (disrespected) private domains of the society. Presented below, an in-depth analysis of the discourses surrounding the SexAffair or the Jobs-for-Sex-Scandal in the Polish left-wing populist Samoobrona (Self-Defence) party (cf. below, for details), provides a very good example of the widespread approach to women as standard others of the polish public sphere. As it is argued, homosexual men and women are positioned in the Poland’s public domain in a largely very similar way to women at large. Hence, the key highlighted

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

macro-strategies – of trivialisation, victimisation and denial – of press discourse about the Sex-Affair in Samoobrona are not only typical for Polish public discourses about women (and their role in society) but are also very similar to the framing of gay and lesbian people in Polish homophobic discourses.1 Drawing on the example of discourse about the Sex-Affair in Samoobrona, I would like to show how the problem of women’s accidental presence in the polish public sphere is depicted in viewpoints on, and commentaries about, that event. Further, I would also like to point out that, if/when intensified, mechanisms which disfavour women in the public sphere are often used with reference to homosexual men, and in particular lesbians. The latter are affected by what can be termed as double public absence: lesbians are not only affected by the public exclusion towards them as women but also by the often explicit fortification of that exclusion by the particularly prominent homophobic arguments. As many representatives of the female homosexual community suggest (cf. Mazur 2009), lesbian relationships are never in the spotlight of the broader public, with even the aggressive homophobic arguments – expressed by the anti-gay activists against Poland’s annual Equality Parades (Parady Równości) – often expressed only against gay men. While lesbians are working actively towards improving their public visibility in Poland – by means of internet sites,2 publications3 or other outlets – their public .  Victimisation is the most ‘friendly’ macro-strategy framing the representations of gay and lesbian people. However, this strategy also causes that gay and lesbian people are not perceived as ‘one of us’ but as Others who are ‘weaker’, ‘inept’ and ‘oversensitive’ (cf. Osęka, 2002 who describes in such terms gay people who became successful despite their ‘oversensitivity’). Then, the macro-strategy of trivialisation is often used in the Polish media to ridicule gay people and to juxtapose their ‘perverse’ claims with serious events of real value. For example, in ND (cf. Czachorowski, 2009), we read that the liberal government causes for “all signs of Corpus Christi processions to be wiped out by the parade of sodomites” [“skrzętnie zatrze ślady po Bożym Ciele, aby przetoczyła się po ulicach parada sodomitów”]. Thus, we encounter a juxtaposition of ‘holy’ events (the annual Corpus Christi processions) with the unholy ‘parade of madman’, who, led only by the values of promiscuity and sexual freedom, should not be the part of the public sphere. Finally, the macro-strategy of denial is used in a dual way and portrays homosexuality either as ‘a disease’ (which, effectively, should be ‘cured’) or as a ‘perversion’ (which effectively must be ‘punished’). In any case, that strategy helps arguing that gay rights are not among democratic rights and thus should not be debated in public. In Polish, the macro-strategy of denial is also visible in the semantic differentiation between a homosexual (‘homoseksualista’) and a gay (‘gej’). Whereas a homosexual should be confined to the private domain (and thus tolerated, perhaps comforted or cured), a gay should be refused any public rights (since – most usually – he is a pervert and only a copy of Western gay people; cf. Ziemkiewicz, 2003). .  The most widely known such internet sites are http://kobiety-kobietom.com or www.lesbijka.org. .  The most widely known publication on the situation of lesbians in Poland is ‘Girls come out from the closet’ [“Dziewczyny wyjdźcie z szafy”] by Anna Laszuk (2006). The closet is used



Denying the right to speak in public 

absence is still a case of a norm, even quite paradoxically, within the gay community (where lesbians are treated as women) and within the feminist groups (where they are allocated at the homosexual margin). There are also no recognisable public figures among the lesbian community.4 At the same time, gay men are much more recognised in the Polish public sphere, not only due to their eagerly mediatised clashes with opponents of the Equality Parades,5 but also due to the high public visibility of several gay celebrities (writer Michał Witkowski, stylist Tomasz Jacyków, dancer and choreographer Michał Piróg, or the widely recognised gay couple Tomasz Raczek and Mariusz Szczygielski, who received the 2008 ‘Couple of the Year’ award).6 2.  The public sphere According to Turowski (1992: 13)7 “Many authors consider ‘public’ not only what refers to the common good of all but also to actions which contribute to that good as well as the public participation in such actions. They write about ‘the public sphere’ or about ‘the sphere of public life’. They describe the functioning of broader social groups, of the state, of the global society and public’s participation therein”.

Some approaches, such as those by Sennett, see ‘public’ as “the political life in a given society, i.e. extra-family social structures and their functioning” (Sennett 1986, quoted in Turowski 1992: 16). On the other hand, the Habermassian view of the public sphere sees it “as a sphere between civil society and the state in which a

in the study as a metaphor of life in hiding which conceals the relationships between women. The general invisibility of lesbian relationships in the public sphere in Poland has further legal implications for their status (e.g. lack of joint health insurance or inheritance rights, lack of possibility to be treated publically as a couple, etc.). .  In Poland, there are very few widely-recognised lesbian personalities or couples of comparable media status to, e.g. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi in the USA. .  The first in Poland and by now the almost unique court sentence for actions against gay and lesvian homosexual people was issued in Szczecin (north-western Poland) in August 2009. The court sentenced a 44-year-old woman from Wolin to a 15 thousand PLN fine as a punishment for public defamation and stalking and of a gay couple from her neighbourhood. .  Raczek and Szczygielski received the award in 2008. The recipients of the award are chosen by the readers of the (mostly women-oriented) monthly ‘Gala’. Against many protests and objections, including by Sławomir Siwek (the then president of the Polish national public broadcaster TVP), the award ceremony was broadcast live in a nationwide public TV channel. .  All translations from works and extracts published originally in Polish are mine.

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

critical public discussion on matters of general interest is guaranteed” (McCarthy 1999: xi; Habermas 2007:  98; cf. also Habermas 1992).8 The multitude of such public discussions links directly to Habermas’ idea of democracy which is seen as “a modus of historical consciousness: its openness towards discourse, its multiperspectivity, its pluralism, and its recognition for its receivers and their multiple aims” (Ziółkowski 2001: 84). Whereas the fact that women encounter many problems in the labour market has been discussed widely,9 their absence from the Polish public sphere, and especially from politics, has been even more apparent and even more tacitly accepted.10 As argued by Siemińska “as long as there exists some acceptance towards women as potential breadwinners whose income is indispensable to families’ wellbeing, there is a widespread unease and hostility towards allowing women to hold power”.11 Women’s low participation in the Polish public sphere is even more undeserved providing their pivotal role in the strive for Poland’s independence before 1989, be it as co-founders of the Solidarność, as key members of the Polish underground opposition, or as main editors of key samizdat publications and periodicals (Kondratowicz 2001). As it seems, the women’s contribution to the eventual system transformation in late 1980s and early 1990s is silenced and omitted in many publications or reports which focus on ‘key figures’ of the independence movement. Women, quite paradoxically, are never or very rarely among those key figures. Such a perception of the Polish system transformation is not only characteristic for male but also female authors as in, for examples, Jankowska’s (2003) extensive interviews with key fifteen pre-1989 opposition leaders (unfortunately, all male). As far as gays and lesbians are concerned, the situation seems to be quite parallel if not the same. Whereas the opponents of the so-called ‘promotion of homosexuality’ (a slogan used widely in Polish politics and the media) consequently argue that they do not have anything against homosexuality in private, they persistently oppose any displays of homosexuality in the public domain including the media, the city spaces (exhibitions ‘Let us be seen’ [Niech nas zobaczą], annual Equality Parades) or in art galleries.

.  For the related, media-centred conceptions of the public sphere in Europe inspired by Habermas, cf. Krzyżanowski (2009) or Krzyżanowski, Triandafyllidou and Wodak (2009). .  Cf., inter alia, Titkow (2003), Domański (2002) or Pringle (1994). .  This phenomenon is described at length by, inter alia, Graff (2001), Montgomery and Matland (2003), Siemińska (2005) or Fuszara (2006). .  Quoted from a report on European Parliamentary elections published at www.oska.org. pl/ep in July 2004.



Denying the right to speak in public 

Hence, both women and homosexuals must face many obstacles towards or, in fact, fight for their right to be seen and heard in the Polish public sphere.12 Their common struggle for visibility and recognition of many common postulates is well depicted through the actions of the Manifa, the annual demonstration organised jointly by the Association for Women March 8th (Stowarzyszenie Kobiet 8 marca) and Campaign against Homophobia in Poland (Kampania Przeciw Homofobii w Polsce). Sadly, despite its growing attractiveness for the media, Manifa has not so far caused any legal changes nor contributed to the increase of the number of women among the figures who influence Polish socio-political reality (cf. also below). Women are largely absent from, and definitely invisible in, the key democratic processes in Poland, where allegedly all candidates have equal chances. We rarely hear or see women in the context of parliamentary elections (be it at the national or European level) where they tend to be marginalised and to receive less favourable places on the electoral lists or far worse campaign support. One reason for such a situation might be the widespread (post-transformation) perception of politics as a field of hard struggle where (the apparently weak) women do not belong. Similarly to (hetero- and homosexual) women, gay men are also excluded from democratic processes where ‘the true men’, also to protect their image, are reluctant (at best) to compete with homosexual candidates perceived as ‘weaker’ and ‘not fit’ for the harsh political competition. Paradoxically, the roots of such ways of thinking, particularly with regard to women (as emphasised in many instances of social research and election results), date back to Antiquity and to the Aristotelian thought. In the latter, the public domain (agora) was seen as reserved solely for men, whereas women – similarly to slaves – were supposed to be confined only to the private areas of life (Aristotle 2001: 43). Particularly in the light of the aforementioned ‘acceptance’ of homosexuality in the private domain only, such a vision of social order (still widespread today) seems to be at the basis of social status-quo which restricts women and gay people (male and female alike) into the private sphere. The highly unequal Aristotelian perception of the public sphere has been contested by many of its modern theoreticians such as Arendt (2000) or Habermas (1992 and 2007). Looking for the sources of the “patriarchal character of the public sphere itself ” Habermas points to the projection of the relationships of the small family model onto the public domain (cf. Habermas 2007: 10, 97), yet and points to the necessity of changing such status quo. As he argues, “the public sphere is

.  Indicated by, inter alia, Fuszara (2006) or Siemińska (2005), the absence of women from the Polish public sphere has also become apparent in the research on the first Polish electoral campaign to the European Parliament in 2004 (cf. Krzyżanowska, 2006).

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

articulated in discourses joined by (…) the feminist movement in order to effectively change those discourses – as well as structures of the public sphere itself – from inside” (ibid.: 13). It seems that the array of movements which, while joining discourses of the public sphere can also change from inside its structures, includes not only feminist movements as such but also the homo- and bi-sexual LGBT activists whose goals are in accordance with the so-called third wave of feminism. The latter started in the USA with the so called gender quake (the 1991 argument between Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, cf. Wolf 1993: 6). As argued by many feminist activists and as emphasised through many quasinegative reactions to the scandal, it seems that the Polish gender quake has been caused the Sex-Affair in Samoobrona. The analysis of media discourse about the Sex-Affair is guided by the conviction that “the media can, through means of presentation and ways of their analysis, influence the ways of seeing the worlds and, by informing, they can become elements of educating and thus of breaking or reinforcing divisions between people” (Kevin 2003:  35). Hence, looking for the reasons of women’s limited participation in the public sphere, I am looking for strategies and ways of constructing the image of women in public discourse on the example of discourses about the Sex-Affair in Polish key dailies incl. the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, the left Trybuna and the conservative-right Nasz Dziennik. 3.  The Sex-Affair in Samoobrona The Sex-Affair became public in the late 2006, at the time when the populist-left Samoobrona was a member of the government coalition led by the populist-right ‘Law and Justice Party’ (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) supplemented by the radical right ‘League of the Polish Families’ (Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR). At that time, Jarosław Kaczyński (PiS) acted as the prime minister with deputy prime-ministerial posts held by Andrzej Lepper (Samoobrona) and Roman Giertych (LPR). On December 4th, 2006 a set of materials gathered by investigative journalists – most notably by Marcin Kącki – was published in the Polish key liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza (GW). On that day, a GW supplement featured a report entitled “Jobs for Sex in Samoobrona” (Praca za seks w Samoobronie) which accused the Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper, and his deputy Stanisław Łyżwiński, of sexual harassment towards female members of the party and of offering jobs in the party’s field offices in exchange for sex. Based on the materials published in GW, a state prosecution against Lepper and Łyżwiński is initiated on the same day. On December 5th, 2006, the central figure of the Sex-Affair Aneta Krawczyk (at that time known to the public as Aneta K.) – a former employee of one of Samoobrona’s field offices in central Poland – declared that Łyżwiński was the father of her daughter. Łyżwiński denied those allegations and underwent a DNA test on



Denying the right to speak in public 

December 9th. After a few days, on December 11th, the results of the tests denying Krawczyk’s earlier claims (and Łyżwiński’s fatherhood of Krawczyk’s child) were made public. On the very same day, Samoobrona informs the national intelligence and security agency (ABW, entrusted with the aim of ‘preventing crimes against the Polish state’) about the attempted coup d’état by claiming that the actions of Krawczyk were not against Lepper’s party but against stability of the Polish government and the state system as a whole. On December 14th, 2006, another set of allegations against Samoobrona became public when it was revealed that Łyżwiński’s personal assistant was trying to bribe and threaten some of the witnesses crucial to the state prosecution against Lepper and Łyżwiński initiated earlier in December. While Lepper expelled Łyżwiński from the party on the very same day, another Samoobrona activist subsequently came forward and testified about several further instances of sexual harassment in the party. Until December 15th, the state prosecution received testimonies of over fifty witnesses including eight women who were sexually harassed. In August 2007, Polish Sejm (lower chamber of parliament) deprived Łyżwiński of his parliamentary immunity. Łyżwiński was subsequently arrested on several charges including rape, sexual harassment and instigating a kidnapping. In February 2008, after over fourteen months of investigation, the prosecution office in Piotrków Trybunalski received the prosecution documents which proved all the earlier harassment statements against Łyżwiński and Lepper, by both Aneta K. and other female activists of Samoobrona (cf. Kącki 2008). However, despite all of her allegations proving right, Aneta K. remained untrustworthy in the public eye as she did not know who the father of her child was (cf. also Mrozik 2007).

4.  Analysis 4.1  Description of the empirical material The articles put under analysis are stemming from three key Polish newspapers representing different viewpoints and ideological positions. Those newspapers include: –– Gazeta Wyborcza (GW), Poland’s most widely read newspaper of central-liberal orientation. GW was founded in 1989 as the main daily newspaper of the dissident movement and is headed ever since by one of the pre-1989 opposition leaders Adam Michnik and retains an intellectual orientation. –– Trybuna (TR) which, founded in mid 1940s (then as Trybuna Ludu), was until 1990 the key daily newspaper of the Polish Communist Party (PZPR). After 1990, TR retained its clearly leftist and most commonly anti-establishment orientation though its readership declined very radically, particularly as of

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

mid 2000s (with the departure of the last former-communist politicians from key positions in the left parties). –– Nasz Dziennik (ND) a radical-right daily published since 1998 and known from its nationalist and, inter alia, strong anti-Semitic opinions. The newspaper is owned by and associated with the equally radical nationalist-Catholic Radio Maryja, whose (mostly elderly and lower-educated) listeners are also among the key devoted readers of ND. The analysed articles from GW, TR and ND (cf. Table 1) are coming from the period between December 4th, 2006 (the first major GW publication on the Sex-Affair) and December 18th 2006 (when the Sex-Affair ceased to be reported on the front-page of GW). Notably, TR and ND ceased to report on the Sex-Affair much earlier and, in general, devoted less attention to the scandal (cf. Table 1). The most active day in reporting the Sex-Affair was Monday, December 11th, 2006. That was the day of publication of Łyżwiński’s DNA tests (eventually denying his fatherhood of Aneta K’s child, cf. above) when all three analysed dailies reported extensively on the scandal. The attention paid to the affair on that day not only proved that the ‘fatherhood’ accusations were pivotal in the case but also that this matter influenced the perception of the affair in the studied periodicals. On that day, the Sex-Affair ceased to be the matter which concerned sexual harassment in one of the political parties and became a matter of anti-government activity or even of a coup d’état. Equally, Aneta K. ceased to be the victim (the subject) and became the tool (the object) of those who allegedly wanted to remove the PiS-LPR-Samoobrona coalition. Table 1.  Frequency of Articles in the Press Discourse about Sex-Affair in Samoobrona (chronologically, according to analysed newspapers)

04/12/2006 05/12/2006 06/12/2006 07/12/2006 08/12/2006 09–10/12/2006 11/12/2006 12/12/2006 13/12/2006 14/12/2006 15/12/2006 16–17/12/2006 18/12/2006 Total

Trybuna (TR)

Gazeta Wyborcza (GW)

Nasz Dziennik (ND)

Total

– 4 2 2 2 3 4 3 2 – 1 2 –

2 7 9 8 9 8 10 7 8 2 5 – 4

– 1 – 2 2 3 4 2 – 2 1 3 1

2 12 11 12 13 14 18 12 10 4 7 5 5

25

79

21

125



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4.2  Methodology and key categories of analysis The analysis is embedded within the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The latter assumes that “discourse reproduces society and culture as well as being reproduced by them” (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997: 258; cf. also Wodak 1996 and 2001; Wodak & Krzyżanowski 2008; Reisigl & Wodak 2009). While in the broader CDA perspective discourse can be viewed widely as ‘text in context’ the DHA perspective provides a more narrow definition and defines discourse as “mainly understood as linguistic action, be it written, visual, or oral communication, verbal or nonverbal, undertaken by social actors in a specific setting determined by social rules, norms, and conventions” (Wodak 2008: 5). My research concentrates on one of key DHA categories of analysis, i.e. discursive strategies, used widely in analyses of discriminatory (incl. racist, anti-Semitic or sexist) discourses. The strategies are understood here as “a more or less accurate and a more or less intentional plan of practices (including discursive practices) adopted to achieve a particular social, political, psychological or linguistic aim” (Reisigl & Wodak 2001: 44). Also defined as ‘strategies of self- and other-presentation’ (cf. Reisigl & Wodak, 2001; Wodak, 2001), the following discursive strategies are followed in the analysis (incl. the respective research questions): a. Referential and Nomination Strategies (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001: 45) – (“how are persons named and referred to linguistically?”, ibid.: 44); b. Predicational Strategies (ibid.: 45) – (“What traits, characteristics,, qualities and features are attributed to them?”, ibid.: 44); c. Argumentation Strategies (ibid.: 45) – (“By means of what arguments and argumentation schemes do specific persons or social groups try to justify and legitimise the exclusion, discrimination, suppression and exploitation of others?”, ibid.: 44); d. Strategies of Perspectivation, Framing or Discourse Representation (ibid.: 45) – (“From what perspective or point of view are these naming, attributions and arguments expressed”, ibid.: 44); and e. Intensifying and Mitigation Strategies (ibid.: 45) – (“Are the respective discriminating utterances articulated overtly, are they even intensified or are they mitigated”, ibid.: 44). While analysing many of such strategies in the press discourse about Sex-Affair at the micro (textual) level, I am also attempting to fit the strategies into broader argumentation frames which I define – somewhat parallel to van Dijk (1984 and 1988) – as macro-strategies. With respect to the analysed newspapers, where the overall argumentation patterns differed quite significantly according to those

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

newspapers’ global (liberal vs. conservative, left vs. right) viewpoints, I identify macro-strategies: of victimisation (GW), trivialisation (TR) and denial (ND). Hence, whereas the discursive strategies are defined at the level of analysis, the establishment of macro-strategies takes place at the interpretative level and on the basis of the earlier analyses of textual material (those relations are depicted in Figure 1). Thus, the discursive strategies must be seen as elements of the broader macro-strategies which reveal the analysed newspapers’ perception of the analysed Sex-Affair, and, in a broader perspective, of the role of women in the public and private domains. Here, a particular attention is paid to the ways in which social actors – of whom the central one in the reporting remains Aneta K. – are either deprived of or endowed with agency, especially in their actions within and in relation to the public domain.

VICTIMISATION (GAZETA WYBORCZA)

TRIVIALISATION (TRYBUNA)

DENIAL (NASZ DZIENNIK)

MACRO-STRATEGIES

INTERPRETATION ANALYSIS REFERENCE+NOMINATION

INTENSIFICATION/MITIGATION

DISCURSIVE-STRATEGIES PREDICATION

PERSPECTIVATION/FRAMING ARGUMENTATION

Figure 1.  Relations between discursive strategies and macro-strategies in the analysis of press discourse about the ‘Sex-Affair in Samoobrona’

Due to limitations of space, the presentation below includes only selected examples characteristic for the respective newspaper-specific macro-strategies, and for the corresponding discursive strategies. In order to provide contextualisation of the analysis, the examination also includes a brief overview of structural characteristics of newspaper-specific corpora as well as an indicative description of their contents.



Denying the right to speak in public 

4.3  Gazeta Wyborcza (GW) The corpus of articles published in GW – the largest of all analysed corpora – included altogether 79 articles. The corpus comprised short news-stories (in most cases initialled by the authors), larger commentaries, reports and interviews. Of all GW articles on the Sex-Affair, thirteen were authored by women and 47 by men. Altogether, 43 images were published along with the articles. Of those images, three depicted Aneta K., six Łyżwiński and nine Lepper. No pictures of Aneta K. were published after December 11th, 2006. According to its contents and foci, the GW corpus can be divided in two distinctive phases: a. Phase One (between December 5th and 10th, 2006) – when the majority of attention was paid to Aneta K. and other (female) sexually-harassed Samoobrona activists. At this stage, women were in the centre of reporting and the majority of the expressed voices (of key actors and/or commentators) referred to the problem of sexual harassment of women at work (in Samoobrona and elsewhere); b. Phase Two (after December 11th, 2006) started with the publication of Łyżwiński’s DNA tests denying his fatherhood of Aneta K’s daughter. As of this moment, the whole affair became an incentive to construct conspiracy theories with the credibility of GW and its reporting (onto which the ‘proven’ lack of credibility of Aneta K. was projected) also questioned and subsequently revoked in GW reporting. As of this moment the Sex-Affair ceased to become a debate about women and their role in society (public sphere) and became a politicised topic concerning government politics (incl. Samoobrona). Considered as lacking credibility, Aneta K was not anymore depicted in any images nor quoted in any of the articles of the second phase. In the absence of Aneta K. in the reporting, the main actor-oriented attention was paid to Lepper and Łyżwiński who, quite paradoxically, were from then on the only key actors of the affair given the right to speak. The main strategies which supported the GW in construction of its macro-strategy of victimisation were strategies of argumentation as well as reference/nomination and predication. All of those strategies helped construct the clear dichotomy between the victim (Aneta K.) and the predators/attackers (Łyżwiński, Lepper, Samoobrona, etc.). Within that dichotomy, the predators clearly retained an active role (and a high degree of agency) whereas the victim was portrayed as passive and as only undergoing the activities undertaken by predators (i.e. what van Leeuwen 1996, defines as processes of activation and passivisation). One of examples of

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

such ‘attack’ or ‘domination’ of predators over the victim was Lepper’s revelation of Krawczyk’s surname which broke her anonymity guaranteed by the journalists interviewing her and investigating the case. By revealing not only Krawczyk’s name but also her address (both activities illegal in light of, e.g. Polish data protection laws), her personal security was also put in danger,13 while, even if only symbolically, she was clearly threatened by the ‘predators’. Whereas Aneta K. was clearly deprived of her agency in the GW reporting, the analysed newspaper was still the most attentive to her as the central female figure of the Sex-Affair. By paying close attention to Aneta K and her ‘problem’, GW clearly sympathised with the ‘victim’ and thus also drew the readers’ attention to the social problems which Aneta K. was just a display of (sexual harassment, patriarchal construction of politics and the public sphere, etc.). Whereas such an ‘understanding compassion’ towards Aneta K – and the related depiction of ‘predators’ in a clearly negative light – may have surely had strategic implications (i.e. by paying attention to Aneta K. and emphasising related problems GW effectively criticised its political opponents i.e. Samoobrona), it must still be considered as a positive phenomenon. Such an attention made GW reporting much different than those of TR and ND (cf. below) which consequently moved their reporting away from Aneta K. and, by focussing on the male figures of the Sex-Affair, reinforced the male-oriented perception of gender relations in the public domain. The said compassion to the victim was particularly visible in an article ‘Łyżwiński as a father’ (Łyżwiński Ojcem, GW, 5/12/2006) in which the author described ‘dramatic testimonies of a few women’ (dramatyczne wyznania kilku kobiet) as well as reported that ‘feared of her safety, Aneta K. asked for protection’ (Aneta K. poprosiła o ochronę bo czuje się zagrożona). One can point here to a strategy of nomination: Aneta K. (not Krawczyk), whose name, though widely known, was not mentioned for security reasons – felt threatened (by unnamed predators, who despite remaining unidentified, constituted clear and present danger). Elsewhere, in an interview with Mariusz Strzępek entitled ‘Almost everybody heard signals that women were forced to having sex’ (Prawie każdy miał sygnały o zmuszaniu do seksu, GW, 5/12/2006) one can read that “Łyżwiński paws (…) forces women to having sex. And he threatens them that they will be fired as there are others to take their place. I have been telling them: report this, go to the district attorney (…) But they were all scared. They kept on saying: those are people in power, they will consider us prostitutes”. [“Łyżwiński

.  Cf. Gazeta Wyborcza (2008)



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obłapuje (…) zmusza do seksu. I grozi, że wyrzuci z roboty bo na ich miejsce są inne. Namawiałem je: idźcie do prokuratury (…) Ale one były wystraszone. Mówiły: bo to ludzie władzy, bo wezmą je za prostytutki”].

Here, we can again point to the nomination strategy when the harassed Samoobrona women are recontextualising nominations used by male figures of the party and describing themselves as ‘prostitutes’. The said nominations exemplify the very low standing and demeaning approach to women in Samoobrona. That approach is also emphasised in a quote from a senior (male) Samoobrona figure Janusz Maksymiuk who jokes that (GW, 06/12/2006): “The lady agreed to sleep with one guy and the other, perhaps even with somebody else for only 1200 Zloty [NB: the amount of Krawczyk’s very modest salary in the party]. She was so incredibly modest and poor one and they all harassed her and all that for just 1200 Zloty” [Ta pani zgodziła się spać z jednym, z drugim, może z kimś jeszcze za 1200 zł? Była taka skromniutka bidulka, że poniewierali ją a jej wystarczyło 1200 zł?].

This opinion presents the voice of GW’s opponents, i.e. senior Samoobrona male activists. Further to the key nomination strategy (a speculative and ambivalent use of ‘that lady’) we also encounter here further and clearly ironic (and strategic) nominations and predications. Among them, the reference to a ‘modest/poor one’ helps support the overall argument and augments the derogatory presentation of Aneta K. whom the Samoobrona leaders aimed to discredit in the eyes of the broader public (also by implying the aforementioned argument of her consensual approach to having sex for money). From the point of view of the overall macro-strategy of victimisation, the quoted example is also central: it presents in detail the victim, as well as the actions she underwent, without specifying the agents (the predators) behind those actions. It also shows that, as implied by Maksymiuk, the victim tacitly consented to the actions of the predators/attackers. A further augmentation of the clearly ‘weakening’ description of the victim is also provided by the description of Aneta K’s salary, i.e. of a modest 1200 PLN (less than ca. 300 EUR). The mentioning of the sum helps showing that the victim was in agreement of the predators’ actions as nobody sane would allow to be as mistreated for such a modest sum of money. The images accompanying GW reporting of the Sex-Affair must also be considered strategic in the process of reinforcing the GW’s victimisation strategy. Most of the images published in that daily supported key arguments and showed women as ‘silent victims’ who had no other option but to accept their limited rights to speak in public about their repeating mistreatment and harassment. The most characteristic image of the GW reporting (and of the entire press reporting of the Sex-Affair) was published on 04/12/2006. The image showed female hands tied

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

by the white-red tie, a standard symbol of Samoobrona. The image emphasised haplessness of women described in the reporting, similarly to a related image of Krawczyk (published also in GW of 04/12/2006) who, as if ashamed, turned her face away from the camera and looked into a window. In both cases, the images did not depict women’s faces and thus emphasised the ‘mute’ character and anonymity of described victims as well as suggested that every woman potentially faces similar dangers. 4.4  Trybuna (TR) The left-wing TR published twenty five articles in the period of investigation, mostly by means of reports with elements of commentary and commentaries. TR also published several pictures which accompanied its articles and which were usually supplemented by the overtly ironic headings. Of the published images, four concerned directly the Sex-Affair with two of them depicting Lepper and two Łyżwiński. None of the TR images featured Aneta K. TR’s macro-strategy of trivialisation was visible in all of that newspaper’s publications. The strategy was not only visible at the pictorial level (in caricature-like images, facial close-ups with ironic headings/comments, etc.) but also, or mainly, at the textual level. There, the language used by TR to describe the Sex-Affair was (strongly) colloquial with several even vulgar references to the described events, sexual harassment, etc. For example, the Sex-Affair as such was defined as ‘A zipfly coup d’état’ (Rozporkowy zamach stanu, TR, 11/12/2006) or an earlier report on the matter was entitled ‘Ever More Porn’ (Coraz bardziej porno, TR, 08/12/2006). It seems that the trivialisation of the Sex-Affair in TR aimed to diminish the scandal’s importance as well as to clearly delineate it from ‘more important’ issues which should be discussed with reference to national and government politics. The colloquial language used to describe the Sex-Affair reinforced the macro-strategy and made the central event into a ‘private’ and ‘everyday’ matter. Hence, the macrostrategy helped moving the case away from the public spotlight. TR’s stance was particularly unexpected since, as a nominally left-oriented newspaper, the daily should have been close to the matters of gender equality, feminist ideas, etc. Quite contrary to such expectations, TR did not support feminist ideas and by trivialising the Sex-Affair, became very similar in its rhetoric to the otherwise anti-feminist right-wing newspapers such as, e.g. ND (cf. below). Such a stance of TR, embedded within its overall strategy of trivialisation, was also reinforced in a set of peculiar texts which, in very unexpected manner, went as far as to even defend the PiS-Samoobrona-LPR government coalition (!). Such pro-government arguments – clearly contrary to the popular perception of TR as supporting moderate left politics – were expressed in such Sex-Affair related



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texts as ‘Ritual Cannibalism’ (Rytualny kanibalizm by A. Wołk- Łaniewska) or ‘Methods of Political Struggle’ (Metody walki politycznej by the left-friendly philosopher and former parliamentarian M. Szyszkowska). Similarly, in a TR article of 07/12/2006, one could read a statement about Aneta K. (who was also forced to undergo an abortion – ordered by a veterinary – upon Łyżwiński’s instructions) which says that “And she, that lady, allowed them to give her some injections (…) One can say it is not so bad as – instead of a vet they could have called for an old lady. The other Kowalczyk lady also says she is so religious – she is as she worked for Samoobrona” [A ona, ta dama, zgadza się by wstrzyknąć jej coś (…) Można powiedzieć, że to i tak postęp – zamiast weterynarza mogli zamówić do niej babę z szydełkiem. Kowalczykowa też oczywiście zapewnia, że jest pobożna – pracowała przecież dla Samoobrony].

Deployed here, the discursive strategy of perspectivation aimed to create an ironic and derisive (and thus also trivialising) perspective towards the described events. That strategy was also supported at the lexical level (nominations/predications: ‘that lady’, ‘so religious’) as well as reinforced by the description of the situation as quasi ‘dirty’, ‘illegal’ and ‘unworthy’ (i.e. put into a context where an ‘old lady’ could have been called for instead of a ‘vet’, who, by the way, should not be used ordered to treat humans). A different TR article – based on an interview with the Left-Party leader G. Napieralski – upheld the related trivialising stance by calling the Sex-Affair a ‘cover up’ (przykrywka). As Napieralski (quoted and paraphrase) also says in the article (TR, 12/12/2006): “The so-called ‘Sex-Affair’ is a political and an overblown case. I am really sorry that this case has become a cover up for so many things. (…) He also added that he is not interested who is the father of Aneta Krawczyk’s child and who sleeps with whom in parliament or elsewhere” [tzw. seks afera jest sprawą ‘polityczną i naciąganą’. Przykro, że przykryła ona wiele istotnych spraw (…) Dodał, że nie jest zainteresowany, kto jest ojcem dziecka Anety Krawczyk, ani kto z kim sypia w parlamencie czy poza nim].

When analysing this extract, one should point to the salient strategy of mitigation as well as perspectivation – which were not only achieved by quoting and paraphrasing statements but were further reinforced through lexical items (adjectival predicates ‘political’ and ‘overblown’) showing the speaker’s negative and distanced stance towards the described issues. The second statement again trivialised the matter, since, as it was implied, Napieralski – quite similarly to other ‘key’ politicians – was not interested who fathered Krawczyk’s child). In its second part, the statement also included an implicature which, through the use of an unspecified

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

subject, helps projecting the implied fact of ‘sleeping in parliament or elsewhere’ onto the earlier nominalised actor i.e. Aneta K. The whole argument thus created in the extract (note also the thus achieved strategy of argumentation) implied that Aneta K. was the main actor of an ‘overblown’ and politicised Sex-Affair and that she used to ‘sleep’ with different partners (politicians) within and outside of parliament (cf. above; for related nominalising statements on ‘prostitutes’ quoted and criticised in GW) 4.5  Nasz Dziennik (ND) The ND corpus was the smallest and included only 21 articles published throughout the period of investigation. Interestingly, ND was not focussed on the case before December 11th 2006 (publication of Łyżwiński’s DNA tests) and any serious reporting on the case started in the paper only after this date. As it seems, ND became interested in the case only when, quasi in accordance with the wishes of Lepper and Łyżwiński, the Sex-Affair ceased to be a sex-scandal and became an allegedly political affair. At the same time, ND focussed on the Sex-Affair when it (again allegedly) became a matter of national priority and not only a scandal revealed and publicised by liberal GW, a traditional and major opponent of conservative ND. Finally, though initially ignoring or strategically denying the case (cf. below), the ND had to become interested in the case when an opinion became more widespread (particularly in the government circles) that, instigated partly by GW, the Sex-Affair was directed against the coalition government otherwise supported by ND. The political character of the Sex-Affair was clearly reflected in the titles of the major ND articles of the period which point to the conspiracy-related arguments as well as to implications that GW itself played a role in the alleged coup d’état. Those titles include: ‘The Aim – To Destroy the Coalition’ (Cel: zniszczyć koalicję, ND, 11/12/2006), ‘It was supposed to be a coup d’état’ (To miał być zamach stanu, ND, 11/12/2006) or ‘Let those media who lie tremble’ (Niech drżą media, które łżą ND, 12/12/2006). Importantly, the most aggressive articles in ND were published by women-authors (M. Goss, J.M. Jaskólska). At the same time, ND – which generally did not publish many images – never portrayed Aneta K. and only twice pictured Lepper and Łyżwiński. The ND’s macro-strategy of denial was mainly constructed in the initial period of reporting when the matter was not even trivialised (as was the case in TR, cf. above) but to a large extent silenced and treated as almost inexistent. Such a macrostrategy is depicted in an ND commentary of 07/12/2006 (entitled ‘What Poland is really interested in’[Czym żyje Polska]) where we read:



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‘that’s right ladies and gentlemen, what could be more interesting and exciting for the Polish people at the time of advent? It seems such can be the case which is shown on the TVN television where a very serious politician of the Civic Platform, Bronisław Komorowski, keeps on saying how very important and really worldshaking is the intimate life of Mr Łyżwiński and Mr Lepper and one Aneta K. and other escort ladies”. [tak moi Państwo, bo czym by tu ucieszyć i rozerwać polski lud w Adwencie? Wobec tego od trzech dni występuje w telewizji TVN bardzo poważny polityk Platformy Obywatelskiej Bronisław Komorowski i opowiada, jaką to ważną i doniosłą sprawą dla naszego kraju jest życie intymne panów Łyżwińskiego i Leppera niejakiej Anety K. tudzież innych panienek z towarzystwa].

This extract, very typical for ND discourse about the Sex-Affair, showed that the denial of the case was mainly achieved by means of mitigating and nominalising/predicating strategies. Represented, for example, in the ironic predicates ‘very important’ and ‘really world-shaking’, the author’s stance was mitigated and overtly conveyed a message that the reported case was trivial and not worth media’s attention. As it was also implied, the only media interested in the case were commercial media (‘TVN television’, opponents of ND) while the only politicians who deem the case important are the Civic Platform members (incl. ‘Komorowski’), again widely known to be political and ideological opponents of the ND. Also, the extract provided a metonymical predication of the Sex-Affair as indeed concerning ‘intimate life of Mr Łyżwiński and Mr Lepper’ (notable nominations using lastnames but with quasi-respectful ‘Mr.’). By the same token, the role of Aneta K. was also diminished. She was hence either nominalised/predicated in an unspecified manner (as ‘one Aneta K.’) or it was derogatively suggested that – quite similarly to the defamatory prostitute-like arguments followed in TR and referred to in GW (cf. above) – she was just one of (several) ‘escort ladies’. Aneta K. gained somewhat more attention at a later stage of ND reporting when, in an article of 14/12/2006, we read that: ‘Stanisław Łyżwiński, MP, is not the father of Aneta Krawczyk’s daughter. Krawczyk, the alleged ‘central figure’ of the alleged moral affair in Samoobrona becomes more of an Anastazja P.14 of the fourth republic rather than a victim of any sexual harassment. Thus, the claim that the whole case was concocted in order to overturn Jarosław Kaczyński’s government becomes even more probable’. [poseł

.  Anastazja P. (Potocka) is a nickname of Marzena Domaros, a journalist who, working as a parliamentary reporter, published a scandalising memoir ‘Erotic Immunities’ [‘Erotyczne immunitety’] in 1991. In the book, Domaros described her (alleged) intimate contacts with several members of Polish parliament. Despite revealing many intimate details, the book never had any political implications.

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

Stanisław Łyżwiński nie jest ojcem córki Anety Krawczyk, ‘bohaterka’ domniemanej afery obyczajowej w Samoobronie okazuje się bardziej ‘Anastazją P IV RP’ aniżeli ‘ofiarą molestowania’, a teza, że sprawa jest przynajmniej w części spreparowana na okoliczność obalenia rządu Jarosława Kaczyńskiego, nabiera jeszcze większego prawdopodobieństwa].

In the above extract, discursive strategies of mitigation and argumentation were merged in order to show the Sex-Affair as de-facto inexistent and not real. Nominated/predicated as an ‘alleged central figure’, Aneta K., the main actor of such an inexistent affair, was also not considered real and, by means of elliptic reference to the bogus figure of Anastazja P., her actions and claims were further discredited (as was in fact the accusation of ‘any sexual harassment’). However, while the ND thus achieved the image of the case as not important for reasons of gender rights (otherwise also silenced by that newspaper ), it clearly upheld the conspiracy theory that the Sex-Affair was a political action which aimed to overturn the government. Published in the weekend edition of 16–17/12/2006, another ND article, quoting and referring to the statement of the Group for Media Ethics, emphasised the newspaper’s overall approach to the Sex-Affair: ‘The press publications of the alleged bad manners in the leadership of one of the political parties, as well as a TV programme on this topic, all constituted a breach of decency and morality. By making the alleged affair public nobody considered consequences for the families of those involved, especially for the three underage children whose mother was accidentally dragged in this public-making’ [Publikacje prasowe o złych jakoby obyczajach w kierownictwie jednej z partii politycznych oraz program telewizyjny na tenże temat same naruszyły poważnie zasady obyczajności. Upubliczniając wątpliwą aferę nie liczono się bowiem z konsekwencjami dla rodzin osób w nią uwikłanych, zwłaszcza dla trojga nieletnich dzieci, których matka nieopatrznie dała się w to upublicznienie wciągnąć]

The quoted statement succinctly summed up ND’s macro-strategy: it says that the whole affair was ‘alleged’ (several strategic uses of this predicate) while its central figure was only ‘dragged’ into the whole case (rather than being actually sexually harassed). By the same token, the statement used many nominations specific for private domain (‘mother’, ‘daughter’, ‘father’, ‘children’) which helped imply that the whole case was of private character and should have never been – be it ‘allegedly’ or strategically – made public. 4.6  Synopsis The analysis of the genres used in the examined reporting of the Sex-Affair emphasises that while still keeping strategic elements in its reporting, GW was relatively



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the most objective of all analysed newspapers. Whereas commentaries were among the most frequent genres in all three newspapers, it is only GW which also frequently resorted to publishing different opinions about the Sex-Affair. Whenever published in GW, those opinions were, unlike in TR or ND, not edited (or succinctly put into the newspaper-specific chain of argumentation) but were published verbatim in order to achieve the seemingly objective stance on the matter. By the same token, one must also mention that a lot of inter-media cross-referencing was salient here. Thus, ND and TR were very often referring – or even directly responding – to the GW articles and actions thus also making GW, for the obviously strategic reasons of competition and ideological opposition, into not only a commentator of the affair but also into one of the central actors of the affair. Of the analysed newspapers, TR and ND which clearly lacked any proper language to speak about gender issues, either trivialised or silenced/denied the case and deemed it important only when party- and government-political arguments came to the fore. Of the two newspapers, TR seemed to be especially unable to speak about gender issues in a neutral or any other way. This inability of TR was proved by the ironic and (very) colloquial language used to describe the Sex-Affair as well as by the equally ironic use of images and their headings. The trivialisation deployed by TR, as well as the denial put forward by ND, were far from neutral and carried a set of negative implications for presenting the Sex-Affair in the context of gender relations. Whereas TR clearly pushed descriptions of the case into the private context of sexual (rather than gender) relations, ND generally followed suit, with the only exception of not using colloquial language and with putting the whole matter into the context of its usual struggles with the liberals and related conspiracy theories. Though far from empowering women, GW’s victimisation strategy remained the most women-friendly of all macro-strategies identified in the discourse about the Sex-Affair (cf. below). GW’s macro-strategy concentrated on presenting women’s problems and on showing dangers to which women are or can be exposed, be it in the workplace or in the public domain at large. However, by showing women as merely ‘victims’ (potentially – in many contexts such as workplace where women are exposed to harassment, or actually – as exemplified by Aneta K.), GW presented them as if in need of protection from potential/actual dangers and thus as potentially weaker members of the society. Hence, despite being relatively women-friendly, the victimisation strategy could in a longer run become an obstacle to empowerment of women and to treating women as politically significant and equal partakers in the public life. However, the GW’s overall macro-strategy of victimisation was still the most favourable one and the one which enabled the fairest presentation of the unequal gender-relations. However, having said that, it seems that GW acted somewhat

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

similarly to other newspapers when, after December 11th, 2006 (DNA test results), it never returned to focussing on Aneta K., be it in texts or images. Thus, just like other newspapers, GW followed a similar way of thinking which links ‘being a woman’ with ‘being a mother’ and which considers a person (woman) as lacking credibility when she does not know, or cannot name, the father of her child. Hence, it was even the relatively most objective and the fairest GW which still fell for the logic which was succinctly put forward by Lepper already in the early days of the Sex-Affair. At that time, Lepper suggestively asked: ‘What is the moral authority of a woman who has three children, each of them with someone else, and is not married’ [jaki moralny autorytet ma kobieta, która ma troje dzieci, każde z kimś innym, a małżeństwa nie ma] (GW, 06/12/2006). In order to marginalise the problems encountered by women when entering the public sphere or fighting for their rights therein (NB: Aneta K. was a city councillor as well as a manager of an MP field-office), TR and ND used strategically their aforementioned macro-strategies of, respectively, trivialisation and denial. However, while the strategies of TR and ND seem to be largely congruent, they were undertaken for significantly different reasons. On the one hand, TR did not consider the Sex-Affair to be an important political case and therefore decided to treat it as something which, quite usually, should not be debated in the public sphere. Thus, TR approached the topic of the Sex-Affair in an instrumental manner, in order to emphasise its ideological stance and in order to, inter alia, ridicule the newspaper’s political opponents from the PiS-SamoobronaLPR government. TR also deemed the Sex-Affair a good reason to distract the public from commemorations of the 1981 Martial Law (December 13th) which are traditionally eagerly trivialised in that newspaper known from its affinity to Polish communist past and usually attacked in the period by the right-wing media and parties. On the other hand, ND initially refused to take up reporting of the Sex-Affair for allegedly religious reasons (beginning of the Advent period in the Catholic Church) and then, after December 11th (DNA tests), started to deny the affair for political reasons while at the same time forgetting the earlier Advent-related argument. In the later period, ND publications aimed to prove that Aneta Krawczyk was not as much a victim as the actual instigator of the entire Sex-Affair and that it was very likely that she was a ‘tool’ in the hand of those who want to overturn the right-wing led government (the liberals, GW, etc.). However, despite the said differences between reporting in TR and ND, both newspapers surely have in common a peculiar anti-feminist stance pursued via their key macro-strategies. Both TR and ND even overtly referred to their anti-feminist views in, in ter alia, headings such as ND’s ‘Feminist war at the top’[Feministyczna wojna na górze] or TR’s ‘Ritual Cannibalism’[Rytualny kanibalizm]). In those as well as other TR and ND articles it was argued that feminism was an ideology



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of the past which should not be taken seriously anymore but instead should be accepted with a silent ironic smirk. Particularly as far as TR is concerned, it seems that, although the Polish left-wing political parties and groups (supported by that newspaper) speak a lot about the rights of women and homosexuals “the practice shows tha the Left will not do anything for gay people, same as it will not for feminists” (Ziemkiewicz, 2003: 112). As also displayed in discourses of both the left-oriented TR and right-oriented ND, anti-feminism as well as “the homophobic hate-talk were born in Polish public space after 1989, with the country’s regaining of independence” (Czarnecki 2009). Hence, in line with the said anti-feminist stance, feminism is often regarded as a copy of Western movements, which, in the meantime has become somewhat passé. At the same time, the LGBT movement was portrayed as a quasi-colonial project (another conspiracy?) imposed on Poland with European integration (NB: this argument has often been used in Eurosceptic press, such as ND). However, it must be mentioned that, present equally in discourse of the left-wing and secularist TR and of the nationalist-catholic ND, the anti-feminist ideology can be reinforced by the fact that, in their reporting of the Sex-Affair, both ND and TR attempt to respond to the revelations put forth by GW. Also, at the time when TR and especially ND were still trying to ignore the case (i.e. before December 11th, 2006), GW was already widely reporting on the affair while also, to the later dislike of TR and ND, quoting opinions of widely- respected Polish feminist activists and members of gender-equality NGOs. Finally, Aneta K. was absent from both ND and TR with none of those newspapers publishing pictures of or quoting her as a central figure of the Sex-Affair. The macro-strategies deployed in TR and ND limited the events related to the Sex-Affair to the boulevard (private) level while avoiding making the reported case – and the related problems of the harassed women – into a matter of public concern. Effectively, such a attitude – as we have set dating back to Aristotle and Antiquity – only reinforces the traditional lack of ‘public’ importance assigned to described issues of gender relations. The said attitude also groups ‘mute women’ within the private domain while it at the same time it preserves the public sphere for the ‘active’ men (i.e. reported social actors or interpreting journalists). 5.  Epilogue – Regaining the voice and the brief moments of carnival This article in general, and the highlighted analyses in particular, seem to emphasise Janion’s (2003: 9) seminal statement that “women’s rights have been located beyond any rights which Solidarność was once fighting for. The civic energy of women was suppressed and eventually rejected [N.K.: whereas] Polish democracy has proved to be of male gender”. Thus, it seems, the main condition of access to

 Natalia Krzyżanowska

the Polish public sphere and the country’s democratic order are not democratic rights but, instead, one’s (male) heteronormativity. Yet, the order of such a democratic set-up is often related to moments of its disorder, moments which we may call the time of carnival. Such perception of Polish post-1989 order/disorder is often emphasised by scholars such as Garton-Ash (1990)15 who looked at their relations in a diachronic or historicising perspective. However, the order/disorder categories may also be very useful today, for example when analysing the public salience of Manifa (an annual demonstration organised since 2000 in defence of rights of women and sexual minorities, cf. above) or of Equality Parades (organised since 2001 against widespread discrimination of sexual minorities, cf. above). Such carnivals of the other have by now become standard elements of Poland’s political calendar and are, as such, elements of democratic process rather than just ‘temporary’ moments of pastiche and grotesque carnival. Their perception as elements of the political and democratic order – rather than disorder – is emphasised by a view that “politics is not only a struggle for power, but it is predominantly an attempt to arbitrarily set up visibility (inclusion) or invisibility (exclusion) of certain social groups and individuals” (Żmijewski 2007: 7). Organised in Warsaw and other Polish major cities once per year (on March 8th, the International Women’s Day), the feminist Manifa takes place under different slogans such as: ‘Democracy without women is half-democracy’(Demokracja bez kobiet to pół demokracji), ‘Our bodies, our lives, our rights’ (Nasze ciała, nasze życie, nasze prawa), ‘We are strong, together even stronger’ (Jesteśmy silne razem silniejsze) or ‘Girls, we need more actions’ (Dziewczyny potrzebne są czyny). Manifa causes that, at least once a year, media and politics pay attention to the Polish feminist movement. Hence, the colourful march of Manifa is the rare moment when women gain public ‘visibility’ and when their voices ‘are heard in public’. Those voices are aired together with, and are often supported by, those of the LGBT organisations as well other such as trade unions (e.g. Wolny Związek Zawodowy Sierpień ‘80) or other associations such as those struggling for women’s labour rights (inter alia Kobiety z Tesco). Similarly, though organised by Campaign against Homophobia in Poland, the Equality Parades are not only limited to airing postulates of gay people. Supported by many feminist movements, those parades

.  Garton-Ash (1990, quoted in Kondratowicz, 2001:  214) also recalls in such terms the (many) women who surrounded Lech Wałęsa during the famous Gdańsk shipyard strikes in early 1980s. As he says, “For over an hour Wałęsa was driving around the shipyard on the electric cart, accompanied by monument-like Anna Walentynowicz on one side, and the girlish Ewa Ostrowska on the other. It was an incredible carnival-like vehicle”.



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are also calling for equal rights for men and women, irrespective of their hetero- or homonormativity. Both Manifa and Equality Parades are the opportunities to express publically those voices which are consequently pushed towards, and closed within, the private domain. Those voices belong to: women (politically underrepresented, underpaid, often harassed) and gay and lesbian people (still not recognised as full citizens). Such limited opportunities for women, feminists, gay and lesbian people are allowing these other to, even if temporarily, regaining their visibility in the Polish public sphere. Those opportunities, or brief moments of carnival, also open the door for what Habermas (1992, 2007 and above) defines as changing the public sphere, and its discourses and structures, from inside.

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Ziółkowski, M. 2001. “Remembering and forgetting after communism. Are the skeletons taken out from the polish national memory closet?”. In Transformations, Adaptations and Integrations in Europe, Z. Drozdowicz (ed.). Poznań: Humaniora. Żmijewski, A. 2007. “Polityczne gramatyki obrazów”. In Estetyka jako Polityka, J. Rancière, 5–13. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej.

Discursive construction of post-communism in pastoral letters of the Polish Episcopate’s Conference 1990–2005 Katarzyna Skowronek

University of Science and Technology, Kraków

1.  Introduction 1.1  Aims and methodological assumptions The main goal of this article is a description of the discursive construction of postcommunism in the official discourse of the Roman-Catholic Church in Poland from 1989 to the present. The important aspect of this study is an examination of its meanings in the discourse with their affective qualities, values and associations. Last but not least, this work is an attempt to reconstruct the picture of social reality in Poland, the picture of present time, created by the hierarchical Catholic Church and expressed in its official statements released over the last 18 years, and, more importantly, revelation of the social function of such a structure. The data upon which this chapter is based comes from pastoral letters by the Polish Episcopate Conference (PEC),1 as well as sermons given by a number of bishops, including the Primate of Poland Józef Glemp and the PEC leader Archbishop Józef Michalik to the congregation of the Catholic Church in Poland between 1989 and 2007.2 The main research questions are: how does the hierarchical Church define post-communism; what is the content and scope of the term?; what linguistic strategies govern the construction of post-communism?; in what way does the choice of description of the present depend on the way of defining the past and the

.  The Polish Episcopate Conference (established in the late 18th century) gathers the highest ranking Catholic Priests in Poland including diocesan, auxiliary, and titular bishops (about 130 members). .  Quoted from Pastoral Letters of the Polish Episcopate written between 1989 and 1997 (Bibliography: LPEP II), plus PEC web site covering the period 1998–2007 (Bibliography: LPEP Int.).

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future of Poland?; has the definition of post-communism changed in the Church discourse between 1989 and 2007? The answers to the above questions may be addressed by a functionally oriented discourse analysis.3 Discourse is a linguistic form of social practice, a mode of action which allows people to interact with the world, especially with each other, and a mode of representation, i.e. a way to present or rather to construct reality. There is a certain dialectical relation between discourse and social structure, i.e. the latter is both the cause and effect of the former. On the one hand, discursive events differ in terms of the areas of social life or institutional framework in which they are generated; on the other hand, discourse is socially constitutive. Thus, discourse is a practice of signifying the world, constructing it in terms of ideological preferences, social orders, institutional conditioning (see: Fairclough 1992 (1998); van Dijk 1993, 2001, 2003; Barker & Galasiński 2001; Duszak 1998). In terms of linguistic material and the aims of this research, the functional analysis of discourse entails: 1. definition and interpretation of lexical-phraseological and grammatical structures related to the term “post-communism”; indication of reasons for their use in terms of the aims and functions performed by the text; 2. examination of paradigmatic – synonymic, complementary and antonymic – relations connected with the term “post-communism”; 3. research into syntagmatic relations: attributes and activities ascribed to the term “post-communism”, structural-semantic roles, cause and effect relations; 4. analysis of metaphors, comparisons and allusions relating to post-communism; 5. definition of varied contents of the term “post-communism” in the period between 1989 and 2007. The methods of analysis described in points 1–5 serve to reconstruct the most important language strategies included in the Church discourse on post-communism as well as reach more complicated, hidden ideological structures contained therein. 1.2  The church in Poland after 1989 During the communist era the Catholic Church in Poland played a significant role which far exceeded the strictly religious sphere. It was a church of “resistance”. .  Functionally oriented linguistic studies are not uniform; and the term functional analysis itself is also defined in different ways. The following is an outline of different trends in functional linguistics (represented by e.g.: M.A.K. Halliday (see: Halliday 1985) and its characteristics – cf. Duszak 1998.



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While maintaining relative independence from the state and the party (with the exception of the early 1950s), it integrated the community against the communists. The Catholic faith was a form of defiance against the enforced political system, and the Sunday Mass was the only form of realization of this resistance. In such circumstances, any declaration of non-belief or criticism of the Catholic Church excluded such a person from the society resisting the system (see: Leszczyńska 2002, 2003; Mariański 1998: 13–27). Moreover, the Polish Church of the 1960s and 1970s was a “people’s church”. Its characteristic features, such as religiousness mixed with elements of nationalism, exhibition of faith in mass religious practices, the dominant role of the Church hierarchy and clergy and passive attitude of the laity, preaching targeted at the “average” believer, and a slow pace of introduction of Second Vatican Council reforms, had a strong impact on Church attitudes during the transformation period in Poland. The year “brought change which, in the long run proved […] important for changes in religiousness. Most importantly, we observed change in the mechanisms of constructing social reality – both the individual and the whole of society experienced a boost of confidence as they were given the right to choose”  (Borowik 2000: 223).

The society of “fate” began its transformation into a society of “choice”. The creation of a new social order, new political procedures and systems of value, a peculiar metamorphosis in the axiological order made the Polish community evolve in the direction of a relatively open liberal society. The Church, as an important player in the transformation processes, observed and evaluated the change, and wanted to participate in these processes. The Church in Poland entered the transformation period with the support of almost 90% of society, of which over 80% declared themselves as believers, and over 40% as practicing Christians. In 1989 Poland was (and still is) an almost homogeneous country in terms of faith, and the level of regular religious practices was high (about 47%–53%; Leszczyńska 2003; Nosowski 2003). This easily explains the feeling of uniqueness, power, and triumphalism among leading clergy which was associated with the credit that the Church took, more or less accurately, for the abolition of the old system and the conviction that they should be rewarded for the many years of struggle against the power. The desire to regain their former possessions and regain the lost influence also became stronger (see: Borowik 2000: 123–124, 156–157). On the other hand, the new democratic processes meant that the Church had to “abandon their extraordinary measures”. The Church did not have to play any clearly defined political or national functions;

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it became responsible for religious issues only, and the Poles themselves ceased to expect any political activity from the Church. The situation became ambivalent: the institutionalised Church felt it had lost control over the social reality on the one hand, and on the other, it wanted to return to its former social and national functions, and its old role as the “monopolist on the world-view market”. It was the latter that probably made leading Polish clergy become involved in social and political issues in the period between 1990 and 2007. It was especially in the early 1990s that they pushed through a number of legal measures conducive to the interests of the Church,4 which society considered political and often contestable (see: Borowik 2000: 148–149; Borowik & Szyjewski 1993). The opening of political and cultural borders brought new attitudes which became competitive with the traditional ideas “propagated” by the Church. The Catholic Church had to deal with the “uncomfortable” pluralisation and diversification of what had so far been perceived as a whole. It gave citizens free and conscious choice of identity and creativity. The system transformation gave religious (new religious movements; see Pasek & Śliwiński 2007) and social (sexual, national) minorities an opportunity to express their views more freely. At this stage we observed a serious lack of experience on the part of the Polish bishops to hold dialogue on equal terms with other members of the public scene. Many observers claim that there has been little change in both the situation of the Church and attitudes of leading clergy towards post-communist Polish realities. Some bishops systematically criticise the process of democratization. “The leaders of the Polish Church are unwilling to accept the limited role of their institution in a democratic and pluralistic society. They not only polarize the Polish society but also enforce concrete solutions without taking account of the pluralistic structure of a modern state” (Obirek 2007).

Their solutions are fundamentalist oriented, their vision is a Catholic theocracy: the laws of the state should be these of the Catholic doctrine. Lack of vetting of priests and bishops, attempts to hide sex scandals, constant exegesis of the preaching of John Paul II with a lack of their own vision of the future of the Church, troubles with fundamentalist and anti-Semitic Radio Maryja5 are but a few, most conspicuous problems faced by the Polish Church in 2007 AD. .  Introduction of religion as a subject at school, attempts to introduce a clause on protection of Christian values in the mass media, criticism of the constitution and axiological assumptions, support for the anti-abortion act (cf.: Borowik 2000; Gowin 1999). .  Its leader Fr. Tadeusz Rydzyk is one of the most controversial figures not only in the Church but also in public debate. He is not only a master in using and abusing religious rhetoric for political purposes but also in creating an anti-democratic model of civil society.



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2.  D  iscursive construction of post-communism in pastoral letters – the analysis My analysis of the Polish Church discourse on post-communism includes seven themes. First I describe a self-situating of the Church in a social post-communism discourse in Poland. The confrontation of Polish bishops with government authorities is the main problem of my analyses in the following section. Another important question to be discussed with respect to the construction of postcommunism: who is the author of the social changes that took place after 1989 according to the Polish hierarchy? In the two following sections I am interested in the negative features of post-communism in bishops’ letters and its social functions. Last but not least, I focus upon post-communism in the years 1989–2007 as a dynamic construction. 2.1  G  uardian of the moral order – a self-situating of the Church in a general social post-communism discourse The Church is far from the only participant in the process in which post-communism is construed in public discourse. This term emerges as an amalgam, an entanglement of various discourses concerned with various subjects of Polish social life; hence, one must find what is the precise position the Church took in this discourse and what sort of language and communication relations build up this latter. An analysis of a great number of passages shows that with respect to this discourse the Church has assumed a role of a superior agent, a giver and a supervisor (1), in whose power are all spheres of social life (2): (Example 1) The task of evangelization is fulfilled by the Church also in relation to the political community […] in its role of the guardian of the moral order, as the critical conscience. […] The Church cannot keep silent. (1995) (Example 2) There are no so called secular areas, where the ultimate destiny of man cannot be overlooked. (1992)

The Church also claims the right to define basic terms and to force its definitions onto others. Simultaneously, it marginalizes or excludes alternative definitions drawn from other discourses: (Example 3) The Church strongly resists any practice that tends to subject human personal growth either to new ideologies or to economic laws of the market.  (1995)

The maintenance of its position as overseer and keeper of post-communist discourse is facilitated by beliefs – explicitly and repeatedly voiced by the Church hierarchs: firstly, authority of the Church in its preacher’s guise as not limited

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to the religious, but extending onto all other spheres of life, secondly, fusion the nation – the people – Catholicism into one comprehensive conglomerate: (Example 4) In all this is the Church supposed to give advice, or even admonish? But of course it is! For it speaks in the name of preaching Christ, whose teaching extends over all aspects of human life. (1991)

The appeal for political preferences and electoral decisions of Polish citizens to follow the hierarchy’s suggestions is sometimes strengthened – as in the example (4) – by elements of paternal style, including a rebuke, a warning, a reprimand. Those elements replace the entirely absent equal terms exchange of ideas with the congregation (see Borowik 2000: 145–146). At the same time, however, the Church, though one of the authors of postcommunism discourse in Poland, desires not to be enmeshed in it. Hence, it places itself outside this discourse as the very agent of social life that is hardly subjected to social and cultural changes (or by sociological analyses and sociological principles) in the same degree as ‘common’, ‘earthly’ institutions and organizations: (Example  5) This kind of mission of the Church is not the object of common principles of sociological generalizations. (1991) (Example  6) Today one may see clearly that the pessimistic prognoses for the Church were false. Polish mass Catholicism proved to be far more durable and hardly as shallow as many commentators would have had it. (2006)

The construction of the “Church outside post-communism” allows the episcopate to annul and to invalidate the voices of opposition and critique, while it is also enabled to extend the potential guilt/blame over all the members of the Church. At the same time (as it was ironically said by one of Catholic journalists) it may send to the congregation an easy-to-read although not explicitly stated message: “An ordinary man lies, but a bishop is being economical with truth, an ordinary man sins, but a bishop [only] makes mistakes”6 (Kozacki: 2007; my emphasis – K.S.): (Example  7) As members of clergy we are “from among the people”, we are part of the Polish society, which as a whole needs to turn back from evil and to convert completely. (2007)

.  Such an attitude of the Church became especially apparent during the high profile scandal of the Warsaw archbishop Wielgus – the problem of his cooperation with SB (comunist secret police) was in various ways ignored, dwarfed or presented as a problem of all members of the Church not only its hierarchy in the official communiques of the Episcopate.



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This kind of discourse in which questions of politics and society are placed under a supervision of the episcopate and of the influence of which, at the same time, the episcopate puts itself outside, was accurately diagnosed by Patrick Michel: The Church, adducing a double nature of religion, which is simultaneously “from this world” and “not from this world?”, […] was always able to use this ambiguity, at the same time making an assumption that it is its privilege to set the border between the two spheres, in which it functions. Religion tries to influence the politics on the basis of being ‘not from this world’. It uses various methods, showing a path which the world is supposed to take in order to become closer to God’s plan, but also trying to deprive politics of the autonomy so openly manifested by it. (Michel 2000: 49–50)

However, one should ask the question whether the role of the one who constructs post-communist discourse and sets its limits, and, at the same time, the one outside and above the discourse is not the reason for the present difficult situation of the Church. Due to putting itself in the position of a superior, supervising, judging instance, the Church is not able to begin an equal footing dialogue with other actors of the social life, it is unprepared to be among the subjects open to social criticism (take for example the case of clergy’s screening, “lustracja”), unprepared to assume the role of one among many (and, for some, hardly a special one among many) subjects of the social life. 2.2  W  ho wants to send the Church into catacombs? – confrontation with authorities A matter of huge importance for the construction of post-communism is the relation of the Church towards other authors of this discourse, first of all towards the secular authorities, public institutions, government and society. Beginning with the third partition of Poland (i.e. with the loss of independence at the end of 18th century) till 1989 the Polish Catholic Church was almost constantly (with the exception of short periods between 1918 and 1939) in opposition to both the state and the government. It acted against the state and was therefore perceived by the congregation as both the guardian of Polish character and the protector of the down-trodden (see Leszczyńska 2002: 47–71). After 1989, despite the radical change in political and social relations, the Church continued to construct itself as a tribune of the poor, solidary with them (cf. 8). Thus, statements of the Catholic hierarchy present actions of the state and of the authorities that represent them as divergent from (or even clashing with) the teachings and actions of the Church and also as inconsistent with the interest of the society (cf. 9): (Example  8) Above all, the bishops express their pastoral solidarity with all compatriots left without employment, becoming their voice. (2001)

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(Example 9) In allowing to take away the life of an unborn human being the state is passing a collective sentence, although it does not have any right to do so […]. The Church [on the other hand] must not turn back on its service to any man, especially […] to the weakest and most helpless man. (1991)

The role of a tribune of the poor, constructed in the above way, allows the Church to exploit social animosities, dissonances and tensions. It always stresses its solidarity with the reasons of some majority. The fact is reflected in such phrases as: we share the doubts of a great number of the congregation, we express an understanding for these justified anxieties. In many episcopal letters one may find explicit populist opinions: (Example  10) The political and economical elites were unable to produce a consistent and long term strategy for overcoming the crisis. (2001) (Example  11) The policy of the state […] has hitherto abetted the predatory attitude of many employers. (2005)

As a consequence of being the voice of the people, the Church aspires to an open confrontation with the authorities and the state despite the fact that in democracy (i.e. a system in which authorities are to reflect the preferences of their constituency) such a strategy should prove to be anachronistic and dysfunctional. However, we would find a number of statements issued by the episcopate after 1989 in which ideas designated by lexemes: the state – the nation, secular authorities – the Church not only as separate, but in the first place as clearly inconsistent and self-excluding: (Example12) Although the state and the Church are communities by their nature unrelated and autonomous, both, albeit for different reasons, aim at welfare of the same people. If the state’s task is to secure social order and economical wellbeing of citizens, then the Church is in the first place interested in their spiritual welfare, both natural and supernatural. (1991) (Example 13) The duty of these institutions: civil authorities: the Parliament, the Government, the President, is to guarantee rights and interests of all the citizens of our country […]. The Church will guard the rights of the human person and will defend fundamental principles included in the Ten Commandments and those moral and spiritual values which in the most basic way define the identity of our nation. The tasks of civil authorities centre on economical and political matters. (2002)

In the above quoted passages (12–13), both authorities (ecclesiastical and secular) are constructed as complementary in their spheres of influence and they do not enter open rivalry. The government authorities should fulfil controlling and repressive as well as law-enforcing and legislative functions and concentrate on



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the economical aspect of human life. They are also agents of tasks described by the episcopate in very specific details. Thus, the government authorities are construed not as an equal or superior agent of public life, but rather as an instrument of various actions as defined by the hierarchical Church. At the same time, the sphere of the Church influence is described by actions of symbolical character: it will guard the rights of the human person and defend principles, it is focused on spiritual welfare. As a result, the government remain a performing force of various and detailed tasks but the function of the Church is supervising: communicative power to define tasks of the authorities and the state and to express negative opinions about its actions. Moreover, in many comments of the hierarchy the actions of authorities on various levels are disapproved of and one may impute to them such features as moral weakness, loss of sensitivity to common welfare. In the extracts discussed in this chapter, one may also notice a number of ways in which elections democratically won by those politicians against the express wishes of the episcopate would be discredited. Just a few examples of pejorative expressions (see 14): popular dissatisfaction, feeling of frustration, biased propaganda, voting absence of a large part of the nation suggest that it was a coincidence of unwelcome circumstances that resulted in an unfavourable structure of political power in the parliament: (Example 14) We respect the outcome of elections which result – as it is widely proclaimed – in the triumph of left-wing parties. However, the outcome of elections should not be discussed in terms of victory or defeat […]. One mustn’t neglect the fact that such an outcome results from various circumstances such as popular dissatisfaction, feeling of frustration, biased propaganda in media.  (1993)

Through statements such as the above passage the episcopate attempts to deprive the winners of the joy of their success and, at the same time, to lessen the bitterness of its own defeat, to neutralize the feeling that the influence of the Church on the congregation in questions apart from religion seems to be weaker than previously assumed. The authorities can also be degraded by being labelled as post-communists. Post-communists are defined as those who continue the policy of communists and whose long term (yet, in a historical perspective, still visible) goal is to perpetuate the tradition of a pagan, Roman barbarian. For itself, the Church obviously claims the martyrdom and bloodied robes of the first Christians: (Example  15) There is no difficulty in naming those political organisations in Poland, whose representatives […] seek to perpetuate the policy of communists, those communists who in 1945 […] actually wanted to send the Church into catacombs. (1995)

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2.3  D  ivine gift of the Homeland’s freedom – the making of post-communism Another important issue to be discussed with respect to the episcopal letters and the construction of post-communism is the causative agency. We, possibly interpreted as all the nation, figures in the role of the causative agent in many of the pastoral letters. A community designed by the pronoun is a homogeneous entirety to which the symbolic actions within the area of post-communism are ascribed actions such as building the House or facing the need of effective deployment of freedom’s space: (Example 16) We are building our House.

(1990)

(Example 17) We are facing a pressing need of wise and complex deployment of space the regained freedom gives us. (1994)

Interestingly, it is with the same frequency that this ‘we’ is a passive participant of the post-communist reality and that it remains helpless with respect to it (cf. we do not know how to use the gift of freedom): (Example 18) We were rejoicing over the freedom regained after so many years. However, we often do not know how to use this gift. (2006)

Another (and far more frequent than the we) construction ascribes the authorship of social and political changes in Poland to the actions of an abstract, yet personified instance: historical justice, Providence, the Highest Instance, and finally – God (see phrases as: the divine gift of Homeland’s freedom; a gift of freedom in a form of independent state, the divine gift of Providence is regained freedom etc.): (Example 19) For all good experienced by the Polish nation in the last decade we owe gratitude to God. (1999)

Maintenance of such a strict a connection between the sacrum and the social experience is hardly new for Polish clergy. It is an element of the concept of the chosen nation, a historiosophical concept that has been present in the episcopal correspondence since the end of the Second World War (since 1945), and particularly prominent at the times of the primates August Hlond (1945–48) and Stefan Wyszyński (1948–1981). Poles, as the nation chosen by God, similarly to the biblical Israel, fulfil their historical mission. (Example  20) Through various experiences the Holy Spirit led us through ‘the Red Sea’. (1991) (Example 21) You will need strength to walk a path leading to the forthcoming changes. The chosen nation, after leaving the Egyptian thraldom, did not stay in a dessert but kept going further. We will need perseverance as well (1995)



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The notion of Polish nation – Israel is the religious-national myth so well known to Poles. Its symbolic accessories and rhetoric have several functions. First, the national mission construct allows the modern, complex social processes to be put into an easily accepted, comprehensive conceptual formula. Second, it also allows a synthetic description of historical processes and an acceptance of a specific vision of future. Third, it offers an attractive – from the Church point of view – amalgam of religious and nationalistic elements, it is some sort of ‘nationalistic mysticism’ (cf. Bystroń 2002: 205–6; also: Smith 1991 after: Galasińska 2006; Borowik 2000: 29, 59, 144). Several language phenomena (both of syntax and of word formation) appearing in the episcopal correspondence and characteristic of the authors of postcommunism are also of possible interest in this context. One finds many examples of passive and impersonal verb forms (for example: Polish impersonal active: it was introduced, pass.: sth. was transformed), see 22). It is also possible to note verbal nouns (constructions like: building of a new order; transformation of a totalitarian state into a democratic one). Symptomatically, both are used in the Polish language to construct clauses without a subject, hence to hide an agent, an author of the actions: (Example 22) As a result of political transformation a democracy was introduced. […] Economy which was managed by central, supervising authorities was transformed into free market economy. (2000)

Similarly frequent reflexive constructions (i.e. constructions formed of a verb and of the morph “się”) highlight an impersonal character of actions or involuntariness of some conditions (for example: “a new situation in which Poland was found”; “Poland became the arena of immense changes”; “Poland was made an arena.” etc.). On the one hand, the concealment of the authors of post-communist reforms achieved by syntactic devices may be understood as a continuation of a historiosophic concept of the Church, in which a personal, individual aspect of actions is irrelevant, as history is only Providence’s plan coming-to-be-true. On the other hand, one has to account for the important interpretation context i.e. the often complex relations between the Church and the Polish intelligentsia in the 80s and 90s of the last century. At this point it is worth invoking the passage: (Example 23) The dramaturgy of these reforms lies also in the fact that the authors of the reforms – workers, peasants and a part of the intelligentsia, […] have paid the highest price. (2000)

The enigmatic phrase ‘part of the intelligentsia’ can be explained by the fact that after the proclamation of the martial law (December 1981) illegal oppositionists

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who wanted to evade the repressions, had chosen to continue their activities within the Church even though some of them disagreed with the religious concepts preached by the church (see Gowin 1999: 24–25). After 1989, however, many former oppositionists came to criticise the Church for assuming too active a part in Polish public life. For the episcopate, this lack of support for its institutional actions, displayed by former ‘allies’, formed a kind of intellectual betrayal – bishops did not hesitate to express their resentment. “The authors of the document, who were not able to exclude the intelligentsia but wanted to express their concern about their representatives abandoning the Church, replaced ‘intelligentsia’ with ‘part of intelligentsia’: hence, the contribution to the reforms after August ‘80 seems to be proportional to piety” (Obremski 2006: 230). The impersonal construction of the post-communism authorship, as well as ‘splitting’ the number of intelligentsia into those “worthy or unworthy of praise” allowed the Church to avoid speaking about those, who, although taking an active part in post-communist reforms in 1989, “turned their back” on the Church gaining by this (at least in the eyes of the Church) the status of ideological apostate. 2.4  P  overty, unemployment, vacuum – defining features of post-communism In order to reconstruct post-communism in the episcopal discourse one needs to mention the most important defining features. First, post-communism is defined by poverty and social unemployment, as well as corruption and demoralization of the authorities: (Example 24) The margin of poverty becomes larger, the unemployment increases dramatically. (2001) (Example  25) We appeal to those responsible for social welfare to turn their attention to the real difficulties which the society is facing. These are: social poverty, unemployment, corruption, lack of adequate preparation to the new living conditions in unified Europe. (2003)

The features of the definition shown above create the discursive world, in which there is no hope outside the Church. Also, it furnishes a method of building the negative way of experiencing the post-communism by Polish Catholics. Different features of post-communism can be noticed in the parabolic pictures appearing in episcopal letters. These are respectively paganism and vacuum, which can be read as terms similar in meaning to the post-communism itself. The first parallel, paganism, has its source in the history of the first centuries of Christianity, imprinted on Polish mentality as mythologizingly described in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s “Quo vadis”:



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(Example 26) The process of fitting into the new social structure most frequently proceeds along the ‘bodily desires and vanity of life’ principle, that is according to the pagan mode. (1990) (Example  27) The words about our ‘life for Lord’ were said by St. Paul to the Romans at the time, when pagan idols were worshiped and hedonism and success were glorified in the city. The believers in Christ were then able to manifest their radicalism by rejecting the death culture characteristic for the late Roman Empire. Today a similar proof of radicalism and generosity is needed.[..]. Experiencing the serious ethical crisis, it is Europe itself that needs people of sensitive conscience.  (2003)

Both examples above (especially 27) manifest a construction of post-communist social reality as a world radically deprived of values attributed to Christianity. They also reveal a way of defining the Catholic community (or Christendom) as a small, closed circle. The feeling of being the other of a larger community, of being ‘besieged’ (an effect achieved by means of the metaphor of the first Christians’ martyrdom implied in passage (27)) competes with the need for a more heroic propaganda extolling this separateness from the modern, neopagan Europe. Thus, Poland is endowed with the symbolic part of the first Christians. This kind of the discourse of Catholicism may be identified with the so called ‘besieged stronghold’ syndrome so characteristic for the whole Roman Catholic Church before Vaticanum Secundum (i.e. before 1962). Its presence in the discourse of Polish Catholic clergy half a century later shows the inability of this latter to overcome old mental habits or behavioural patterns as well as its inability to work out a new vision which possibly would be better adapted to the rapidly changing reality. The second parallel that appears in episcopal letters and corresponds on a conceptual level with post-communism, is vacuum (“pustka”) or void (“próżnia”). This metaphor is based on the concept of paganism – both visions are of reality dominated by hedonism or by cult of money and of success. One may find here a dramatic vision of a clash between two ideologies, a war in whose prize is the ‘reign over souls’, one from which the Church must emerge victorious: (Example 28) The vacuum which emerged after the collapse of the totalitarian ideology in the East, is now being filled by the ‘profit at any price’ ideology. The shortage of money among the many the accumulation of it by the few has the same result: the cult of money. (1992) (Example  29) The Church must fill the vacuum which opens in a man who changes one ideology for another. Many – instinctively – seek a spiritual help of the Church defending themselves from the void. (1990)

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2.5  Impotence and fear – constructing social emotions The above features persistently defining the post-communism in episcopal discourse are emphasised by others, related to the main term by some relatively distant associations. These features are: the feeling of helplessness and lack of perspectives, an insecurity related to future danger or disaster. Such constructs are formed with the help of several constantly repeated phrases like: “apparent crisis…; the painful consequences of the transformation…; during this period we failed to …; the great danger of our changes is…” and many others of similar style. To uphold and strengthen this construction of dangerous post-communism many episcopal pronouncements rely on extreme conceptual and axiological contrasts: (Example 30) We are facing a reality which creates hitherto unknown possibilities for our nation, yet, at the same time, it also poses new challenges and dangers.  (2004)

“The managers of sacrum” are trying to organize and use individual and collective fears for their own purposes (see Michel 2000: 48–49). The goal of such construction of post-communism, one based on fixed associations with danger or disaster, is to create “moral panic”, “affective epidemic”,7 to raise (and to control) collective fears. Such comprehension of the post-communism is a conceptual derivative of vacuum (cf. above 28–29) in which there is no room for the Church. However, the alleged social impotency, fear and insecurity create new areas, which can be “arranged” by the church to reach its goals. 2.6  W  e feel the burden of the past upon our shoulders – the post-communism as a sham antonym of the communism In a great number of statements post-communism is not the opposite to communism, but is treated as its continuation. This “type” of post-communism should be interpreted in a framework of the metaphor “present Pole as homo sovieticus”, as a “sovietised” man, as an inheritor of “communism”. Homo sovieticus is under the influence of Marxist ideology and is no longer, at least not according to the Church, a part of the “healthy tissue of the nation” (cf. below 33–34). Below, typical and chronologically arranged (31–32), are several extracts which show that despite the passing time, the discursive construct of “communism is unwelcome legacy” remains unchanged. The key words for this version of post-communism are: a burden of the past, heirloom, heritage, legacy, consequences, liabilities from bygone period.

.  Cf. Melosik 1995: 171–172 – the term is used to desrcibe some media strategies.



Discursive construction of post-communism in pastoral letters 

(Example 31) We have undertaken a great effort of leaving behind the serfdom of totalitarian system, based on principles of Marxist ideology. Still, however, we feel a burden of the past upon our shoulders. The condition of Polish labour is a particularly painful legacy of yesterday. (1990) (Example 32) Once more we’ve experienced the permanence of this grim past of the totalitarian system that for decades dominated in our homeland. (2007)

An interesting variation of this metaphor is the picture of post-communism as an inherited (and inheritable) disease; key words in this case are: inheritance, hereditary transmissions, diseases, pathologies: (Example 33) A social effort to purge public life of various kinds of pathologies, partially new, partially inherited from former political system. (1999) (Example 34) Diseases of the totalitarian state became our heritage.

(1990)

This metaphor describes communism as hereditary transmission and hence implies a certain inevitability of bad qualities intrinsic in communism and passed on to the post-communism, an impossibility to reject this legacy (see Skowronek 2006: 163–167, 243–245). A post-communist society – in opposition to the nation living in the communist period is constructed as imperfect, evil, sinful, and therefore in need of a permanent reform on religious principles: (Example 35) A sad legacy from the past totalitarianism expresses itself, among other things, in asocial habits, in biases and prejudices, in lack of trust and in an attitude of morbid suspiciousness (1991) (Example  36). But [communism’s] consequences remain: we have no skills necessary for democracy, no culture of discussion and political disagreement; often we are too suspicious, not patient and tolerant enough. […]. Today, the diseases of totalitarian state became our heirloom: passivity, despondency, submission to bureaucracy, frustration and forlornness, an inclination to emigrate – this is the fruit of destruction that hampered the creative subjectivity of a citizen. (1990)

The dichotomy: “sinful post-communist society” – “perfect nation in the communist period” shows that a nationalistic element that is formed on the religious basis remains decidedly the Church’s preference when faced with a society of advanced citizenship based on the ideas of democracy and liberalism. The “post-communism as a continuance of communism” construction is complemented by yet another formula: “the post-communism, in some aspects, is identical with the communism”. In this version the totalitarian state shares some common traits with the democratic one. One of these traits is significantly its secularity. Only a constant presence of the Church in public social life constitutes

 Katarzyna Skowronek

a landmark that allows a distinction between the true and the false democracy, the latter bearing considerable resemblance to totalitarianism (cf. Obremski 2006: 230–231) and being thus described as irreligious, immoral, antinational: (Example 37) For a democracy that is devoid of fundamental values sooner or later degenerates, or even becomes a open or disguised totalitarianism. (1993) (Example  38) It can be noticed in a purposeful return to certain totalitarian practices […]. In this sort of conduct lack of moral principles is too often combined with attempts to obliterate the memory of home history. (1996)

2.7  B  etween hope and apathy – dynamics of the post-communism construction 1989–2007 An observation of the statements of the episcopate in the years 1989–2007 shows that the post-communism construction is not fixed. Indeed, one may notice immense quality changes that occurred during these eighteen years. These changes are in the first place related to the axiology of post-communism and to the ways it is expressed. They manifest the degree and the form of acceptation of the post1989 reality by the Church. They not only reflect the changes of the social moods that occurred in the meantime, but become the tools that are actually employed to construct and to control desired social attitudes towards post-communist reality. It is possible, although only conventionally, to appoint a chronology of an evolution of this term. The first period of constructing post-communism is between 1989 and 1992 and may be described as a phase of moderate optimism, hope as well as that of high level acceptation. A relatively strong, positive axiological element is its charac­ teristic feature; state of joy or hope can be noticed even despite some imperfections. This construction is consistent with the prevalent emotional picture of the Polish society at the turn of the 90s. It is also correlated with a feeling of satisfaction, or even triumph of the Church as the latter regains the privileges that had been lost during the communist period (for example in 1990 religion became a subject of school instruction: (Example  39) During these past three years basic structures of a new, more human social order started to emerge. They are still fragile and under mortgage […] however they allow us to believe in better future. (1992) (Example 40) Aware of the importance of the fact that God regained His place in the school even in spite of the manifestly complex situation of the Polish educational system and the Polish economic system is manifest, we cry: may God be thanked! (1991)



Discursive construction of post-communism in pastoral letters 

The second phase (1993–1999) could be named the period of realism or unstable balance. In the construction of post-communism characteristic of this period, its negative components seem balanced by certain positive elements. Therefore, it is the time when the Church started to experience consequences of its activity in the political arena (in a first place consequences of being involved in consecutive presidential and parliament elections, and, later, in the constitutional debate). It is also the time of an apparent lack of social approval or even biting criticism. In these circumstances the picture of reality slowly degenerates and it emerges as a menace to both the society and the Church: (Example 41) It is a unique moment, a moment loaded with many difficulties and dangers, but one that also brings hope (1993). (Example 42) Aside from reasons for joy or pride, there is in our homeland much pain, suffering and social disappointment that originate in occurring changes.  (1999)

The third phase of constructing post-communism in episcopal letters (2000– 2007) may be described as a period of radical criticism: post-communism’s errors and difficulties decidedly outweigh any benefits. Along with the description of many difficulties or the material and the spiritual shortages one may find a definition of social flaws: (Example  43) Still, we see with our own eyes how much there is around us of material and spiritual poverty, of tensions and bitter disappointment. (2006) (Example  44) Around us, we keep noticing many alarming manifestations of public life: egoism, greed, rapacity. (1999)

The reality which surrounds the Church is thus portrayed as a self-imposing and the society as a victim of post-communism, unable to fulfil any difficult tasks, demanding and discontent, depressed and apathetic: (Example  45) Nine years before the year 2000 our Church faced some new challenges which were presented by the world that tends to inflict itself or its structures upon us. (2000) (Example  46) If in 1989 the hearts of many Poles were filled with enthusiasm, today many of us succumb to moods of despondency and gloom. (2000)

The picture of the society and the reality created here has a manifestly pessimistic character as it is devoid of hope, which was characteristic of the first phase (cf. (39) and (47)): (Example 47) The change of political system after 1989 raised many hopes, which, unfortunately, were never to come true. (2006)

 Katarzyna Skowronek

On one hand, the negative vision of post-communism in the episcopal letters after the year 2000 reveals its authors’ disapproval of surrounding reality, indeed an aversion with respect to this latter; in fact, it may be taken as a particular form of escapism. On the other hand, however, it offers a possibility to “manage” this reality by the Church, a chance to offer its own solutions: (Example  48) Let us commend our whole nation to the Virgin Mary. Let us speak to Her about our problems, about the dangers we are facing – about the weakening of faith, about the irreverence for human life, […] about the growing consumptionist attitude – and let us beg Her to advocate our cause before the Lord. (1995)

Finally, one may note that after 2000 the Church was forced to allow a public debate over several important issues previously described as (and indeed assumed to be) “internal” (e.g. lustration of the clergy). Its complete refusal to acknowledge the possibility of social criticism resulted in an extremely negative vision of both post-communism and society.

3.  Conclusions The discursive construction of post-communism in the Polish episcopal letters (1989–2007) shows the perspective within which the Church observes and locates any political and social changes after 1989. It reflects the degree of acceptance of post-communism by the Polish clergy. It is also an illustration of changing social mood in the post-1989 Poland, the changes ‘accompanied’ by the Church and organized by the Church. The discursive construction of post-communism also allows a diagnosis of the problems faced by the Polish Church AD 2007. The description of post-communism is made in the letters only from a perspective of the “closed”, “besieged” Church. The desire to uphold its standing and range of power in the new, democratic situation, the lack of disposition to become one of several objects of social criticism, lack of communication skills of the hierarchs, intellectual and psychological weaknesses are revealed in this constructions. It is also apparent that the episcopate tries to gain (or regain?) dominant influence on both political and social aspects of public life. An evolution of valuation of this concept (from relatively positive to decidedly negative vision of post-communism) is a token of a tendency to feed social anxiety and dissatisfaction. The bishops exploit social animosities, dissonances and tensions to build and shape a negative and demanding attitude of Poles with regard to the transformation processes, but also with regard to the representatives of (government) authorities. The state and post-communist authorities appear



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as foes of the nation and the Church, their face those of an Outsider and Enemy (as it was before 1989). The discourse manifests a mostly confrontational attitude of the Church towards the State and its desire to fulfil, symbolically expressed, superior function. This way of defining social reality also allows to continue the concept of the chosen nation, i.e. to maintain the link between religious piths and nationalistic concepts, characteristic for the episcopal correspondence after 1945 – this aspect is clearly manifest in the episcopal letters of the last twenty years. The lack of approval of reality by the Church can in turn be noticed in construction of the post-communism as an analogy to the communism and a totalitarianism, in emphasising its negative features, in the pictures of pagan life style, in maintaining a fixed opposition between Church’s own, true discourse and others false public discourses. To some degree, the post-communism construction provides a picture of social reality of Poland; largely, however, it remains, quite paradoxically, an imaginary, postulatory, indeed “wishful” depiction. This negative vision of the present is in fact a “dream of the past”, what is yearned for is the ‘black and white’ reality, a passive but religiously ardent society, a nationalist – religious ideology, and finally – the strong and unquestionable position of the Church. Due to such construction of post-communism many Poles see the contemporary Catholic Church as just one of many institutions defending its own interests, like any other political party.

Bibliography Barker, C. & Galasiński, D. 2001. Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis. A Dialogue on Language and Identity. London: Sage. Borowik, I. 2000. Odbudowywanie pamięci. Przemiany religijne w Środkowo-Wschodniej Europie po upadku komunizmu. Kraków: Nomos. Borowik, I. & Szyjewski, A. (ed.). 1993. Religie i Kościoły w społeczeństwach postkomunistycznych. Kraków: Nomos. Bystroń, J.S. 1980 (2002). “Megalomania narodowa.” In Tematy, które mi odradzano. Pisma etnograficzne rozproszone, L. Stomma (ed.), 203–208. Warszawa. [reprint of exerpts in] Polska refleksja nad narodem. Wybór tekstów, W.J. Burszta, J. Nowak, & K. Wawruch (eds). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. Duszak, A. 1998. Tekst, dyskurs, komunikacja międzykulturowa. Warszawa: PWN. Fairclough, N. 1992 (1998). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Galasińska, A. 2006. “Border Ethnography and Post-communist Discourses of Nationality in Poland.” Discourse & Society 17 (5): 609–626. Gowin, J. 1999. Kościół w czasach wolności 1989–1999. Kraków: Znak. Halliday, M.A.K. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Gramar. London: Edward Arnold. Kozacki, P. 2007. “Wierzę, że Kościół jest święty.” Tygodnik Powszechny 5/2007.

 Katarzyna Skowronek Leszczyńska, K. 2002. Imprimatur dla Unii? Kościół rzymskokatolicki w Polsce i Czechach wobec Europy i procesów zjednoczeniowych. Kraków: Nomos. Leszczyńska, K. 2003. ”68% – Kościół, demokracja i przemiany religijne w społeczeństwie polskim po 1989 roku.” In Frustracja. Młodzi o nowym wspaniałym świecie, P. Marecki, & J. Sowa (eds), 66–74. Kraków: Rabid. LPEP II, 2003. Listy Pasterskie Episkopatu Polski 1945–2000, bp. P. Libera, A. Rybicki, & S. Łącki (eds), t. II (1980–2000). Marki: Wydawnictwo Michalineum. LPEP Int. – Pastoral Letters of the Polish Episcopate (2001–2005): http://www.episkopat. pl/?a=dokumentyKEP. Mariański, J. 1998. Kościół katolicki w społeczeństwie obywatelskim. Refleksje socjologiczne. Lublin: KUL. Melosik, Z. 1995. Postmodernistyczne kontrowersje wokół edukacji. Toruń – Poznań: Edytor. Michel, P. 2000. Polityka i religia – wielka przemiana. Kraków: Nomos. Nosowski, Z. 2003. “Czy Polska jest (jeszcze) krajem katolickim?” Więź 5/2003; http://free.ngo. pl/wiez/0305zn.htm. Obirek, S. 2007. The Revenge of the “Victims” or about the difficulty of the Polish Catholics to deal with Democracy; conference “Religion and public space: cross-cultural dimensions”, Galilee – Israel, June 2007. Obremski, K. 2006. “Nowomowa jako poetyka listu pasterskiego.” In Teorie i casusy globalizacji, R. Bäcker & J. Marszałek-Kawa (eds), 221–234. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek. Pasek, Z. & Śliwiński, P.J. 2007. “Szanuj bliźniego inaczej mówiącego.” Tygodnik Powszechny 21/2007. Skowronek, K. 2006. Między sacrum a profanum. Studium językoznawcze listów pasterskich Konferencji Episkopatu Polski (1945–2005). Kraków: Lexis. Smith, A.D. 1991. National Identity. London: Books. van Dijk, T.A. 1993. “Principles of critical discourse analysis.” Discourse & Society 4 (2): 249–283. van Dijk, T.A. 2001. “Badania nad dyskursem.” In Dyskurs jako struktura i proces, T.A. van Dijk (ed.), 9–44. Warszawa: PWN. van Dijk, T.A. 2003. “Dyskurs polityczny i ideologia.” Etnolingwistyka 15: 7–28.

Fashioning a post-communist political identity The case of Poland’s Democratic Left Alliance Robert Brier

German Historical Institute

1.  Introduction The study of post-communist democracies has become a major field of political analysis over the past two decades. An as yet unresolved debate within this field of inquiry evolves around the question of the historical continuities between Europe’s new democracies and their authoritarian predecessors. Did the events of 1989 give rise to a political system that is comparable and compatible with the experiences of other democracies? Or is the post-communist condition so deeply influenced by communism’s legacies that it constitutes a unique historical experience? This dispute forms the general background of this chapter. In line with this volume and in contrast to the bulk of the political science literature, however, it focuses on the often neglected discursive dimension of the post-communist condition. Assessing this aspect of post-communist politics can, I maintain, help to understand how continuity and change interact in the transformation of the formerly communist world. In making this point, this chapter focuses on a peculiar historical case: the way in which the Democratic Left Alliance, Poland’s main communist successor party, fashioned its new political identity. At first sight, the history of this party seems to represent radical change rather than continuity. During the 1990s, a party consisting of former communists refashioned itself as a pragmatic proponent of representative democracy and market reforms. By focusing on the precise discursive processes in which the identity of this party was fashioned, however, this chapter will demonstrate how deeply the emergence of this unquestionably new political identity was shaped by a meaningful frame inherited from the period prior to 1989. The remainder of this chapter is divided into three parts. First, I discuss my understanding of the term “discourse” and demonstrate how it helps us to understand social transformations. Second, I apply this analytic concept to my historical case study. Third, I draw a number of broader conclusions.

 Robert Brier

2.  T  ransition, transformation, and discourse in the post-communist condition Broadly speaking, there are two main approaches to post-communist politics in the relevant literature (Bönker & Wielgohs 2003). The mainstream of political science research was conducted from a theoretical perspective which Carothers (2002) called the “transition paradigm”. The proponents of this view argued that since the communist parties had completely dominated the political systems of the “Soviet Bloc”, their downfall had left behind an institutional vacuum, or tabula rasa. Therefore, the processes shaping Central and Eastern Europe’s new political systems were understood as “transitions”; that is, as one-way processes of social change from one social condition to a completely new one. Europe’s new democracies, these authors concluded, would hence emerge largely untouched by the peculiarities of East-Central European history (cf. Elster, Offe, & Preuss 1998). This ahistorical approach to studying Europe’s new democracies has been widely criticized (Bunce 1995; Blokker 2005). Scholars from different social scientific disciplines have argued that the post-communist condition, far from constituting an institutional vacuum, is rife with structures and processes inherited from communist times. “[O]ne thing is clear,” Jowitt (1992: 285) wrote about the societies of the formerly communist world, their “new institutional patterns will be shaped by the ‘inheritance’ and legacy of forty years of Leninist rule.” This view also influenced the way in which the post-communist condition was understood. Sociologist Stark (1992: 300), for instance, argued that “in place of transition we analyze transformations, in which the introduction of new elements most typically combines with adaptations, rearrangements, permutations, and reconfigurations of existing organizational forms” (see also Bönker, Müller, and Pickel 2002; Ekiert & Hanson 2003). With its focus on historical diversity and particularity, this second understanding of the post-communist condition is significantly closer to the perspective proposed in this study. The research conducted in this vein, however, is based on a rather restricted understanding of history, as Blokker (2005) has shown. The historically peculiar and contingent ways in which inherited structures are rearranged in the creation of a new societal order is given scant attention at best. Rather, “[d]iversity becomes, in this reading, multiple pathways to a similar end destination while creative agency is confined to the invention of locally functioning, successful ways of reaching that goal” (Blokker 2005: 513). The concept of “discourse”, which I adopt in this chapter, can help to arrive at a deeper understanding of the historicity of political transformations. Discourse analysis is understood in this chapter as part of a broad intellectual current which



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cuts across a variety of academic disciplines. In political studies, it has been particularly influential in historical research (Baker 1991; Tully 1983). For the sake of brevity, this current will be called “interpretive theory” here. Three premises underpin this theoretical orientation (cf. Sewell 2005: 152–174). The first of these premises is the idea that reality is not objectively given to human actors. Instead, humans are thought to depend fundamentally on notions, conceptions, beliefs, and ideas in order to interpret reality, render it meaningful, and thus make it accessible to their understandings and actions. The second premise is the thesis of the relative autonomy of meaning. What gives a certain idea or notion its meaning is, according to this view, not only, and not even primarily, its “match” to a non-meaningful, material reality. Rather, meaning emerges from the relationship of a notion with other notions which together form a more or less coherent system. Systems of meaning are therefore not merely derivative of the material conditions to which they are applied, but are structures in their own right constituted through the relationships between their elements. It follows from these ideas as the final premise of interpretive theory that structures of meanings do not reside in the individual psyche. Rather, they are emergent or extrinsic phenomena the place of which is the intersubjective sphere of the social discourse. The term “discourse” thus denotes the totality of those meaningful structures and practices (utterances, texts, narratives, rituals, etc.) by means of which social groups of whatever size communicate, perpetuate, or transform their ideas about reality. As the historian Sewell (2005) has shown, this concept of discourse leads to a more deeply historical understanding of what political and social transformations imply. Two points are important in this respect. First, from this theoretical perspective, it is virtually excluded that there is such a thing as a political or social tabula rasa. Social actors necessarily act within a cultural context rife with meanings and identities inherited from the past. To be sure, actors are capable of reshaping discursive structures. Since the meaning of an idea depends on its place in a system of ideas, the reconfiguration of this system can alter existing interpretations of reality or lead to new ones. However, these new interpretations are never cut from wholly new cloth, but rather emerge through the restructurization of existing systems of meaning (Sewell 2005: 124–151). Second, interpretive theory rests on the belief of the radical contingency of social processes. From this point of view, the causal significance of a particular material or social structure does not reside in this entity alone, but also in the way in which social actors interpret it according to the discursive schemes available to them. By changing these discursive structures, a transformation therefore has the potential of changing “the very logic by which consequences follow from occurrences or circumstances” (Sewell 2005: 101).

 Robert Brier

This interpretive approach may thus help to understand how continuity and change coexist in transformations of the social world. On one hand, transformations can radically reshape the very logic of social action, by affecting the ways in which actors interpret their reality. On the other hand, “even the most radical historical ruptures are interlaced with remarkable continuities” so that “the structures that emerge from an event are always transformations of preexisting structures” (Sewell 2005: 102). What does this mean for the study of post-communist politics? It is, first, impossible to ignore the past, as the “transition paradigm” does. The actors who shape the post-communist condition bring with them the notions, ideas, and identities they acquired under communist rule. When analysing politics in Europe’s new democracies, it is hence pivotal to take these meaningful structures into account. Second, the transformation of the formerly communist world does not merely add a greater degree of variety to the ways in which the predefined goal of democracy and capitalism can be reached. Instead, in studying post-communism, we have to focus on the historically contingent ways in which existing meanings and ideas were rearranged when historical actors shaped the novel and often surprising political identities and realities of Europe’s new democracies. Focusing on the case of Poland’s Democratic Left Alliance, the rest of this chapter is dedicated to this goal. 3.  The pre-1989 heritage and the rise of Poland’s democratic left alliance This section of the chapter is intended to exemplify empirically how a rather surprising new interpretation of post-communist political reality was brought about in reaction to and through the reconfiguration of existing structures of meaning. To this end, this chapter reconstructs the process in which the Polish Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD), one of Poland’s major parties, fashioned its political identity as a democratic actor. As already noted, the formation of the SLD is an interesting case because it seems to represent a radical rupture with the past. This party1 is a direct successor of the communist Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR). Many of its later politicians therefore belonged to what

.  For the sake of simplicity, I refer to the SLD as a “party” throughout this chapter. This is not fully correct. Until 1999, the SLD was not a party, but an electoral alliance comprising a number of different parties, trade unions, and organizations. It was, however, dominated by the more significant of two direct successors of the PZPR that it acted like a uniform party.



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Buchowski (2001) calls the “king-priests” of a political “quasi-religion” (cf. Kula 2005). Once the communist “theocracy” had collapsed, however, they refashioned themselves as pragmatics confessing the creed of market reforms, representative democracy, and Poland’s international economic and political integration. As this chapter will show even this rather extreme case of a post-communist transformation did not constitute a complete rupture with the communist past. Instead, in forging their post-communist political identity, Poland’s ex-communists drew on and reconfigured existing identities and meanings. 3.1  The SLD in the discursive structure of the third republic The history of the SLD begins with the fundamental defeat of its predecessor, the PZPR. In April 1989, Poland’s then rulers had agreed to hold semi-free parliamentary elections. Originally, the elections were part of a design intended to increase the legitimacy of the PZPR’s rule (Bernhard 1997: 182–184). In reality, however, they turned into a plebiscite on the People’s Republic in which Poland’s voters reached an unequivocal verdict: In open electoral contest, the PZPR failed to win even only a single parliamentary seat. Thus stripped of the illusion of enjoying even only a slight degree of popular legitimacy, the party agreed to a fullfledged democratisation and dissolved in January 1990 giving way to the SLD (Zubek 1990). This defeat was worsened by the meaningful frame in which the events of 1989 were interpreted by the victorious Solidarity movement. The core of the political identity of the Solidarity movement was, as Bakuniak and Nowak (1987: 416) note, “the association of ‘nation’ understood as a historical community with ‘society’ defined in opposition to the authorities”. The Solidarity movement thus cast the confrontation of the 1980s in the symbolism of a struggle between “us” and “them,” between the Polish nation and a culturally “foreign” and “evil” system (cf. Kowalski 1990; Kubik 1994). Poland’s communists thus did not merely suffer an electoral defeat in 1989; they were symbolically excluded from the “imagined community” of the Polish nation. This discursive context strongly constrained the ways in which the excommunists could define their political identities, formulate their claims, and try to gain support for their political programme. At the same time, though, this context also created new opportunities. Most importantly, the SLD increasingly defined itself in contrast to the discourse of the post-Solidarity right-wing elites. On this basis, the ex-communists then put forth their own interpretation of Polish history by creatively re-interpreting some of the elements of Solidarity’s symbolic hegemony and by referring to ideas and symbols of the official discourse of the PZPR.

 Robert Brier

3.2  Defining a post-communist identity In coping with Solidarity’s initial discursive hegemony, the politicians of the SLD usually deployed a peculiar discursive strategy which Gawin (2000) called the “fragmentation of memory.” In the SLD discourse, society was envisioned as inherently diversified and any reference to a common identity transcending society’s different groups was rejected. The only function of politics, therefore, was to serve and to coordinate the different interests of this pluralist society. Given society’s pluralism, SLD politicians also argued that a consensus on how to assess Polish history was impossible and that debates about history were politically harmful. Endless debates about collective memory, the SLD politicians argued, are secondary issues which impede the finding of pragmatic solutions for the real problems of the present. History was thus considered an academic problem or a private matter: During the 1993 election campaign, the SLD’s main candidate and later president Aleksander Kwaśniewski requested his political opponents to “Leave [historical] settlements to historians, judges, and to everyone of us for a personal and private self-examination” (cited in Kurczewska 2002: 257; see also Kraśko 2000; Tarkowska 1994). These ideas also clearly dominated the SLD’s stance in one of the central political controversies of the Third Republic: the debate over the country’s new constitution. In this context, the party’s representatives argued that the sole source of the constitution’s legitimacy were democratic procedures and that its main function was to guarantee individual rights, to provide social welfare, and to establish effective procedures of political decision-making. The SLD politicians thus argued that the basis for the new constitution’s adoption could not be a consensus about historical identity or moral values, but had to be a compromise between the particular political options in parliament. For instance, when the post-Solidarity parties insisted on a historical preamble to the new constitution, SLD politicians like Marek Mazurkiewicz flatly said that “it’s worth remembering that we’re drafting here a fundamental legal act which is supposed to outline the principles of the [political] system and not a history textbook” (BKK, vol. XII, p. 91). But the SLD not only eschewed questions of history and identity, but also used the stance of the right-wing parties as a foil or “other” in contrast to which the ex-communists defined their own identity. While initially, the division of social reality into “us” and “them” was Solidarity’s great asset, this interpretive frame turned increasingly into a liability for post-oppositional politics. Casting politics as the restitution of the nation’s “true” spiritual and historical identity, right-wing post-Solidarity elites turned controversies even over rather “technical” issues into fierce cultural conflicts over the authoritative interpretation of Polishness (cf. Gawin 2002: 183).



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The deeply moralist language, which consequently characterized the discourse of Solidarity’s right-wing offspring, enabled the former communists to take an “aloof, dignified, statesman-like stand” (Zubek 1995: 291; Czyżewski, Kowalski, and Piotrowski 1997:  28–29). In contrast to their political opponents, the postcommunist left seemed like an “oasis of peace and of pragmatic and professional purpose” (Zubek 1995:  293; Pietrzyk-Zieniewicz & Zieniewicz 1995:  97–126). Characteristically, Aleksander Kwaśniewski said that his party would, in contrast to its opponents, care not about the names of streets, but rather make sure that they were safe and that there were no holes in them (cited in Kraśko 1996: 128). This contrast is again clearly evidenced in the constitutional debate. The rightwing parties argued that, in order to be legitimate, the new constitution needed to reflect what they considered to be the nation’s “true” spiritual and cultural identity. Only then, they went on, would the constitution serve the citizens’ common good. The new constitution, however, is introduced by a preamble referring to both the “Polish Nation” and “all citizens of the Republic;” it differentiates Poles deriving their value system from religion from those who have other sources; and it speaks of a feeling of responsibility “before God or our own consciousness.”2 Therefore, the right-wing parties ruled out any constitutional compromise and initiated a fierce campaign against the emergent constitutional draft. Indeed, they cast the constitutional dispute as a continuation of the 1980s struggle between the communist authorities and the Solidarity movement: The new constitution would, they claimed, mean a covert continuation of the People’s Republic (Śpiewak 1997; Zubrzycki 2001). At one point, some of them even went so far as to compare the new constitution’s adoption to the Red Army’s onslaught on Warsaw in the PolishSoviet War of 1919–1920 (Gazeta Wyborcza, 24 April 1997). The SLD’s stance in the constitutional debate contrasted starkly with the rhetoric of the right-wing post-Solidarity parties. The former communists made the idea of a “civic compromise” the idée directrice of their constitutional campaign. After he was elected chair of the Constitutional Commission, Aleksander Kwaśniewski defined how he saw the work of this institution: The experiences of European constitutionalism clearly show that in countries with a developing or emerging democracy it was exactly through a compromise between different social interests and civic expectations that effective constitutions were drafted. Thus, it would be good if we went that way and if we managed to draft a constitution of a civic compromise – I repeat a civic compromise.  (BKK, vol. I/II, 10)

.  The official English translation of Poland’s constitution is available at .

 Robert Brier

Addressing the Sejm, Kwaśniewski gave this idea of a “civic compromise” an additional tone. A compromise must be treated as a value in itself; as a solution which serves society in its broadest scope; it must be instrumental in seeking support for the constitution among different political groups, among different circles [środowisk]. Therefore, when a compromise is possible – for, certainly, it will not always be possible – but when a compromise is possible, I would like to appeal to you in the name of the Constitutional Commission, that we seek it with our entire determination and that we won’t be ashamed of it. That we will be proud of it for this is the very way to adopt a constitution which will not be the constitution of one, two, or three groups, but which can become the constitution of the entire society. (SP, 21 October 1994)

This segment contains three elements that help to understand this idea of a “civic compromise”. First, social diversity was acknowledged as a factor that had to be reckoned with. Thus, a compromise between the different positions existing objectively in society was necessary. Second, this compromise is not only a matter of pragmatics: A compromise, Kwaśniewski argued, is nothing one needs to be ashamed of, but is the very essence of adopting a constitution and therefore a source of pride. As such, a compromise assumes something of an ethical quality, it appears not only as a necessity but as a responsibility as well. “The adoption of a new fundamental law is,” as Kwaśniewski said, “not only the privilege of the High Chambers, it is our responsibility” (interview in Tygodnik Powszechny, 7 February 1993). Finally, the point of reference for this responsibility was society as a whole. In an interview, Marek Mazurkiewicz, who chaired the Constitutional Commission between 1996 and 1997, similarly said: “Let’s remember, though, that a constitution is not a legal act of this or that coalition. It is not the constitution of this or that option. It has to be a constitution for Poland in which there will be more of that which unites us than that which divides us” (interview in Prawo i Życie, July 6, 1996). In sum, for all its pragmatism and its emphasis on diversity, the SLD’s political paradigm implied a certain sense of responsibility which required the setting aside of particular goals and political squabble for the good of society as a whole. It is important to note that appeals to society as a whole were clearly framed within the overall paradigm of the SLD discourse. The SLD politicians did not, that is, refer to a collective entity that had an identity distinct from its single members. Rather, the Polish nation was understood as an aggregation of different social groups. So far, the analysis has given a first impression of how the emergence of the SLD’s post-communist political identity was constrained by ideas and meanings inherited from the communist period. To be sure, the pragmatic, non-ideological



Fashioning a post-communist political identity 

outlook of the SLD did constitute a rupture with this party’s pre-1989 past. As the discussion so far has shown, however, this ideological transformation had been necessitated by a discursive structure inherited from the pre-1989 period, Solidarity’s hegemonic interpretive frame, and it was in contrast to this hegemony that the ex-communists forged their pragmatic identity. 3.3  Narrating post-communist identity Whereas the “fragmentation of memory” constituted an important element of the SLD’s discursive strategy, the former communists also tried to embed their newly found identity as “pragmatists” into a historical narrative. In so doing, they again had to take existing discursive currents into account, but also referred back to the discourse of their historical predecessor. In the 1970s, there had occurred a significant change within the PZPR’s ideological discourse and public symbolism. Confronted with open protest from the workers, Poland’s self-acclaimed “vanguard of the proletariat,” found itself increasingly “entrapped in its own legitimacy myth” (Staniszkis 1979: 186). The resulting “surrealistic situation” eroded not only the PZPR’s already thin basis of legitimacy, but even its own members’ faith in the communist doctrine (Buchowski 2001: 431–434). In this situation, the party discourse increasingly resorted to a new political paradigm: “socialist patriotism.” Throughout the 1970s and even more so during the 1980s, socialism and the alliance with the Soviet Union were legitimised as the best way to guarantee Poland’s economic modernization and to safeguard its territorial integrity under given geopolitical conditions. The core message of the party discourse of the 1970s and 1980s thus was that “even if the communist regime was perhaps not the best or most desirable for most Poles, it was nevertheless the only one possible in the present geopolitical situation. Poland can only be ruled by the communists or it will cease to exist as a relatively independent nation” (Mach 1990: 142–143). In other words, socialism was not anymore praised as a goal in itself, but as the most effective way to serve the national interest under the historical circumstances of the Cold War (Kubik 1994: 31–74; Zaremba 2001: 353–377). These ideas were important points of reference for the historical narrative within which the SLD embedded and legitimised its “pragmatic identity”. Again, the constitutional debate provides a good example for how this narrative was developed. In February 1997, Jerzy Szmajdziński, a leading SLD politician, presented his party’s stance on the new constitution in a National Assembly speech (SP, 24 February 1997). Beginning his speech, he said that in the constitutional debate the Deputies and Senators faced the most important decision “since the historical turning-point” of 1989, a decision “which is the natural and inevitable

 Robert Brier

consequence of that turning point.” Adopting the new constitution, Szmajdziński argued, would assure the National Assembly a solemn place in Polish history – giving proof of the “maturity and wisdom of the present generation of Poles.” The same “maturity and wisdom,” he said, had characterized the authors of earlier Polish constitutions adopted on 3 May 1791 and on 17 March 1921. Moreover, these three constitutions, Szmajdziński said, were all motivated by the same desire to contribute to a status which he considered “the highest value” in Polish history, “something for which all generations [of Poles] worked and struggled”: national independence. This fidelity to the ideal of regaining and consolidating Poland’s independence was, he insisted, the reason why “there is a reference to 1989 in the preamble.” Thus, by referring to the symbolic dates of 1791, 1921 and 1989, Szmajdziński embedded the new constitution’s adoption in the historical trajectory of Poland’s strive for national independence. In the following part of his address, he explicitly thanked the democratic opposition and the Catholic Church for their opposition to the communist system. At the same time, though, he referred to a group of people who “had worked for the good of Poland in the period prior to 1989 with upright intentions. One cannot condemn every biography, and not everyone has to be ashamed of his past contributions [Nie każdy życiorys można dziś potępić, nie każdy człowiek musi się wypierać wczorajszych dokonań.].” Thus, he insisted that it had been possible to contribute to Poland’s strive to regain national independence not only against, but also within the confinements of state-socialism. He even went so far as to call the post-war state a pre-stage to the resurrection of Polish independence: Restrictions to the sovereignty of the Polish state at that time [i.e. prior to 1989] resulted from the [global] order of Yalta, where they decided about us, but without us. The Polish state, however, existed: National identity, culture, and territory – factors decisive for the nation’s existence – were strengthened; laws acknowledged by others were adopted; Poland was a subject of international relations. This objective existence of the state was historically rare because it presented a peaceful opportunity to strive for a fully sovereign existence. This process gained strength when it was enforced by the international situation and when we ourselves, having risen up to these changes [dojrzewając do zmian], were able to seize this opportunity.

Thus, Szmajdziński remained within the interpretational confinements set by Solidarity’s discursive hegemony; he did not try to justify the People’s Republic as a fully sovereign state. At the same time, though, he referred to a central idea of the discourse of the democratic opposition, the strive for Polish independence, thereby integrating the political biography of people like himself into this interpretation.



Fashioning a post-communist political identity 

Their association with the People’s Republic was, according to this interpretation, the result of a pragmatic assessment of how to serve Poland’s interest under given geopolitical conditions. Their motives for political action were accordingly not fundamentally different from those of the former oppositionists. Both before and after 1989, Szmajdziński’s interpretation implied, they had been just as committed to work for Poland’s good; what had changed was merely the structural conditions under which they did so. So far, the analysis has shown how the ideological transformation from the PZPR to the SLD was constrained by Solidarity’s initial discursive hegemony. The ex-communists had to reinvent their political identity in contrast to this interpretive frame and to integrate this identity into a historical narrative that underlined those ideas of the PZPR discourse which were compatible with the dominant interpretation of Polish history as a continuous struggle for independence. But this cultural legacy not only constrained the ways in which the post-communists could define their political identities, it also opened up new possibilities for them to challenge the discursive hegemony of the post-Solidarity parties. 3.4  Challenging solidarity’s discursive hegemony In the later stage of Poland’s constitutional debate, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who had been elected President in 1995, returned to the idea of a civic compromise. In a speech, in which he addressed the National Assembly after the constitution’s adoption, Kwaśniewski said that the most important ability which we acquired in the course of the present work on the constitution is the art of reaching a compromise. […]This confirms my deepest conviction that following good will and the conviction about the responsibilities for the Fatherland, one can always reach a success. The members of the National Assembly have reached it. The core [Istotą] of the adopted draft constitution is a well-balanced compromise. (SP, 2 April 1997)

Declaring the constitution’s compromise character to be its core feature and an expression of a sense of “responsibility for the Fatherland” allowed the postcommunists not only to set themselves apart from the right-wing parties; it enabled them to claim a hegemonic position in the Third Republic. During the constitutional debate, many leading SLD politicians argued that the constitutional dispute proved that their pragmatism was an expression of a true concern for Poland and a truly democratic attitude, whereas the moralist language of Solidarity and the right-wing parties suggested the authoritarian and fundamentalist inclinations of their opponents. In the National Assembly debate,

 Robert Brier

Szmajdziński rejected the right-wing parties’ charge that the draft constitution was nihilistic or deprived of national values. These charges had, he said, no basis. “They can be formulated only by those who, from a fundamentalist position, want to see the constitution as a legislative act confirming only one system, only one world view, and only one political option” (SP, 24 February 1997).

Against the background of the debate about Poland’s recent past, this juxtaposition between the “truly democratic” SLD politicians and their “fundamentalist” and “authoritarian” opponents took on a peculiar meaning. Addressing the right-wing parties’ representatives in the National Assembly, the SLD’s Marek Borowski said: We also humbly ask not to say that the condition for a compromise is to put God and Christian values into the constitution. It has already been said in this room, I repeat it, everyone sees and knows it: In this constitution, there is God, and Christian values, and all the best values which we want to observe. What is not there, however, is the assertion that any kind of world view and any kind of value system is better or worse than any other one. If there was [such an assertion] then this would be an expression of the thought of the last epoch. Of that epoch which [right-wing politicians like] Mr Krzaklewski condemn so sternly.  (SP, 26 February 1997)

In other words, Borowski argued that, if there was the danger that the People’s Republic would be continued, than this danger stemmed from the right-wing parties’ “fundamentalist” claims and not from the SLD. This line of argumentation was probably most explicitly expressed by then Prime Minister Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz (SLD). Addressing the nation on television a week before the constitutional referendum, he called the new constitution’s adoption a “historical moment” which was comparable to other such moments like the signing of the agreement of August 1980 or the elections of 1989 (reprinted in Gazeta Wyborcza, 19 May 1997). During his speech, he called the campaign of the right-wing parties an “embarrassing spectacle” which had more in common with the 1950s propaganda according to which “American imperialists had thrown potato bugs on Polish fields than with the content of the new constitution. Let’s put extreme positions [skrajności] to the side, though, and return to normal arguments.” Thus, contrasting his own position with the campaign of his opponent, the Prime Minister positioned the constitution – and thereby himself and his party – in the democratic tradition that included the Solidarity movement. His opponents, in contrast, he connected with the propaganda of the worst epoch of the communist system. Cimoszewicz finished his speech saying: The constitution is most of all a Charter of rights and obligations. The citizens have the right to expect from their state that it protects them against threats and gives



Fashioning a post-communist political identity 

them a feeling of security and, on the other side, that it won’t restrict anybody’s freedoms nor cramp his activities if only they are in accordance with the law. The memory of an authoritarian state, which claimed the right to decide what is good for the citizen and what is bad, what is allowed and what is unavailable, is still alive. The new constitution symbolically turns this page in our contemporary history. It symbolically closes a period whose degeneration was proven by the fate of Jerzy Popiełuszko, the deaths of Stanisław Pyjas and Grzegorz Przemyk. They will not be repeated in the new constitutional order. We have the chance of receiving a basic law which is friendly to the people and which does not impose a world view or way of life on anybody: a constitution of reconciliation. It is dominated by a spirit of respect for different opinions and attitudes, an atmosphere favouring tolerance and civic freedoms.

According to the prime minister, then, the new constitution “truly” finished the transition of 1989 by making, as he said, the fates of Jerzy Popiełuszko, Stanisław Pyjas, and Grzegorz Przemyk, all martyrs of the Solidarity period, impossible. In so doing, it symbolically turned the page of the history of authoritarianism in Poland. And, according to Cimoszewicz’s interpretation, it did so precisely because it was characterized by a spirit of compromise and accepted the existence of different points of view without trying to eliminate them. Thus, not only did Cimoszewicz claim to stand in the tradition of a pragmatic and non-ideological work, he also declared this attitude a precondition for the adoption of the new constitution and hence for the success of democracy. Those elements which are at the core of the post-Solidarity paradigm – the idea of moral politics and national unity – threatened to continue the authoritarianism of the old system. Put differently, Cimoszewicz portrayed himself and his party as the “true” heirs of the Solidarity movement.

4.  Conclusions This chapter has demonstrated a striking continuity between communist and post-communist Polish politics. The 1980s democratic opposition had cast their conflict with the political regime as a cultural and moral struggle. Democratisation was therefore considered as the restitution of a moral community defined in national and religious symbolism. In 1989 this interpretation of political reality briefly acquired a hegemonic status, thus also setting the parameters within which Poland’s former communists had to define their political identity.

 Robert Brier

This chapter, then, is a case in point for understanding the post-communist condition as a unique experience that is characterized by important historical continuities. Even Poland’s SLD, a party seemingly completely reinvented after 1989, emerged only in contrast to discursive structures inherited from the pre-1989 era. Therefore, the activities of Poland’s major communist successor party were clearly constrained by a cultural legacy. In defining their political identity and making their claims, they had to relate to a hegemonic discourse according to which the People’s Republic had been a structure oppressing the Polish nation. However, proceeding from a specific understanding of the concept of “discourse”, this chapter has also shown, that the SLD managed to creatively integrate ideas from before 1989 into this dominant frame, thus claming “their” place in the Third Republic. What is more, in the specific discursive constellation of the constitutional debate, they could even claim that they were the “true” representatives of Poland’s movement for independence. Between 1993 and 2003, the SLD won both presidential ballots and two out of three parliamentary elections. It thus seems that they were quite successful in claiming their place in the discursive structure of the Third Republic. As of more recent times, their position has been challenged successfully by a right-wing conservative and a more liberal-conservative party. Both, however, harked back to the Solidarity myth in forging their political identities. Polish politics, then, seem bound to be dominated by discourses inherited from the past.

References Primary sources BKK: Biuletyn Komisji Konstytucyjnej Zgromadzenia Narodowego, 46 vol. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe. SP: Official stenographic protocols of Sejm and National Assembly sessions available at (accessed March 2007). Baker, K.M. 1991. Inventing the French Revolution. Essays in French Political Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bakuniak, G. & Nowak, K. 1987. “The Creation of a Collective Identity in a Social Movement. The Case of ‘Solidarność’ in Poland.” Theory and Society, May, 16 (3): 401–429. Bernhard, M.H. 1997. “Semi-Presidentialism, Charisma, and Democratic Institutions in Poland.” In Presidential Institutions and Democratic Politics, K.V. Mettenheim (ed.), 182–186. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Blokker, P. 2005. “Post-Communist Modernization, Transition Studies, and Diversity in Europe.” European Journal of Social Theory 8 (4): 503–525. Bönker, F., Müller, K. & Pickel, A. (eds). 2002. Postcommunist Transformation and the Social Sciences: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.



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Bönker, F. & Wielgohs, J. 2003. “Does Culture Matter? Changing Views on the Cultural Legacy of the State-Socialist Past.” In Cultural Legacies in Post-Socialist Europe. The Role of the Various Pasts in the Current Transformation Process, M. Minkenberg & T. Beichelt (eds), 55–68. Frankfurt/Oder: Frankfurter Institut für Transformationsforschung – Workshop Dokumentation. Buchowski, M. 2001. “Communism and Religion. A War of Two World View Systems.” In The Academic Study of Religion during the Cold War. East and West, I. Doležalová, L.H. Martin & D. Papoušek (eds), 39–58. New York et al.: Peter Lang. Bunce, V. 1995. “Should Transitologists be Grounded?” Slavic Review 54 (1): 111–127. Carothers, T. 2002. “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” Journal of Democracy 13 (1): 5–21. Czyżewski, M., Kowalski, S. & Piotrowski, A. 1997. “Wprowadzenie.” In Rytualny chaos. Studium dyskursu publicznego, M. Czyżewski, S. Kowalski & A. Piotrowski (eds), 7–41. Kraków: Aureus. Ekiert, G. & Hanson, S.E. (eds). 2003. Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J., Offe, C. & Preuss, U.K. 1998. Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies. Rebuilding the Ship at Sea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gawin, D. 2000. “Od romantycznego narodu do liberalnego społeczeństwa. W poszukiwaniu nowej tożsamości kulturowej w polityce polskiej po roku 1989.” In Kultura narodowa i polityka, J. Kurczewska (ed.), 181–206. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa. Gawin, D. 2002. “‘Solidarność’ – republikańska rewolucja Polaków.” In Lekcja sierpnia. Dziedzictwo “Solidarności” po dwudziestu latach, D. Gawin (ed.), 161–188. Warszawa: IFiS PAN. Jowitt, K. 1992. The New World Disorder. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kowalski, S. 1990. Krytyka solidarnościowego rozumu. Studium z socjologii myślenia potocznego. Warszawa: PEN. Kraśko, N. 1996. “Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej – legitymizacja przeszłości.” In O czasie, politykach i czasie polityków, E. Tarkowska (ed.), 115–129. Warszawa: IFiS PAN. Kraśko, N. 2000. “Polska Ludowa w programach partyjnych i działaniu politycznym w III Rzeczypospolitej.” In Kultura narodowa i polityka, J. Kurczewska (ed.), 315–340. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa. Kubik, J. 1994. The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power. The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. Pennsylvania University Park: Pennsylvania University Press. Kula, M. 2005. “Communism as Religion.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6 (3): 371–381. Kurczewska, J. 2002. Patriotyzmy polskich polityków. Z badań nad świadomością liderów partyjnych lat dziewięćdziesiątych. Warszawa: IFiS PAN. Mach, Z. 1990. Symbols, Conflict, and Identity. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński. Pietrzyk-Zieniewicz, E. & Zieniewicz, A. 1995. “Wizerunki autoprezentacyjne ważniejszych ugropowań politycznych w telewizyjnej kampanii wyborczej w roku 1993.” In Wybory parlamentarne 1991 i 1993 a polska scena polityczna, S. Gebethner (ed.), 97–126. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe. Sewell, W.H. 2005. Logics of History. Social Theory and Social Transformation. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press. Staniszkis, J. 1979. “On Some Contradictions of Socialist Society.” Soviet Studies 31 (2): 167–187.

 Robert Brier Stark, D. 1992. “From System Identity to Organizational Diversity. Analyzing Social Change in Eastern Europe.” Contemporary Sociology 21 (3): 299–304. Śpiewak, P. 1997. “The Battle for a Constitution.” East European Constitutional Review, 6 (2): 89–96. Tarkowska, E. 1994. “Czas w kampanii wyborczej.” Kultura i Społeczeństwo 38 (3): 55–67. Tully, J. 1983. “The Pen is a Mighty Sword. Quentin Skinner’s Analysis of Politics.” British Journal of Political Science 13 (4): 489–509. Zaremba, M. 2001. Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm. Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja władzy komunistycznej w Polsce. Warszawa: TRIO. Zubek, V. 1990. “Poland’s Party Self-Destructs.” Orbis 34 (2): 179–193. Zubek, V. 1995. “The Phoenix out of the Ashes. The Rise to Power of Poland’s Post-Communist SdRP.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 28 (3): 275–306. Zubrzycki, G. 2001. “‘We, the Polish Nation.’ Ethnic and Civic Visions of Nationhood in PostCommunist Constitutional Debates.” Theory and Society 30: 629–668.

Power, knowledge and faith discourse The Institute of National Remembrance Marta Kurkowska-Budzan Jagiellonian University

1.  Introduction The subject of my chapter is the discourse of the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (the Institute of National Remembrance – henceforth the “IPN”). The IPN is a national institution which emerged during and has played a considerable role in the transformation in Poland. It is, to a large degree, because of the IPN that the so-called “settlement with the communist past” takes place, which is part of the “grand systematic change” (Sztompka 2002:  463) and “total social experience” (Szacki 1999: 123). Besides the political, sociological and economic changes, the significant dimensions of the transformation process are the changes in the symbolic tissue of social life – a symbolic transformation. “Its function is to introduce into the collective imagination a new, or recovered, set of meanings which are supposed to define what the new reality is and what is significant in it. This process is political because a symbolic organisation of imagination affects collective action” (Hałas 2000: 320). In Poland, the symbolic transformation has proceeded in at least two stages. The first stage is 1989 and 1990, a period of demolishing old monuments – those literal and most distinct tokens of the communist regime. Obelisks with the Red Army’s red star were falling down, figures of Lenin were being knocked down, stones commemorating “champions of communism” were being removed and the names of main streets and town squares were being changed. The second stage are the changes on a deeper lever of social fabric of notions, including those at the level of knowledge—including academic knowledge—about the past. This is the task that the IPN has undertaken and has performed by virtue of the authority of the state, personifying Foucault’s vision of the power/knowledge discourse understood as a whole, within which the language is connected with the ideology, knowledge, social and communicational strategies (Foucault 1977). In terms of its legal status, the IPN represents the power exercised on behalf of the state and expert knowledge. At the level of social perception, which can

 Marta Kurkowska-Budzan

be measured even by the frequency of the IPN’s appearances in the media and by their context (main editions of news services), the IPN’s power is based on knowledge of the contents of the secret service archives, associated with destroying or building political careers in today’s Poland and with the (political) settlements of Poland’s past. In my opinion, the truth of the IPN’s historians can also be perceived by public opinion as a truth of greater significance than any other “historical truth.” For it is a truth from “the ultimate source” – from the documents mythologized by media affairs and nearly inaccessible to the average historian and, much less, to the citizen. This way, the indicative statements from the mouth of the IPN’s historian sound like a real “judgment of history” taking place here and now. This is the reason why producers of TV news services like to make use of IPN historians, who will concisely judge the facts and people or resolve doubts on the most recent history of Poland. The IPN enjoys a great reputation in the TV news market, although it is not, of course, the only voice of historians in the media. From the multiple fields of the IPN’s activity the most widely commented on, by both the symbolic elites: politicians, publicists, and the public opinion, is everything that is connected with political vetting (‘lustracja’). The vetting discourse is dependent directly on the current state authorities. It is easy to spot and define social worlds involved in this social situation (Strauss 1978; Clarke 2005: 83–145). The IPN’s educational activities also draw public attention, however the objections and protests against it are not as loud nor as frequent. If they arise, it is usually on a local scale, e.g. veterans protest against the exhibitions organised by regional IPN’s Public Education Offices. However, the great majority of the IPN’s undertakings enjoys if not a great popularity, then at least social acceptance. The IPN’s educational discourse, seemingly neutral, is, in my opinion, even more significant for the symbolic transformation in Poland than the vetting discourse and this is why I have chosen it for the subject of my article. I use the term “discourse” to describe all kinds of communication connected with a given historic or temporal, socially or culturally present subject. This communication includes persuasive measures of language, images and various artefacts, as well as institutions and practices. I use the ethnographic method and thus I accept Goethe’s statement that “The universal is in the heart of the detail” (Winkin 2007). Hence, I have been searching for the characteristics of educational discourse of the Institute of National Remembrance in the texts published in the popular journal “Biuletyn IPN” in the years 2001–2008, dealing mostly with the analysis of their contents, and to a much lesser extent with the analysis of texts’ rhetoric. It derived both from my lack of linguistic competence and from the ascertainment that the IPN’s historians working within Ranke paradigm use



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a schematic, impersonal and descriptive language of narration. The persuasive character of their statements expresses itself mainly in juxtaposition of facts or in the subjects taken up. In the article I devote much attention to the organisation of the Institute on National Remembrance itself and to the way it functions because the change of a political system in Poland after 1989 is above all the change of the institutions and building their new symbolic foundations. I am led by Michel Foucault’s “genealogical” writings in which he reveals the role of power and domination in formation of symbols, in constituting of knowledge, in creation of identity and institution (Foucault 1980: 117). My general methodological perspective is a symbolic interactionism, in which Foucault’s terms of “discourse” and “discipline/power” coincide with the concept of “social world” (Strauss 1978). As Adele Clarke writes: For Foucault, both the individuals and the collectivities are determined by the discourses and disciplining. For Strauss, both the individuals and the collectivities are produced by their own participation in social worlds and on the arenas as well as in their discourses. (Clarke 2005: 55)

Therefore, while analyzing the texts and observing the social situation I have been asking the question – can the Institute of National Remembrance be called “a social world”? Is it “a group of people engaged in given activities, using the common tools (ideas, measures) which help them to achieve determined objectives and build a common outlook on the group’s affairs”? (Strauss 1978) What are the main commitments of a given social world? What do the participants of a social world think about how they should fulfil these commitments? How does the social world describe itself – present itself – in discourses? How are the other worlds being described? – these are the questions that structure this article in a major part (Clarke 2005: 115). Below, first, I present the IPN’s position in the structures of state authority, before moving to text analysis, in which the Institute of National Remembrance expresses explicit and implicit the vision of itself, its role in the state and the society, as well as the confessed principles and the ideal of science practiced within its confines. In the second part of the analysis I focus on issues presented in the popular-scientific journal “IPN Bulletin’s” vision of Poland’s past in the communist period, which I consider to be the most significant for the period of transformation discourse. Finally, I briefly present the linguistic characteristic of the IPN’s discourse. The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation was established by an act of the Polish Parliament

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on December 18th, 1998. The preamble to the act includes the following moral reasons for its formation: – retaining remembrance of the enormous number of victims, losses and damages suffered by the Polish Nation in the years of World War II and the post-war period, – patriotic traditions of the Polish nation’s fighting against the occupants, Nazism and communism, – citizens’ efforts to fight for the independent Polish state, in defence of freedom and human dignity, – a duty to prosecute crimes against peace, humanity and war crimes, – as well as the need to be compensated by our state for damages which were suffered by the repressed and harmed people in the times when human rights were disobeyed by the state (…), expressing a belief that “no unlawful deeds of the state against its citizens can be protected by secrecy or forgotten” (Act on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crime against the Polish Nation, Journal of Laws of 2007 No 63, item 424, No 64, item 432, No 83, item 561, No 85, item 571 and No 140, item 983). In the dimension of practical duties, the IPN is, first and foremost, responsible for “gathering, assessing, custody and disclosing the documentation created between July 22nd, 1944 and July 31st, 1990 by Polish security agencies. The documentation also includes records pertaining to Communist, Nazi and other crimes against peace and humanity or war crimes committed against Polish citizens in the period from September 1st, 1939 to July 31st, 1990, as well as political repressions” (Chapter 1, Art.1 of the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crime against the Polish Nation). Through the activity of Główna Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu (Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes), Biuro Udostępniania i Archiwizacji Dokumentów (Archival Records), Biuro Lustracyjne (Vetting Office) and Biuro Edukacji Publicznej (The Public Education Office), which are parts of the IPN, the Institute has four functions: archival, investigative, research and educational. It can be called a counterpart of the Gauck Institute in Germany (The Office of the Federal Commissioner, Die Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR [BStU]), with which it has even closely cooperated since 2005. The authorities of the IPN are dependent on the political groupings in Polish Parliament. The president of the IPN is appointed by the Sejm (lower house) for a five-year term. The candidacy of the president is announced by the Council of the IPN, which consists of 11 members selected for a seven-year term by the Sejm, the Senate and the President of the Republic of Poland. The first President of the



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Institute (from 2000 to 2005) was Leon Kieres, a lawyer. Since December 2005, the historian, Janusz Kurtyka, has held the post. The Institute of National Remembrance is a national institution of great significance to the people in power and to those who want to come to power. Both elections of the IPN’s president were accompanied by a heated political debate in the parliament and in the press. Because of its first two functions – that of a “guardian” of the secret archives of communist secret services and that of an “investigator” of the crimes against the Polish nation – the Institute of National Remembrance is mentioned as one of the law enforcement institutions in Poland, together with, for example, the police, public prosecutor’s office or Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (the Internal Security Agency) (Serafin & Szumlik 2007). The third function of the IPN is generating knowledge, which is the duty of its Public Education Office. According to the Act, the task of the Office’s employees is to conduct scientific research on the history of Poland between the years 1939 and 1990, and disseminating its findings throughout the country and abroad, as well as formulating conclusions that concern historical education (see Chapter 6, Art. 53 of the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crime against the Polish Nation). The Institute’s presence in Polish social life, as well as its research and educational activities, create the potential to construct new notions about the past, or reconstruct old ones with reference to historical truth. With what measures and what kind of notions are being created? What idea(s) and what goal(s) motivate them? That is: What institutional apparatus and what kind of technologies create the power/knowledge discourse of the Institute of National Remembrance? 2.  The IPN in self-description The IPN’s basic communicational “genre” are academic or popular-scientific publications, which are the result of solid historical research based on a detailed preliminary archival research. The IPN’s publications are signed by its logo, which has the form of a round seal with a crowned eagle (taken from the national emblem) encircled by the inscription “Instytut Pamięci Narodowej” (The Institute of National Remembrance). The graphic symbol, in this case, is both a kind of “assent” by the state and an enforcement of the strength of knowledge contained between the covers that say: “Here is knowledge!” The paradigm of historiography practiced in the Institute of National Remembrance is positivist, set in the 19th century by Wilhelm Ranke. A historian describes and clarifies the past through establishing the facts, coming to truth in its classical, Aristotelian definition, and at the same time avoiding judging the facts and

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people’s conduct. This is consistent with the colloquial notions of a historian’s role and intellectual duties as “a detective” and “a chronicler”. The IPN fulfils these social expectations amply. Monographs, biographies, conference materials (and source publications) are classic descriptive presentations, or detailed contributory works, whose authors hide their identities behind the objectivising narrative and tiered footnotes.1 Scholars from the Institute of National Remembrance constitute a bastion of conservative historiography. I deliberately use the word “bastion”, but perhaps it is just an “island”? In June 2006, in the IPN’s Warsaw office Marek Chodakiewicz gave a lecture, which was exceptionally published in the “IPN Bulletin” – a high circulation popular-scientific journal. It was full of sarcastic criticism of contemporary world historiography against which Marek Chodakiewicz was warning his colleagues from the IPN: Many left-wing intellectualists want to express a post-modernist concept. Not many of them are interested in arduous source research, preliminary archival research. They are not interested in a thorough academic discussion based on the Aristotelian-Tomistic concept of the truth. Even a reference to the truth causes an ironic, post-modernist smile of deconstruction. This intellectual trend settled in Poland already some time ago. Among the secularized local elites it will surely gain a dominant position. Among the traditionalistic Polish elites – certainly not.  (Chodakiewicz 2006: 102–103)

According to Chodakiewicz, these traditionalistic and true Polish elites are the new, young staff of the IPN. The IPN’s mission of popularizing knowledge about Poland’s most recent history is being accomplished by the activity of the Public Education Office (known as “BEP”, Biuro Edukacji Publicznej), which publishes the scientific journal Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość (“Remembrance and Justice”), a website, educational packages for teachers and students, training courses for teachers, competitions for schools, public exhibitions, social campaigns, etc. The aforementioned IPN Bulletin includes: academic and popular-scientific articles, information about the BEP’s work, manifestos, appeals to readers, materials promoting IPN activities, statements and denials of news reports, as well as polemics and, in the last year, supplements in the form of multimedia publications. The audience of its message is mostly the youth and its teachers: 12,000 copies from the 15,000 circulation go (for free) to all types of secondary schools throughout Poland. The rest of the circulation is available at a moderate price and can be found in bookshops among the

.  See titles of the treatises signed by the IPN that have been published until now: www. IPN.gov.pl



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social-cultural journals. The circulation increased significantly after the change of the IPN authorities in 2005. The journal has been published for seven years and so enables us to grasp the change of discourse in time. In the first issue of the Bulletin, instead of a typical “editorial”, we get an interview with the first Director of the IPN, Leon Kieres. The formula of interviews catches on permanently in the Bulletin and they usually determine the subjects of the journal’s successive issues. The interviews from the Bulletin’s first two years were gathered in a book and published in 2007, also inaugurating the book series “Biblioteka Biuletynu IPN” (“Library of the IPN Bulletin”). The publisher, and present editor-in-chief of the Bulletin, writes in the introduction: In the last years, despite multiple increases in the circulation, our journal has been sold out almost entirely. We are very pleased, because it proves how great the hunger is to set straight the most recent history of Poland. (Ruman 2007: 3)

The image of the Institute performing the mission of satisfying the social desire for truth about the history of Poland, which, until now, was being falsified, is outlined in these two sentences. This topos is present in most of the highly persuasive texts, an example of which is “The Conversations”. As the author of the interviews herself emphasises: “A conversation may not be a typical form of historical journalism. It has, however, the advantage of exposing emotions” (Polak 2007: 5). The key issue to the IPN’s self-description, though without a straight answer, is the question “Until when was history being falsified?” The first reflex response of an average Pole to this is: “Until the end of communism,” that is, until 1989. It turns out, however, that while reading the IPN Bulletin, history was still being falsified in the Third Republic of Poland. Here is an example: In the issue of June 2006, in the “Documents” column we can find a short text by Piotr Gontarczyk, entitled “Towarzysz Semjon” (“Comrade Semjon”): Zygmunt Bauman, born in 1925 in Poznan, a sociologist; since 1968 at Warsaw University, removed for political reasons – one can read about the well-known philosopher in Nowa encyclopedia powszechna PWN (“The PWN New Universal Encyclopaedia”). This quotation is short but symptomatic, because, despite the capacity of Bauman’s various biographical entries, a certain asymmetry is visible in them. While the information about him being removed from Warsaw University during the anti-Semitic conflict inside the PZPR [communist Polish United Workers’ Party – M.K-B] in 1968 appears every time, any details about Bauman’s activities in the years 1945 to 1953 are impossible to find.  (Gontarczyk 2006c: 74–75)

Then Gontarczyk reveals the reasons why until today (the moment when a historian from the IPN took up the case) Bauman’s biography was being falsified: namely, he was working in Korpus Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (the Internal

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Security Corps), a communist security apparatus. From this connection of facts, a reader should easily guess why, and in whose interest, the past of contemporary elites is still being hidden from the public opinion. The author of the text has also been publicly tracking communist agents among politicians, people of culture and Academe in Poland, and after the book which he has written together with another IPN’s historian, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, on Lech Wałęsa’s alleged cooperation with the secret police of the PRL he is, in a right-wing environment, an authority in the field of a recent history (Gontarczyk 2006b, 2008, Cenckiewicz & Gontarczyk 2008). A number of similar examples of the IPN’s missionary struggles for the truth can be found in the Bulletin; the truth with which “post-communist and left-wing historians” (Krajewski & Wąsowski 2007: 44) cannot cope and, intentionally or unintentionally, blur. The IPN was tasked by the legislator to investigate and popularise knowledge about the contemporary history of Poland, but the directions of these activities have not been specified. This is the task of the Council of the IPN, whose personnel reflects the current structure of the political forces in the Polish parliament. It approves projects prepared by the appropriate investigative and educational IPN divisions. The decisions about exploring specific historical issues construct a certain mosaic of the national remembrance. The first Director of the IPN, Leon Kieres, believed in the apolitical nature of his institution. It was to serve the whole nation, and its mission, he claimed, was just to restore remembrance to the Poles, often against social expectations: The expectations are that the Institute of National Remembrance is to cultivate remembrance about Poles’ great deeds. Meanwhile, we also discover issues that don’t bring credit to us. Among us there were also people who we would rather not count among the Polish nation, society, or citizens of the Polish state. (…) The question that I constantly ask myself is: Is the Polish society ready for the Institute to deal with such issues? In my opinion, the Institute has to also be an institute of national remembrance of those dishonourable episodes in our history.  (Kieres 2001)

On the other hand, the former head of the investigative division of the IPN, Witold Kulesza, who was at the IPN when Leon Kieres was the Director, emphasised that restoring remembrance is, at the same time, rebuilding justice in Poland: Since we haven’t judged the crimes of the communist system, whenever I speak [as a university lecturer – M.K-B] about the role of justice in a democratic state, I have a feeling that we are carrying the burden of that evil which has never been punished. I cannot assume that a just Republic of Poland began at the turn of 1989 and 1990, and it is better to forget the past. The just Republic of Poland cannot be built on the foundation of forgetting. (Kulesza 2007: 14)



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In December 2005, Leon Kieres’s five-year term expired and Janusz Kurtyka was elected to the post. He presented himself in the Bulletin: “I am not a politician” (Kurtyka 2006: 5). In the same text, as a task of the IPN, Kurtyka indicated determining and realising Polish historical policy, which he initially defined as: A mechanism of promoting things that the Polish state considers to be its pride (…). Science is developing impetuously and freely, whereas the Polish state can choose, support or promote something from a wide range of issues. It would be good and it would be very much desirable if the IPN participated in a debate on the historical policy of the state. (Kurtyka 2006: 17–18)

The term “Polish historical policy” was coined in the circles of conservative philosophers and historians, concentrated in the Conservative Centre and Centre for Political Thought. Authors of the 2005 manifesto Pamięć i odpowiedzialność (“Remembrance and Responsibility”) made the following diagnosis: the Polish nation suffers from amnesia, catastrophic for its existence. Those who are responsible for this state of affairs are the intellectuals and politicians of the Third Republic of Poland, who built the Polish reality after the fall of communism on the “putting-the-past-behind” policy – forgetting the blame of the criminal regime, and the only patriotism that they allowed was a “critical patriotism”. The lack of remembrance destroys the community, as Dariusz Karłowicz (2005: 33–34) writes. But did Director Kieres mean the same remembrance, when he spoke, among other things, about the difficult-to-accept history of the Polish nation? Karłowicz calls for a “value-based remembrance”, defined as: “a record impressed in the collective imagination of a canon of values, which is a type of spiritual constitution of the community – a canon usually dressed in a costume of historical events” (Karłowicz 2005: 35). Which values would be represented by which historical events? First of all, as Kostro and Ujazdowski (2005: 50–51) write, the central place in the history of the Polish political community belongs to the idea of freedom, and its message is Poland’s greatest contribution to the heritage of Europe. This is the reason why they demand a cultivation of the history of the Polish struggle for independence in social memory: 19th century uprisings, fending off the Bolshevik attack in 1920, the Home Army and Warsaw Uprising in 1944, anti-communist efforts from 1956 to 1976, “Solidarity”. But what should also be important for contemporary Poles is bringing awareness to and reminding people about the experience of loss of freedom, represented by, for example, the fate of Poles under partitions in the 19th century, Soviet and Nazi war occupation or life under the communist regime. The President of the IPN, Janusz Kurtyka, continues in the same spirit in his informal exposé: It would be good if we could organise a mechanism of promoting the things that the Polish state considers to be its pride. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t like it to be

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a mechanism that treats scientific research in a utilitarian way. (…) Science is developing impetuously and freely, whereas the Polish state can choose, support, and promote something from a wide range of issues. It would be good and it would be very much desirable if the IPN participated in a debate on the historical policy of the state. (Kurtyka 2006: 17–18)

The Institute of National Remembrance has, indeed, organised such a debate, and its record was published in the Bulletin. The cover of this particular issue of the Bulletin is a fragment of a sculpture representing a crowned eagle whose beak is rapaciously agape and, judging from the visible outstretched wing and its lowered neck, attacking or preparing for a flight. On the margin, in blue background (of the sky?) is the title: “Polish historical policy”. Thus, according to the organisers and majority of participants, the debate has determined the direction of the Polish historical policy. At the end of the discussion, Żaryn stated that “here, in the debate, unfolded some tasks that stand before the declining Third Republic of Poland and the beginning Fourth Republic. These are the tasks for the Polish intelligentsia – for the politicians, for the historians, for the teachers” (Żaryn 2006: 33). The most significant statements that appeared during this conversation were selected and presented in the Bulletin in enlarged font and the bolded notes in the margins, accompanied by a miniature sculpture of the eagle used on the cover of the issue. Taking into consideration the highlights made by the editorial staff of the Bulletin and the debate itself, the assumptions behind the Polish historical policy (interchangeably referred to henceforth as “PPH” – from polska polityka history­ czna) can be reconstructed as follows: What is PPH: – “the actions that, as a state, we undertake to teach the society something that we consider to be important” (Kurtyka 2006: 13), “the PPH is even the state’s duty stated (not directly) in the constitution” (Nowak 2006: 5). What are PPH’s objectives: – formation of the civic (republican) community: “One of the dimensions of the Fourth Republic of Poland’s policy has to be to support the formation of historical awareness as a basis of a national bond and national feeling” (Jurek 2006: 12). – building of national pride: “We should build a feeling of pride of historical heritage.in our nation This is something that was not present – or has been fought by some opinion-forming centres in the last fifteen years” (Kurtyka 2006: 17).



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Values and ideas of PPH: – freedom – a topic continued throughout the debate in various forms – a romantic tradition in the sense of the PPH being missionary: “History, victims, tradition of the First and the Second Republic of Poland bind us to a certain mission. We cannot stimulate the young generation’s imagination only with souvenirs. Through history we have to show them certain tasks that they have to fulfil if they want to feel the value of being Poles” (Nowak 2006: 8). – Poland as a bulwark of Western culture, defending it against the pressure of the East: “(…) It is a fact that this (Polish – M.K.-B.) civilization was the most eastern bordering circle of the western civilization – towards the Orthodox Church, towards the subsequent variants of the steppe civilization, towards the Muslim circle” (Kurtyka 2006: 17). – Christian tradition: “Because the most important value and the first element of our identity is the Christian tradition, the history of evangelization” (Jurek 2006: 25). The PPH’s strategic anchorages – historical themes and figures: – civilization of the First Republic of Poland: PPH’s “deep plan” should reach as far as the 15th century (Kurtyka 2006: 16). – anti-communism: “Anti-communism, on the other hand, was a practical expression of the affirmation of all that constitutes the spiritual heritage of Europe” (Jurek 2006: 25). – struggle for independence (1914–1921). – the experience of two totalitarian regimes: Nazi and Soviet from 1939 until 1989. – “Solidarity”: “The myth which we should laboriously build, because this is our national duty: the myth of “Solidarity”. “Solidarity” was as important an event as the Home Army,2 or even more important, because it turned out to be victorious” (Kurtyka 2006: 17). – John Paul II and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. Methods of realising a PPH: – based on the truth, on solid scientific research that: “(…) should draw on the great space created by the freedom of scientific research, and this freedom means academic conflicts and debates. It also determines the existence

.  Home Army, Polish Armia Krajowa, a resistance movement in Nazi occupied Poland.

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of those trends of historical reflection which we do not agree with, and which have an obvious possibility to participate in the debate” (Kurtyka 2006: 26) but, at the same time, it is to be “counter-propaganda” against the propaganda conducted in the last 70 years (Nowak 2006: 33). This is because: “It is not as if we can take the historical policy out of the politicians’ hands, or, in general, history out of the politicians’ hands”. (Nowak 2006: 27) It should be emphasised that in the discourse of the debate to define the Polish historical policy, references to the figure and texts of Pope John Paul II (Pamięć i tożsamość – “Memory and Identity”) appear very often: “(…) The value [of the history of Poland – M.K-B] is, above all, a Christian heritage, which, as John Paul II taught, makes the history of Poland, to a large extent, a history of the saints – St. Jadwiga, St. Andrew Bobola and many more” (Jurek 2006: 11). Jan Żaryn plainly states: “Without the teaching of John Paul II, without his authority, there can be no Polish historical policy or it will be futile” (Żaryn 2006: 3). I have described the PPH through the words of its creators and supporters, trying to avoid interpreting it. Interpreting is a domain of the participants of a public discussion, which still, though with a smaller intensity, is carried on in Poland on this subject. My intention was to juxtapose ideas, that is assumptions of PPH, with the IPN’s educational discourse practice, whereof I write below. 2.1  The IPN about the communist past In the historical policy described as a task of utmost importance and a key matter for contemporary Poland, while, at the same time, falling within the IPN’s competences—the director of the Institute has presented the task to “define” the PRL (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa – the Polish People’s Republic), and has raised the question of its legality. This problem becomes part of one of the basic “anchorages” of the historical policy, concerning “anti-communism” and of the PPH’s form as “counter-propaganda”. As Kurtyka claims (in his lecture for the Polish SocialCultural Centre in London), a “fossilised academic historical science” of the Third Republic of Poland – which is just a “transformation” of the PRL – is not capable of joining in the discussion on this subject. The IPN’s historians are responsible for making the nation aware of the essence of the communist regime (see Jakimek-Zapart 2007: 23). The task to define and evaluate Poland’s communist past is a significant part of the IPN’s educational and research activity, a clear example of what is the “IPN Bulletin”. The articles about the PRL appear in about three quarters of the successive issues of the journal, and, until now, there have been 67 issues (85 in total). In this thematic current, the editorial staff of the Bulletin have divided their attention more or less equally among:



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issues relating to the functioning of the authorities in the PRL (In this part, half of the topics concern the security apparatus. It also includes relations between the PRL and the USSR, as they are discussed from the perspective of the essence of dependence/“Poland’s enslavement” relations) history of the opposition (also including “turning points” or social protests) socio-cultural issues (topics connected with the regional identities and the issues of national minorities in the PRL also appear here).

The remaining issues of the Bulletin either relate to World War II (including as many as three issues concerning the Warsaw Uprising), or comments on current events, such as the IPN’s investigation on the massacre in Jedwabne, the death of Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in Auschwitz, actions of the German Union of the Displaced or the project of the Vetting Act in Poland. The texts published at the beginning in the series “Rozmowy” (“Conversations”) serve as an introduction to the main subject of every issue of the Bulletin. These are the records of Barbara Polak’s discussions with historians (most often from the IPN). “Conversations” about the PRL from the first three years of the Bulletin’s existence mainly concerned social issues: workers in the PRL, issues of the Ukrainian and German minorities, Silesian identity, leisure and free time in the PRL, everyday life, ideology and education of the youth, propaganda mechanisms and instruments, the country in the PRL, economy and industry, emigration and the Polish community abroad, culture in the PRL and the foundation and development of “Solidarity”. Essential to the IPN’s existence were obviously the following topics: the PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party) as a governing body, the organisation and functioning of the security apparatus, Stalinist judiciary, Polish-Soviet relations from 1944 to 1956 or the IPN’s archival collection (Polak: 2007). I would describe it as searching for knowledge about the experience of life of the average PRL citizen. The past two years of the Bulletin have indeed carried issues declared in the historical policy programme – the struggle for freedom always shown in a dichotomy: oppression – resistance, stranger – one of us, attack – defence. Evidently, we cannot forget the fact of celebrating the “round” anniversaries commonly considered as important, which were widely talked about in the relevant issues of the Bulletin. The only “social” Bulletin in 2007 (12/2007) concerned journalists in the PRL. It was only seemingly social, because the essential thesis of the issue was journalists’ cooperation with the secret services, their propaganda function for the communist regime and pointing out those specific people who are still professionally active today and were involved with the previous system. However, the vision of history that the Bulletin has conveyed over the years has not been consistent enough to summarize it in just a few sentences. I can see a qualitative and quantitative difference in the types of topics and the method of

 Marta Kurkowska-Budzan

their presentation in previous issues that were published after the change of the IPN authorities. Incidentally, at the time, changes also took place in the editorial staff of the Bulletin. Since July 2006 the journal has been headed by the Council with Jan Żaryn, head of the BEP IPN, and Jan Ruman as the editor-in-chief. I assume that the Council guards the ideological correctness of the Bulletin, that is, the fulfilment of the assumptions of the historical policy above. The tense atmosphere in the period of change is illustrated by the polemics that ensued after the publication of Anna Pyżewska’s article in the volume Białostockie – między cywilizacjami (“The Białystok region – between civilizations”) (12/2005). The text is about the events that took place in February 1945 in Sokoły – the execution of a sentence of anti-communist underground on the alleged “Soviet snipers”, in which 7 people of Jewish nationality were killed, including a 4-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy. The author questions whether the real cause of their death was cooperating with the Soviets or maybe a personal feud of one of the members of the Home Army’s patrol. The article, in the same way as almost all texts of this type published in the Bulletin, represents an objectivising narrative, which explains on the basis of facts established in the sources and is careful in formulating moral judgments. However, in the title and introduction the author took the liberty of using the emotionally marked term “tragedy”, and, above all, she touched on a difficult subject: the situation of the Jewish population after the war, claiming that the case presented in the text is “a particularly glaring example of how the post-war reality was far from normality” (Pyżewska 2005: 76). On the margin, but in the context of these events, a figure of Major Huzar appears – a leader of anti-communist partisans. The polemics were started by employees of the IPN, Tomasz Łabuszewski and Kazimierz Krajewski, who specialize in the history of the anti-communist armed underground. They entitled the polemics Białostockie – między różnymi sposobami widzenia historii (“The Białystok region – between different ways of viewing history”). Expressing the general astonishment with the concept of the volume “The Białystok region – between civilizations” (a history of the region presented from the perspective of the fates of national minorities), and an opposition to using the term “civil war” for describing fights that took place in this region after the end of World War II between the new authorities and the partisans, they said: Although it is a truth difficult to accept for those benefiting from the halfcentury long period of communist rule – one side of these struggles was fighting for the independence and sovereignty of Poland and for human freedom, the other – allied with the communist occupant – was fighting against these values.  (Krajewski & Łabuszewski 2006a: 136).

They accused the author of the article Tragedia w Sokołach (“Tragedy in Sokoły”) of a lack of objectivism in historical research, and, at the same time, they pointed



Power, knowledge and faith discourse 

out her technical mistakes (not using all of the sources). But above all, they assumed that in presenting the events she was guided by reasons of an emotional nature since from the whole thirteen-year long commendable activity of Kazimierz Kamieński, Gryf, Huzar, she has chosen probably the least representative motif for the figure of this legendary hero of Podlasie partisans and she persistently tries to connect him with the tragically ended liquidation in Sokoły.  (Krajewski & Łabuszewski 2006a: 136)

The review of Pyżewska’s text has, in my opinion, a false foundation: the polemicists focus on pointing out technical oversights, firmly holding to the line of belief in objectivism of a historian. But, at the same time, they themselves reveal their emotional attitude towards the figure of Huzar (who is not the main character in the article “Tragedy in Sokoły”) and they write about what the most important is – moral values. The response of Pyżewska and Jan Jerzy Milewski, which appeared in the following volume, has a similar nature: stressed professionalism of the preparation of research material and its analysis (“we have more doubts, we do not divide the sources into better and worse, but we approach all of them with an equal criticism”) and, what is more, a declaration of the outlook on the world: Yes, we confirm that we have a different approach towards history (…) we do not tend to perceive the reality in dichotomy (…) We can also see the masses of those who were between these poles, who, above all, wanted to live, though they could sympathize with the one side or the other. (…) Coming back to the authors of the polemic – we do not envy their lack of doubts and determination in judgments, we just want to remind people that this method of doing history in Poland has already passed, it’s a fact that then it was about something else, but the mechanisms – as it turns out – are similar.  (Milewski & Pyżewska 2006: 145–146)

Their position was supported in a similar tone by Dariusz Libionka and Andrzej Żbikowski, at the time employees of the IPN to which Krajewski and Łabuszewski reacted with a mixture of astonishment and, as it seems, outrage from the fact that they discovered “how enormous the difference can be in viewing, describing, interpreting and evaluating the same events – by historians who work for the same institution, whose task is a concern for national remembrance” (Libionka 2006: 96–100; Żbikowski 2006: 100–102; Krajewski & Łabuszewski 2006b: 103). More polemics between the historians of the same institution can also be found in the issue from May 2006, in which Janusz Marszalec and Piotr Gontarczyk discuss whether the communist underground cooperated with the Gestapo during the occupation or not. It is indeed, similar to the aforementioned discussion on values. (Gontarczyk 2006a: 116–120; Marszalec 2006: 120–124) The presence of polemical texts in the Bulletin would be evidence of a pluralism, which has yet to

 Marta Kurkowska-Budzan

exist in the environment of the IPN’s historians, despite adopting, for educational purposes, a “Polish historical policy” programme. At the same time, one can have the impression that the conflict between the two camps inside the Institute has been characteristic of the first six months that passed from Janusz Kurtyka’s election as the Director of the IPN. Marek Chodakiewicz has in a way confirmed the fact of a “transformation of the IPN”, expressing his satisfaction “that until recently a greater tolerance has reigned in this Institute, an openness to different points of view and environments” (Chodakiewicz 206: 103) The “tolerance” that Chodakiewicz, a conservative, has in mind is, of course, a tolerance of a point of view which then, in 2006, was already the point of view of the state authority. 2.2  The language of the IPN To describe the communist past of Poland, historians, who in the IPN Bulletin popularize historical knowledge, use a specific language. The most characteristic expression here, not used in other publications, is the term peerel (from the Polish acronym PRL – Polish People’s Republic) used to describe, as I suppose, the historical period beginning with the communists taking over power in Poland. The official name “PRL” was only in force from 1952. From 1989 until recently – I would even say until the establishment of the IPN – “PRL” pronounced as Peerel had a humorous or ironical connotation. In the current historiographical language we can find both the “PRL” – as a term used to describe the state from 1952 to 1989 – as well as, more and more frequently, the euphemism Peerel, but spelled with a capital letter, as a description of the whole period of communism in Poland.3 It is rather used in the narratives about the experience of life in the Peerel, that is, in the social history. In no historical (or popular-scientific) text have I found the name peerel spelled with a small letter. This term appears in all the issues of the IPN Bulletin, although sometimes, especially in articles that present documents relating to the structures of the state, “PRL” is applied. In the context of director Kurtyka’s dramatic questions: “What was the peerel? Was the PRL a legal state? How do we describe the organs which served to stifle our nation, which, de facto, served the Soviets? “(Kurtyka 2006: 18), using the term peerel can be similar, for a reader, to the situation when in Poland, during the first years after World War II, Germans were written about as “germans”, to express deep disdain for the aggressor and occupant. Expressions which position the events, facts and people in view of the values of “freedom of Poland” and “freedom of Poles” are typical and very characteristic

.  See for example publications of Zbigniew Gluza, the “Karta” journal.



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of the IPN, although not isolated in Polish historiography on the PRL (with the exception of the term peerel). Among the dry, objectivising narrative, which is accepted as “academic” in traditional historiography, they are very easy to find. While in the 1990s using these expressions revealed the author’s intentions, the historiographical practices of the IPN have ‘domesticated’ them. And this way, the end of the Nazi occupation resulting from the Red Army’s military actions is usually called “’liberation’” – necessarily in quotation marks, which emphasizes the attitude towards the forcefully imposed communist regime, installed or having being installed by the Soviets or Polish Soviets. The message of this expression is understandable as well – something is being installed in a passive, or perhaps rather in an obstructive “material”, that is, the Polish nation. Soldiers of the Red Army are bojcy (fighters) – an expression that, in my opinion, is marked with disdain, emphasizing the primitivism of this army. The anti-communist underground acting since 1944 is referred to as the pro-independence underground, and its activists are cursed soldiers (cursed by the system and communist propaganda). The metaphor of the “cursed soldiers” carries the tragedy of their individual fates, conveying connotations of condemnation, oblivion and destruction. Functionaries of the security apparatus are, depending on the period in question, ubowcy or ubecy (from Polish Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego the Public Security Office) – in the 1940s and 1950s or later bezpieka or esbecy (from Polish Służba Bezpieczeństwa, the Security Service). The terms referring to the repression apparatus are taken from the colloquial language functioning in a given time. Sometimes the former borderlands of Poland are called the Lost Lands; but at the same time, the nomenclature from the PRL era relating to the Regained Lands—which are the Western lands taken over from the Germans—has been retained. Since at least 2006 the discourse of the Bulletin has been full of the language of moral values. The IPN’s historians are willing to declare the mission that motivates them, for example: “Our heroes are exactly the same as the ones of 1863. But is the society of the year 2006 ready to give the same answer to the question about the highest values, as the society did from the year 1918? I have great doubts, and that is the reason, among others, why these actions are necessary” (Krajewski and Wąsowski 2007: 44) Also the language characteristic of a religious discourse appears in the Bulletin. References to the Christian tradition cannot only be found in the statements of Marek Jurek or Jan Żaryn, and not only in the texts published in the occasional issues commenting on, for example, the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in Auschwitz. In the issue from April 2007, dedicated to actions of the security apparatus against the Catholic Church in Poland, a conversation, metaphorically announced: “Passing through the Red Sea”, was preceded by an article by Father Lucjan Bielas from the Papal Theological Academy in Krakow, entitled “Apostasies in the church of the first ages”. It is a presentation of the views of St. Cyprian, the

 Marta Kurkowska-Budzan

bishop of Carthage, on apostasy in the early ages of the Christianity in the face of martyrdom. As the author of the article claims, “an analysis of the problem – a kind of “vetting” that he [St. Cyprian – M.K-B] has done – is of a timeless nature”. Father Bielas repeats after St. Cyprian the questions: “To appraise ruthlessly or to forgive everything unconditionally, to reveal the blames or to forget everything? Does the universal Church have a solution for this eternal problem of a human society?” (Bielas 2007:  8). The text is obviously far from both the standard historiographical narrative and a casual persuasive exchange adopted in “Conversations”. Because of the specific nomenclature and style, one can wonder where the idea to publish this difficult disquisition in a popular-scientific journal, whose readers are mostly school youth, came from. Was it supposed to be the voice of a moral authority in the heated polemic debate on the new Vetting Act, Lustracja, or rather a position in a public discussion that has flared up around Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski’s the book, which is about priests from Krakow who were kept under surveillance and “broken” by the security service, published at the beginning of March 2007? Perhaps it was both. The uniqueness and, probably, weight of this text was graphically emphasized by placing it on a papyrus-like background. Together with the radicalization of the state authorities’ attitude towards the communist past, the image emerging from the IPN’s publications sharpen. The notions of the recent history of Poland, created by the IPN discourse represented by the publications of the Bulletin in the last years, is a sharp, black and white image of a fight: the clashing of a Christian nation, in the name of the eternal value – freedom – with the repression apparatus of a communist regime, imposed by strangers. There is no room in this discourse for greyness or nuance, or for the suspension of the moral assessment of the events, people and their deeds. 3.  Conclusions The power/knowledge discourse of the Institute of National Remembrance places it among the most significant actors of symbolic transformation in Poland. However, is the IPN in its whole a “social world” – a world of Polish historical policy? (Strauss 1978) In my opinion, the administration of this state institution is already at an advanced stage of creating a community of people devoted to PPH’s idea from the IPN. Not all of the IPN’s historians belong to this community, and it is symptomatic that many of the acknowledged researchers considered as representatives of “a critical historiography” leave the Institute. They are being replaced by the young “missionaries” who undertake their tasks with a passion and fully identify themselves with the PPH’s programme. As an example of a narrative that, in my opinion, perfectly represents all the values and objectives of the historical



Power, knowledge and faith discourse 

policy’s world and is evidence of the extent PPH’s programme is internalized by young historians as well as is a symbol of a social educational status of the IPN’s discourse, serve the texts in series of so called IPN’s historical supplements to the popular magazines and newspapers such as “Rzeczpospolita”, “Niezależna Gazeta Polska”, “Nasz Dziennik” and others. The supplements have been published since the second half of the year 2006. I suggest a short analysis of this kind of narrative as the conclusion of this article. I have chosen a text by Wojciech Muszyński, published in the IPN’s historical supplement about the anti-communist post-war armed underground. This is the subject that brings out polemics among the historians, of which the above described discussion in Biuletyn is a good example. The publication was a supplement to “Nasz Dziennik” – a newspaper related to the famous, and influential in Poland, Catholic and right-wing nationalist broadcasting station “Radio Maryja”. In his article, Muszyński starts from the statement about Poland’s “enslavement” in 1945 by the Soviet Union and a “mass” independence movement against the Soviets. By asking the question: “Was that fight a civil war, as the post-communists claim, or a national rising, which researchers of the younger generation want to prove?” he defines an opposing social world from political perspective and suggests that this fact discredits that world in academic circles: the one who claims that it was a civil war is a post-communist, a true researcher would not dare support this opinion. The world described in this way is what the true IPN’s historians have to face, equipped with the arms of evidence, and, in addition, more objective because of their young age, as they are not entangled in communism. Later on the author exposes the language tools that the communist propaganda used to employ only to show its continuation in a public and scientific discourse after 1989, and he is searching for the reasons of this state of things in “the historians non-settlement with their own past”: In these conditions, a material debate on the anti-communist underground was impossible or even harmful, because pseudo-scientists using the freedom of speech were talking and writing about things they had no idea about.  (Muszyński 2008: 1)

Referring to the debate published in “Gazeta Wyborcza” on the subject of National Armed Forces4 and to the “discreditable” utterances of its members “often holding university degrees” he once more indicates the opposing social world “speculates on the facts and evaluations of the events”. This opposing world is an environment of critical historians, liberal democrats, the circle of “Gazeta Wyborcza”, opponents

.  An armed underground formation during and after World War II related to the nationa­ listic movement.

 Marta Kurkowska-Budzan

of vetting, opponents of the historical policy etc. The Institute of National Remembrance was supposed to give an end to this “sad period in Polish historiography” and enable the full recognition and a proper evaluation of the post-war anticommunist conspiracy. In this way the author marks his own social world and its achievements and tries to convince the reader that here we have come to a political situation which provides the comfort of knowledge and, what is more important, it is supposed to be a moral knowledge designed to commemorate and honour the heroes (Muszyński 2008: 3).

References Bielas, L. 2007. “Odstępstwo od wiary w kościele pierwszych wieków.” Biuletyn IPN 4: 8–13. Cenckiewicz, S., and Gontarczyk P. 2008. SB a Lech Wałęsa. Przyczynek do biografii. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Chodakiewicz, M. 2006. “Stosunki polsko-żydowskie w XX wieku w perspektywie amerykańskiej.” Biuletyn IPN 10: 95–103. Clarke, A.E. 2005. Situational Analysis. Grounded Theory After the Postmodern Turn. Thousand Oaks – London – New Delhi: Sage. Foucault, M. 1977. Archeologia wiedzy. Warszawa. Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon. Gontarczyk, P. 2006a. “Granaty w marmoladzie” Biuletyn IPN 5: 116–120. Gontarczyk, P. 2006b. Kłopoty z historią. Warszawa: Arwil. Gontarczyk, P. 2006c. “Towarzysz ‘Semjon’.” Biuletyn IPN 6: 74–84. Gontarczyk, P. 2008. Nowe kłopoty z historią. Warszawa: Prohibita. Hałas, E. 2000. “Transformation in Collective Imagination.” Polish Sociological Review 131 (3): 309–322. Jakimek-Zapart, E. 2007. “W polskim Londynie.” Biuletyn IPN 7: 21–23. Jurek, M. 2006. “Polska polityka historyczna.” Biuletyn IPN 5: 3–33. Karłowicz, D. 2005. “Pamięć aksjologiczna a historia.” In Pamięć i odpowiedzialność, R. Kostro & T. Merta (eds), 31–43. Kraków – Wrocław: Centrum Konserwatywne, Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej. Kieres L. 2001. “To dopiero sześć miesięcy.” Biuletyn IPN 1: www.ipn.gov.pl. Kostro, R. & Ujazdowski, K.M. 2005. “Odzyskać pamięć.” In Pamięć i odpowiedzialność, R. Kostro & T. Merta (eds), 43–55. Kraków – Wrocław: Centrum Konserwatywne, Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej. Krajewski, K. & Łabuszewski, T. 2006a. “Białostockie-między różnymi sposobami widzenia historii.” Biuletyn IPN 1–2: 136–146. Krajewski, K. & Łabuszewski, T. 2006b. “W odpowiedzi ‘damom’.” Biuletyn IPN 6: 102–103. Krajewski, K. & Wąsowski, G. 2007. “Pamiętać o cenie wolności.” Biuletyn IPN 1–2: 44. Kulesza, W. 2007. “O sprawiedliwej Rzeczypospolitej.” In Rozmowy, B. Polak, 7–14. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Kurtyka, J. 2006. “Nie jestem politykiem.” Biuletyn IPN 1–2: 5–18.



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Kurtyka, J. 2006. “Polska polityka historyczna.” Biuletyn IPN 5: 3–33. Libionka, D. 2006. “Damy i huzary.” Biuletyn IPN 6: 96–100. Marszalec, J. 2006. “W odpowiedzi panu Piotrowi Gontarczykowi.” Biuletyn IPN 5: 120–124. Milewski, J.J. & Pyżewska, A. 2006. “Białostockie, czyli między różnymi sposobami widzenia historii c.d.” Biuletyn IPN 3–4: 145–146. Muszyński, W. 2008. “Po 1944 roku – nie wojna domowa lecz powstanie”. Nasz Dziennik. Dodatek historyczny IPN 2. Nowak, A. 2006. “Polska polityka historyczna.” Biuletyn IPN 5: 3–33. Polak, B. 2007. Rozmowy. Warszawa: IPN. Pyżewska, A. 2005. “Tragedia w Sokołach – 17 lutego 1945 r.” Biuletyn IPN 12: 76–81. Ruman, J.M. 2007. “Od wydawcy.” In Rozmowy, B. Polak, 3. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Serafin, S. & Szmulik, B. 2007. Organy ochrony prawnej. Warszawa: CH Beck. Strauss, A.L. 1978. “A Social Worlds Perspective”. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 1: 119–128 Szacki, J. 1999. “Nauki społeczne wobec wielkiej zmiany.” In Zmiana społeczna. Teorie i doświadczenia polskie, J. Kurczewska (ed.), 123–133. Warszawa: IFiS PAN. Sztompka, P. 2002. Socjologia. Kraków: Znak. Winkin, Y. 2007. Antropologia komunikacji. Od teorii do badań terenowych. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. Żaryn, J. 2006. “Polska polityka historyczna.” Biuletyn IPN 5: 3–33. Żbikowski, A. 2006. “Nazywajmy rzeczy po imieniu.” Biuletyn IPN 6: 100–102.

part iii

Living post-communism

It’s all about work Aleksandra Galasińska

University of Wolverhampton

1.  Introduction Work, broadly defined as a human activity “which has as its objective the production of goods and services that cater for human needs” (Giddens 2001: 376), is usually perceived in different dimensions, such as for example economic aspects, temporal structure, activity level, social and personal identity. Three elements are particularly important, as Poleszczuk (1991) explains. First, it is an activity that is determined by its economic sense and results in receiving payment. Second, it is characterised by the human factor and is a space where interpersonal relationships are established and negotiated in a particular institution. And finally, work is related to a system of values that determines its sense, shapes its ethos and formulates symbolic motivation of entering employment market. In a similar way Buchowski (2004) understands work as “engagement in activity designed to achieve a particular purpose and requiring an expenditure of effort through which individuals earn their living and can comprise a pursuit of a specified sort called ‘profession’” (2004:  175). For Buchowski these are “socially constructed categories people in which identify themselves, classify others, and are described by others” (2004: 175). Since the events of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the case of this study in Poland, a monumental shift took place not only in the country’s political system, but also in almost all spheres of citizens’ lives. The labour market, especially in the public sector, was most severely affected. A great number of the population was pushed out of the workforce at the same time when a recreated private sector as well as newly established foreign investments couldn’t cope with an influx of people looking for employment. Disillusion and nostalgia came quickly after great euphoria (Sztompka 2000; Mokrzycki 2001; Svašek 2006). The almost immediate winning of public political and electoral support of former Communists only underscored the fact that Central and Eastern European citizens had not expected the realities of the changes of 1989. Nor did they have experience of how to cope with such shifts, which did not exist in community’s memories of a critical economic crisis. For the first time in their lives my informants faced the reality where unemployment, uncertain social and political future, severe lack of

 Aleksandra Galasińska

financial means, unstable social security systems including the collapse of pension scheme and short period of job seekers benefit payments, became a norm, and an everyday experience for many. In this article I explore discourses related to work in Poland in the context of the post-communist transition, and in particular from the perspective of work related uncertainties as discussed and narrated by people who face them in everyday life. Economic changes and in particular (un)employment turned out to be the key topic of transformation for people participating in the studies this chapter is based on, exceeding by far other issues, such as for example democratisation and political freedom. My aim is twofold. First, I present how work is constructed as a dominant subject in the discussion about the post-communist transformation. Second, I examine characteristic features of discourse of work. I shall try to problematise work related difficulties not only in the context of the existing high unemployment of the 90s and the beginning of the new century in Poland, but also in rapidly changing conditions of the labour market during the post-accession time as well as in global economic changes of the post-industrial world. 2.  Work, socialist state and post-communist transformation: The context When post-war Poland became a Soviet satellite country, the new communist government introduced a political-economic plan of “the holy trinity of labour, bread and housing” (Merkel 1994:  57). Programmes of rebuilding the country after severe destruction during WWII as well as that of modernisation and industrialisation helped to establish new local communities, life of which was totally organized by enterprise (Domański 1997). Work and production became the central axis of the socialist state citizens’ lives. Families lived in blocks of flats on estates built next to factories, they dined in canteens, they sent their children to factories’ nurseries and kindergartens, they spent their free time in a local house of culture financed by factories, they tended their allotments given to them by factories on the factory land and once a year went on two-week-long holidays organised in factories’ holiday resorts. They celebrated their work yearly during the 1st of May “international workers’ day” festival, which was an official national holiday (Sowiński 2000). Most importantly though, they were also the “leading force of the nation” and the ruling power of their country. Such life when “everything was forever, until it was no more” (to borrow Yurchak’s 2006 words) came to a sudden end together with the end of the socialist state and its ideology of centrality of work.



It’s all about work 

Interpersonal and personal aspects of work seem to be overlooked in academic (but also popular) descriptions of industrial employers and their roles in communist societies. It is widely claimed that in such societies there were almost no alternatives for people to have access to welfare and undertake leisure activity without any relation to their employers (Offe 1996; Domański 1997; Ashwin 1999; Stenning 2005). The centrality of work and workplace, exaggerated in this introduction and indeed experienced in a few communities (so called flagship socialist towns such as Nowa Huta), became perceived as omnipresent throughout society, became the model of organisation of the society under the communist regime. For many, both academics but also ordinary people in the world, life outside the state-run enterprise did not exist in communist states. Moreover, patronage of the enterprise emerges as a positive factor of everyday life of people within the region, and often as a cause of envy of those from the other side of The Iron Curtain (see i.e. Armbruster & Meinhof 2002). Indeed, the socialist ideological propaganda called it one of the many “achievements of socialism”, and was quick to juxtapose it with hardship and struggle of workers in capitalist Western societies. Analysing the last Soviet generation, Yurchak observes that citizens of communist states are described in academic and journalist writing “as having no agency: in this portrayal, they allegedly subscribed to “communist values” either because they were coerced to do so or because they had no means of reflecting upon them critically” (2006: 5). I think about the discourse of the centrality of work in communist society (presented above) as a similarly reductionist mode of description of workers. Workers seem to be totally submerged into workplace practices not only in relation to production, but also in all other aspects of their lives. Assuming that a genuine welfare provision was there for making their life better, the argument of coercion must be replaced by that of not reflecting on life in general. In other words, if the factory organises all aspects of life then communist workers will live their life accordingly, not bothering to analyse their situation or to ask questions. They just appeared to “consume” the achievements of socialism uncritically. Moreover, the model of work centrality reinforces the view of communism as a binary system of opposition (Yurchak 2006), in which there were only either state factories within the official economy (the state, a public life) or the black market (people, private lives). The entire spectrum of workplaces with different work practices – the private sector, the non-state economy, “moonlighting”, the system of exchange of economic favours, the use of public facilities of state enterprises for private economic activity (see for example Wedel 1986, 1992; Bugajski and Pollack 1989) – they all are absent from the polarised description of the communist state. However, one cannot underestimate such a diverse way of making a living as not

 Aleksandra Galasińska

having an impact on those who did combine different way of working. Their work related identity was obviously shaped not only by ideological principles of work within the confinement of the state (centrally planned economy, productivism, collectivism) but also, and more importantly, by everyday true economy, which is argued to have provided “more than one-third of all goods on the domestic market” (Bugajski and Pollack 1989: 179). Criticising the application of the binary vision of state socialism, Yurchak proposes a deeper understanding of socialist life paradoxes. Everyday life in actually existing socialism, both in the workplace as well as outside it, for almost all people who experienced it was, as Kula (2005) described it, a constant balance between consent and rebellion, more often than not ridden by absurd (Rychlewski 2007). Work under the communist rules, however complicated, paradoxical, and governed by a complex system of control and corruption, planning and misleading, commitment and skiving, it was always assured. Work was not only a duty but also a constitutional right for Polish citizens. Everyone had easy access to employment and those who avoided it were publicly “shamed” by being labelled blue birds (Galasiński 2009). The post-communist transformation changed this model of society dramatically. Unemployment became a constant feature of a new economic and political system. It had grown steadily from the beginning of the transition period to the peak level of 20 percent in 2004. Moreover, economic changes of the end of socialism were coupled with global shifts in working practices underpinned by the decline of industry and changing nature of work (Stenning 2005). Debating the “end of jobs for life” in contemporary capitalism, academics pointed at such issues as loss of security, temporariness, growing demand for flexibility and mobility (Bauman 1998; Sennett 1998). It was argued that in consequence, a society without work lacks strong community ties and networks of support, sees an increase in anonymity and leads to isolation and retreat to domestic and private life (Beck 2000; also Pine 2002). All these consequences were introduced to the Polish society at the same time with the neoliberal ideology of belief in the power of free market and abilities of the individual success (Sikorska, 2000). People of the region have had to deal simultaneously with the decline of production, vanishing places of employment, economic insecurity, as well as with ideological shifts related to their personal abilities to find a job. The new liberal ideology claims that success depends on skills, knowledge, motivation and energy of the individual. Yet, working one’s way up the career ladder was painfully confronted with the rapidly changing reality on the labour market in the context of post-communist transformation, dominated by a collapse of industry, collective redundancies in a public sector and a negative economic growth.



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3.  Lived experience of post-communism: Data and methodology The individual experiencing dazzling transformations in their country, workplace, shops, institutions and just about every other aspect of their lives, had to invent a way of dealing with the new reality. New personal histories had to be reinvented and told again in the same way as rethinking of the state history took place (van Hoven 2004: 20–21). Despite quite numerous studies of the transformation period in Central and Eastern Europe (see the introductory chapter of this volume), the issue of how post-communism has contributed to the development of personal narratives and the construction of political and cultural identities, has not yet been developed (with few exceptions, see i.e. van Hoven 2004; Meinhof and Galasiński 2005; contributions to Galasińska and Krzyżanowski 2009). The data for this chapter came from a project dealing with post-communism as narrated and discussed by people who experienced it. The project’s methodology draws on the understanding that language interacts with social structure in an interdependent and mutually reinforcing way. Only by letting people construct their own narratives, with their own relevancies, by focusing not only on what people consciously say (choosing a particular topic or a set of words), but also on the ways in which they do (by choosing a particular grammatical form and a mode of telling their story), might we understand how people live the new political, social and economic reality (Meinhof 2002; Meinhof and Galasiński 2005). The data collection was based on in-depth, semi-structured and open-ended interviews with a number of specific questions with regard to the period of transition in Poland. Methodologically, the data collection combined episodic interviewing (Flick 2000), based on the Labovian (1972) event narrative research, with a narrative-biographical aspect of life story interviews, as the period of transformation spanned almost fifteen years of informants’ lives. There were two settings of collecting the data: first, in a neighbourhood of a large-plate block of flats in a large city in the south of Poland. The particular way of housing in blocks of flats on large housing estates is typical for CEE countries. Such neighbourhoods are regarded by those who live there as a microcosm of the socialist state society and in a unique way “emulates” the social strata – manual workers, small entrepreneurs, office workers, teachers, artists, academics, students and pensioners live “under one roof ”. The second setting was chosen in a rural area, south-east Poland, where a rural community was under my investigation. All interviews (which lasted between one to two hours) took place in my interlocutors’ homes and most of my interviewees were likely to see the interaction with me as the interviewer as quite relaxed, almost “informal” as I was known to almost all of them before, be it as a former neighbour (in the case the of block

 Aleksandra Galasińska

of flats) or a frequent visitor during the summer holiday (in the rural setting). Then the recorded material was transcribed, coded and analysed. An experiencecentred approach to the data, where stories and arguments were “defined by theme rather by structure” (Squire 2008:  42), is combined with the view of my informants as active narrators of no fixed identities (Elliott 2005: 129). In my analysis, while identifying certain content-related arguments (see Reisigl and Wodak, 2001; Wagner and Wodak, 2006) and their textual realization in collected interviews, I offer, at the same time, a broader macro interpretation of bottom-up discourses of post-communist transformation. An ethnographic underpinning (my knowledge about both areas as well as the interviewed people) of the data collected is of a great importance in the analysis of this data driven study. The most striking feature of the data collected in this project was the dominant topic of work, unemployment, struggle related to both issues and a sense of insecurity also related to work. In the narratives of my interlocutors, work and unemployment were flipsides of the same coin, which make them vulnerable, isolated and even ill. Interestingly, these constructions were evenly spread across the sample, regardless of age, gender, or class of the informants.1 Moreover, the problem of unemployment was vigorously discussed by informants, who had a job at the time of data collection and who also had never been out of work since unemployment became a real economic feature in Poland. I gathered my data in early 2004, which incidentally was the period of highest unemployment in the country, as well as the date of the beginning of the Polish EU membership. I shall use this political and economic context of data’s history in my analysis (see Blommaert 2001). The chapter will take the following route. First, I present the discourse of job security as the one that people refer to all the time. Looking at a general, abstract level of representation of work in people’s discussion of transformation I have pointed at similarities of negative construction of both work and unemployment. Second, I focus on different, personal stories of labour, in which people used more positive discourse of work for displaying their identities. Finally, I comment on my findings. 4.  (Un)employment – “the” topic of new times As I mentioned earlier the topic of work and unemployment dominated the narrated experience of post-communism. In what follows, I demonstrate how my .  A qualitative character of the project prevents me from making any claims with regard to representativeness of the sample. Rather I shall focus on typical representation of extracts of the collected data, understanding this term commonsensically.



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interlocutors shifted temporal as well as topical frames of their discourses of comparing “old” and “new” times. Witness the following examples:2 Extract (1) ER, female, 38 ER: well, in my opinion, much has improved. But on the other hand, I would say that it was then, there might not have been all this as now, in shops, but there was work, the most important problem I think in Poland is now this unemployment. Extract (2) ZK, male, 38 ZK: it seems to me that the time is not bad. If only these people had a job so they could work. They probably could afford to buy everything, so it seems to me, to have a job, the worst is when you don’t have a job Extract (3) ZR, female, 60+ I: so what is going to be next, how do you see the future? ZR: well if work, if a front line of labour does not be open, for those who really need this work, because these young people finish, finish schools, finish universities, they obtain some professions, some specialisation, again there is still no work, if the labour market does not improve, in my opinion, if the situation does not improve it will continue to be bad

I would like to stress three important issues here. First, problems with (lack of) work are constantly interwoven in the discourse of lived experience of postcommunism in my data. All informants quoted here had a job (or other source of income, such as a pension), but they decided to talk about unemployment instead. In their discourses, the past, the present and the future are presented in relation to unemployment. Work dominated people’s accounts of transition and this domination is reflected also in the linguistic form of utterances. There are some linguistic markers used repeatedly by my informants in relation to work in order to emphasize the problem which is discussed, mainly superlatives (the most important problem, the worst) as well as the pronoun this used in connection to work related vocabulary (this unemployment, this work). Second, work is seen as a broad problem in the era of transition and it is constructed in a similar way to the problem of distribution of goods in the past (which was one of the major issues in the socialist state). At many private social gatherings

.  All translations are mine. Preservation of spoken discourse resulted in some naturally occurring grammatical and structural incoherence within the presented examples.

 Aleksandra Galasińska

(such as birthday parties, family gatherings to celebrate Christmas or Easter holidays) in Poland before the transformation, people talked about their problems related to the malfunctioning of the socialist state. Politics was probably the most frequently discussed topic, but the malfunctioning of the socialist economy, and in particular the shortage of goods were also talked about. The collective moaning about queues and empty shops was often created in a particular way: “So what that we have money (or coupons) if there are no products to buy”. In extracts 1 and 2 a similar strategy of polarisation is adopted to evaluate the transformation. The economic reality “of plenty” (all this now in shops, to buy everything) is juxtaposed with the issue of shortages of jobs (see also van Hoven 2004: 126). Interestingly, money is not mentioned here (apart from one implicit instance in extr. 2 to afford to buy) as it was before (see my hypothetical example above). “Work”, “jobs”, or “employment” replaced “money” in such constructions. Work became a commodity which is or isn’t there to get. Moreover, (un)employment is constructed as a very deep political and social problem of the entire country (in Poland), related to a vast amount of its population (these people) and delivered in language of public debates from both pre- and post-89 period (i.e. front line of labour and labour market). And finally, work and unemployment became two sides of the same issue. In other words there is no discourse of work without a discourse of unemployment and vice versa. Unemployment is always discursively linked with problems of work hence work in the era of transformation is presented in a new dimension. In the above section I demonstrated how work and issues related to it are discursively constructed as the major topic of discussions about new times. Unexpectedly, I found that such constructions and the frequency of occurrences revealed that the issue of work is by far more central now (at least on the level of discourse) than it was before transition. The centrality of work, as explained and criticised in the contextual part of this chapter, was ascribed onto citizens of the socialist states rather than really exist itself. Today in fact, people seem to be really preoccupied with issues of work, or at least they talked about it in that way. Such discourses are of course highly contextualised in the economic reality of high levels of unemployment as well as the new working practices on the labour market. The problem of (un)employment seems to be a reflexive one. Barker defines reflexivity as “discourse about experience of social activity in the light of new knowledge” (2000: 390). My informants produce new discourses about work (work and unemployment are two sides of the same coin), which are related to the new situation in their domicile’s job market. Moreover they combine an “external” knowledge (for example from the media as well as from the experience of friends and family in relation to a job market) with a firsthand experience, which in turn leads them to self-reflexivity in production of “further discourses” (Barker 2000: 153) related to work, which I shall analyse in the next section.



It’s all about work 

5.  Work as struggle In this section I focus on how my interlocutors talk directly about working practices in the era of transition. I shall demonstrate that work on a general level was constructed as hardship, struggle and pain, always in a negative context, never as an achievement, source of pride or even means of satisfactory earning. Witness the following extracts in which my interviewees talk about their views on the experience of work in today’s Poland: Extract (4) ER, female, 38 I: work, tell me about it, how do you see it, how does one work now? ER: in my opinion it is horrible, horrible, they think that if you like it or if you don’t like it, simply there are ten others for your job. There is precisely this pain and fever, this pains me most that we cannot speak up at all at the moment. And she continues: ER: and I can say that for the time being I have this job, whatever it is, but there is this job. It’s hard, very hard, every minute I thank God for each day lived, even though I have a temporary contract, but I thank God that I have survived and I plod on forward, on and on. Extract (5) ZR, female, 60+ I: you talk of unemployment, so what is work like now? ZR: what is work like? One who has job somehow clings to it at any cost, and cannot, and one only counts every day, and, so one is happy that one has worked, if only the next day comes, the next one. And those who do not have jobs, simply because there is no work, it is difficult to get a job. So those who work with private employers, you know what work is like, you know what it is like with private employers or in hyperrmarkets or the like, it isn’t work there, it is hard toil, not work. For small change.

Just on the content level we observe a power struggle against employers (we cannot speak up), hardship and burden (it’s hard, very hard, I plod on forward, on and on, it is toil), competition (there are ten others for your job), lack of job security and short-termism counted in days (for the time being I have this job, I have a temporary contract, only counts every day), lack of satisfaction (whatever it is, but there is this job). On the other hand the interviewees construct work as leading to illness (pain and fever), or a matter of life and death (I have survived). Moreover, access to work is described as a play of ill fate, or luck, or a bad fortune, that needs God’s intervention. Workers’ activity on the job market is reduced to feeling pain and praying. There is nothing good to say about work here (and of course in

 Aleksandra Galasińska

other interlocutors’ narratives as well). No traces of satisfaction, personal achievement or pride. No positive element of work was narrated to balance the negative tone of the statements. Such a construction of work confirms observations of the changing nature of contemporary work in general, as I argued earlier contextualising this chapter in the academic literature on work. Part-time, short-term and unsecure jobs diminish workers’ identity and in consequence prevent them from partaking in demanding shifts of the rapidly changing job market (see Bauman 1998; Sennett 1998). Presenting narratives of transformation, collected around the same time as the fieldwork of this study took place, van Hoven also found similar discourses of comparison between security of employment in the previous system and the existing current lack of jobs (van Hoven 2004: 82–88). What is more, she offered evidence for a discourse of work as a struggle used by managers (2004: 110) and I would claim that this fact confirms the omnipresence of negative discourse related to work within a broad spectrum of society. It is simply how one talks about work now. What I also find interesting in these negative constructions of work is that they are unexpectedly similar to those of unemployment. Analysing discourses of those who lost their job Kozłowska (2004) found out that her informants constructed unemployment as an illness, or a situation that causes physical and mental pain. The only treatment for suffering that was considered effective was work. The other exploited constructions, found by Kozłowska, were those of hopelessness and loneliness. In consequence unemployment was constructed as socially unaccepted illness that causes exclusion. Witness one of such typical example:3 Extract (6) JW, male, 46 I: and what are your expectations? Of the state? JW: mm, I have none any more, I have written them off. I just keep praying that I arrange for a job somewhere, and work a bit more, I don’t know what’s going to happen. First the thought about, all the time, to find a job, whatever, just find it. It doesn’t matter what I will do, it doesn’t make sense any more. It’s better to do something than sit at home. Because what at home? Nerves and nerves and I guzzle this coffee [augmentative] after coffee [augmentative]. Because it makes no difference any more.

What is apparent in this extract is the lack of security, the lack of any vision of the future, and the lack of hope. The informant positions himself as dependent on fate. He also, as the other interlocutor in extract 4, mentions praying for a job and,

.  I would like to thank Olga Kozłowska for allowing me to present this example in my study.



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in addition, a possibility of arranging4 for it or finding it (somehow by accident?). Stepping into a job market by arranging it seems to be a typical example of using well known tactics of coping with life’s obstacles from the previous system (Wedel 1986). However, both praying for, as well as unspecified “finding” it, seem to be atypical ways of looking for employment. What is more, he does not indicate a need for being satisfied with his future work – he talks about “any” job. And he connects his actual state with a mental discomfort or an illness (nerves and nerves). The similarities of these constructions of both work and unemployment confirm what I observe on the content level discussed in the previous section, both problems are just two aspects of the same issue. Although such constructions seem to be very obvious, they couldn’t exist in pre-89 Poland, simply because there was no unemployment. This is a novelty of a post-communist discourse. People were unable to juxtapose work and lack of it because they never experienced the latter, be it in a hypothetical possibility, or as a real experience. Now they not only see work and unemployment tightly linked together, but moreover they talk about both issues in a very similar, negative way. The combination of two powerful shifts, changes in the area of work on a global scale and change of the political system in a more “local” scale of the CEE countries, which take place at the same time in this part of the world, gave us a rare opportunity to observe how new discourses related two new working practices are shaped, what is their provenience and their ideological underpinning. It is also a paradox that work, which appears to be the ultimate remedy to overcome the most pressing problem of the transition time – unemployment – becomes constructed as a burden and hardship. This pessimistic outlook is “softened” in the next section where personal stories of individual’s job are analysed.

6.  Work as a source of identity When I asked my informants about their personal experience of work, I observed another regular pattern in the data collected: the constructions of a collective identity among those who work. Moreover, a satisfaction related to work was also displayed, although usually not in an explicit manner. Such rather positive discourses of work run parallel alongside those of a struggle and hardship of work on a general level. Almost all working interviewees choose to describe

.  The word has a significant meaning in pre-89 Poland and refers to achieving something in an unofficial way, using personal contacts and informal networks of family, friends and friends of friends (see also Galasiński and Galasińska 2007:55).

 Aleksandra Galasińska

themselves as members of a particular group, showing that the interpersonal and relational aspect of work is still a very important part of the employee’s occupational identity. It is interesting to note that such portrayals were offered also when my interviewees worked alone or a job they performed has a rather individualistic character. I demonstrate now different levels of collectiveness, beginning with a very obvious one when a manual worker talked about himself as a member of a factory team. Extract (7) ZK, male, 38 I: and have you worked at the same factory all the time or have you worked somewhere else before? ZK: there was a furniture factory in X before. It was a factory where we made kitchens all the time, I mean we made kitchen units there. When I was called up, until I was called up, all the time, but after the military service we came back so there were more hall like furniture introduced [into production], furniture one can put into a hall, you know. So we started making hall furniture and kitchen units as well and with time we have introduced more (models), so they get more customers, for example our factory has lots of customers almost all over the world. It is not like that that we work for the German [singular] only and he [the German] buys from us, the Dutch buy as well, and Japan, and Russians buy and, and whoever else. Almost all these foreign countries buy from us, so really, there is a high standard of everything. So we make such furniture that very few other factories maks what we do.

The interviewee’s job requires team work thus he described work in a collective manner. Hence there is a constant use of the first person plural we, but I would like to draw readers’ attention to one particular fragment here. It is the moment when the very personal experience of going in and getting out of national service, is shifted here from individual I into shared we in the context of talking about work. It could be argued that getting into national service was also a generational experience5 (Misztal 2003), hence my interviewee, although started with his personal story, decided to finish this bit of the narrative in a collective mode to reflect this shared experience of many young men. My claim to the contrary, that collectiveness of the story is a result of the topic of work, is underpinned by two

.  Especially for young men from villages, when almost all friends who reached a certain age were called up to fulfil their obligation at the same time, usually in spring or autumn. They often travel together to their military units.



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ethnographic arguments and my knowledge about people from the area. Firstly, we shall look into this interviewee’s personal circumstances. When he was called up he was already a father of two young children. Thus his departure from the family for two years of military service was even harder than for many of his friends, but also his return to the family was likely to be much more personal than for the other men, who had not started their families yet. Secondly, other men from the same factory were called up at the same time, so their return to the enterprise coincided with that of my interviewee. So I would argue that it is indeed the process of production in the factory, his and other work, a collective activity, which contextualises and influences even the private part of the story of my informant. It has to be mentioned that in contrast to extracts 5, 6 and also 7 where work was not associated with any sense of satisfaction, here the informant talks about his job with pride and a sense of achievement. However, the contentment with his work is placed outside the act of his labour, be it in the approval of the company’s customers (interestingly, from abroad), be it in the quality and uniqueness of the product itself. Still, his effort at the workplace is not presented as the personal satisfaction. I also found other, more interesting, less obvious types of collectivism among descriptions of work by the informants. It is important to note that their work is quite an individualistic one in its essence. Nevertheless some of them identify themselves with an institution they work in (Head of school), others chose to stress their belonging to a particular group possessing one kind of Bourdieu’s (1986) capital: symbolic – (academic) or social (manager). I also identified examples of young people identifying themselves with a generation in the context of work. The most interesting examples of talking about work in collective terms are in two cases: the owner of a small company and a farmer. In both cases the narrators are quite isolated in their everyday activity at work and their jobs are rather individualistic. The next example is a narrative of the manager of a small enterprise, who started his new work at the beginning of a transition period, fifteen years ago. In what follows he describes his new career as a businessman: Extract (8) JZ, male, 65 JZ: so as I said, at the end of the 80s I decided to set up a company, I mean to start working for myself. We organised this company together with some friends from the university and with others. And what then? And this company began to work but it soon turned out that, I, as an activist, was voted to be the chairman and it turned out that it was not possible to hold these two jobs: work for the company and work at the university, it was necessary to give up something, so I quit the university job and moved to work in the company full time. [He talks about instability of the early 90s] Because the company had literally nothing, it began in a rented room on a rented desk, and slowly

 Aleksandra Galasińska

all this somehow happened, and the end of the 90s came, when, when it was possible to buy our own shed, our own premises for the company, our own land and we did it. And there was one problem though. The problem was with the lodger who lived on the premises we bought, the company bought them with the lodger. So it was necessary to make provisions to evict the lodger and it was possible to move him.

Let me add an additional ethnographic description here, as in the analysis of the previous extract. My informant is the brain and the soul of the company: other co-owners abandoned it or sold their shares so in the process he became the sole owner. At the outset, there were no employees now there are 15 of them. Singlehandedly, he developed this small business into a significant place of production of a sought after product, which he successfully sells around Europe. He obtained professional certificates and secured systematic, steady growth of his business. And yet he still refers to his action as the collective action of the company. Moreover, what is quite interesting here, when he describes the very beginning of the company, he talks about his own action (I decided to set up a company) – this was the time when he had his associates. Then he shifts his utterances into the ones in which the agency of action is hidden or blurred (slowly all this somehow happened, it was possible to buy). Finally, when all associates were long gone and all decisions regarding this company were his and his only, he changes his utterance again into the collective action (we did it, we bought). I would describe this example as a combination of a personal story with a narrative of organisation (Czarniawska 1997; Gabriel 2000). JZ starts this narrative as an individual displaying a particular identity of the community activist (spolecznik) and finishes as we company, fully identifying in that way with his enterprise. The moment of the change of his identity is constructed in the middle part of his story, when the impersonal phrases such as slowly all this somehow happened are entwined with those of a personalized company as the subject in action (this company began to work, the company bought them). There is little doubt that my informant is proud of his company. The story of having nothing and then buying land and the premises for the company is evidence. However it is hard to find measures of the personal achievement in the story he tells. The story of his personal success is hidden within the story of company achievements. As for ZK in extract 7 when he was proud not of his work but for a product of the factory he worked for, JZ’s achievement is also placed outside his immediate action at work. By identifying fully with his company JZ boasts inexplicitly or he wants to hide, he wants to be modest. Either way, it could be argued that success and achievement at work for this interviewee is only possible when a collective action is performed. The last extract in this chapter is from the narrative of a farmer, who talks about difficulties in farming in post-1989 Poland. A few points of commentary on



It’s all about work 

farming are crucial at this point. Private farms in Poland, in contrast to the collective ones, were usually small. Mostly only (immediate) family members worked on the land, quite often having also additional jobs somewhere else to support the family income. In the case of the farmer I will present (below), the wife of the interviewed farmer had a full time job, so he was the core worker on this farm; it was his individual work almost all the time. Consider how he talks about his struggle to keep up with the changing market situation in the time of transformation: Extract (9) ZC, male, 55 ZC: I had ten milk cows, I built a cow-shed for twenty five. I planned to increase the herd to fifty. It turns out that when Balcerowicz came he put farmers in a trap. All the farmers who had like seven hundred sheep, they had to sell out and had credits, sell out, everything, machinery, equipment, sheep, in order to pay the loans back. They ruined the economy. I had sheep too. Around two hundred beasts. Apart from that pasture cattle. We all worked, there was profit, and you could earn some in the forest. I was one of three farmers in the community. We sold more grain, the three of us, than the entire community.

This is a very interesting extract in the sense that the informant decided to show his individual work as the owner and the only one who worked on the farm in the broader context of a particular group of people, who shared the same fate. As he cannot present his collective identity while working on his land, in his narrative he became a member of the group outside his workplace, at the bank where he (and others) repays loans, at agricultural buying stations, where he sells his products and in the forestry, where he looks for additional income, supporting his ailing agricultural business. What I would like to emphasize is the fact that, even if someone’s work is non-collective at all, the very nature of the work itself, its interpersonal dimension (see the introduction), imposes on the informants a collective representation of employment in order to display a positive identity in relation to work. Interestingly he is the only one who explicitly expresses pride in his work as a result of his immediate actions (I had, I built, I planned). This time, however, the pride is placed in the past, before transition.

7.  Conclusions In this chapter I examined discourses related to work in narratives of lived experience of the post-communist transformation. The main findings include a number of characteristics of the analysed data. Work and problems related to it became by far the most important topic of discussion about the transformation process.

 Aleksandra Galasińska

Narratives of work are reflexive, influenced by the context of unemployment and they also resemble narratives of unemployment. Discourse about work on a general level became a negative one (struggle, hardship, toil). Both aspects, that is the importance of work and also negative views of work in discourses of my informants, might be results of convergence of two powerful global changes: “the end of work” and “the end of the socialist state” (Stenning 2005). Assuming a dialectics between discourse and social practice (Fairclough 2003), there is a potential risk that this negative discourse of work in Poland will influence negative social practices related to work in the country. At the same time, talking about their personal experience of work, people used their well known discursive resources of work as a collective act to display their positive identity in relation to work. There are two possible sources of such construction. On the one hand, it is an acknowledgment of a relational and interpersonal dimension of work itself. Through we discourses the informants display a “strong” identity of workers (Sennett 1998). People are positively engaged in a collective act of production and they are closely associated with their enterprise. This is a universal discourse of work in modernity, occurring regardless of the political system in charge. It is good to feel well at work, to feel in place, to feel needed and to be proud of it. The spectrum of different settings (the factory, the company management, the farm), where such discourses occurred in my data, confirms this common longing. The data confirms that people from “The East” have indeed their own agency, they also are able to critically reflect of their action, contrary to the reductionist academic portrayals of communism, criticised in the introductory part of this chapter. Unless of course one assumes that the entire discourse of work in the era of transition is created from scratch in a social and cultural vacuum. The discourse analysis’ principle of recontextualisation of former discourses prevents such interpretation, though. On the other hand, it looks like informants also utilise well known discursive resources from the past, from times when ideology of collectivism prevailed in a public sphere and personal achievements were not celebrated at the workplace. This study demonstrates that placement of success at work is detached from the employees’ agency and their immediate action. People have not yet re-worked a new language to operate on the level of the new reality. This is an example of what Burawoy and Verdery (1999) described as employment of “a language and symbols adapted from previous orders” (1999: 2). It is difficult to decide which of the ideological underpinning of this discourse prevails in people’s discussion about work. Both seem to be equally important and both are consistent with economic changes mentioned above: community worries related to decentring of work as well as still an open outcome of the process of the postcommunist transformation.



It’s all about work 

History added a postsciptum to this study. A combination of the highest level of unemployment in 2004, the year of the study, and the opening of European labour markets for citizens of new EU member states, led to the exodus of thousands of Poles. Studies concerning Polish economic migrants discourse show that while talking about normal life, people stress an importance of easy access to work and unproblematic working conditions (Galasińska and Kozłowska 2009; Galasińska 2010). Moreover, migrants frequently compare labour market and working practices in Poland and abroad. This might be a consequence of being submerged in similar discourses while still in the home country and an example of a recontextualisation (Wodak 1996; Wodak 2001; Reisigl and Wodak 2001) of earlier dominant discourses of work in the society in transition. Interestingly, as other studies of post-enlargement economic migration show, people who decided to leave the country became extremely successful and independent in the field of work (see for example Eade et al. 2007; Ryan et al. 2008; Galasińska 2009).

References Armbruster, H. & Meinhof, U.H. 2002. “Working Identities: Key Narratives in a Former Border Region in Germany.” In Living (with) Borders: Identity Discourses on East-West Borders in Europe, U.H. Meinhof (ed.), 15–32. Aldershot: Ashgate. Ashwin, S. 1999. Russian Workers: The Anatomy of Patience. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Barker, C. 2000. Cultural Studies. Theory and Practice. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage. Bourdieu, P. 1986. “The forms of capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, J.E. Richardson (ed.), 241–258. Westport: Greenwood Press. Bauman, Z. 1998. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham: Open University Press. Beck, U. 2000. The Brave New World of Work. Cambridge: Polity. Blommaert, J. 2001. “Context is/as Critique.” Critique of Anthropology 21 (1): 13–32. Buchowski, M. 2004. “Redefining Work in a Local Community in Poland.” In Workers and Narratives of Survival in Europe. The Management of Precariousness at the End of the Twentieth Century, A. Procoli (ed.), 173–196. New York: State University of New York Press. Bugajski, J. & Pollack, M. 1989. East European Fault Lines. Dissent, Opposition, and Social Activism. Boulder, San Francisco & London: Westview Press. Burawoy, M. & Verdery, K. (eds). 1999. Uncertain transition: ethnographies of change in the postsocialist world. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Czarniawska, B. 1997. Narrating the organization: Dramas of institutional identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Domański, B. 1997. Industrial Control over the Socialist Town: Benevolence or Exploitation? London: Peager. Eade, J., Drinkwater, S. & Garapich, M. 2007. Class and Ethnicity – Polish Migrants in London. Research report for the RES-000-22-1294 ESRC project (University of Surrey). Elliott, J. 2005. Using Narrative in Social Research. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage.

 Aleksandra Galasińska Fairclough, N. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Flick, U. 2000. “Episodic Interviewing.” In Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound, M.W. Bauer & G. Gaskell (eds), 75–92. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage. Gabriel, Y. 2000. Storytelling in organizations: Facts, fictions, fantasies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Galasińska, A. 2009. ‘Small stories fight back. Narratives of Polish economic migration on an internet forum’. In Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, A.  Galasińska & M. Krzyżanowski (eds), 188–203. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Galasińska, A. 2010. “Leavers and stayers discuss returning home.” Social Identities 16 (3). (forthcoming in May 2010). Galasińska, A. & Kozłowska, O. 2009. “Discourses on a ‘normal life’ among post-accession migrants from Poland to Britain.” In After 2004: Polish Migration to the UK in the ‘New’ European Union, K. Burrell (ed.), 87–105. Aldershot: Ashgate. Galasińska, A. & Krzyżanowski, M. (eds). 2009. Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Galasiński, D. 2009. “Narratives of Disenfranchised Self in the Polish Post-communist Reality.” In Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, A. Galasińska & M. Krzyżanowski (eds), 204–217. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Galasiński, D. this volume. “Sitting on the fence. Identity and Polish narratives of the 1st-May celebrations.” Galasiński, D. & Galasińska, A. 2007. “Lost in Communism, Lost in Migration: Narratives of post-1989 Polish Migrant Experience.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 2 (1): 47–62. Giddens, A. 2001. Sociology. 4th edition. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kozłowska, O. 2004. Żyć bezrobociem: analiza dyskursu bezrobotnych. MA dissertation, Institute of Psychology, University of Opole, Poland. Kula, M. 2005. “Życie codzienne w komunizmie.” In Socialism w Życiu Powszednim, S. Kott, M. Kula, & T. Linderberger (eds), 13–23. Warszawa, Potsdam: Wydawnictwo TRIO & Zentrum fur Zeithistorische Forschung. Labov, W. 1972. Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Meinhof, U.H. (ed.). 2002. In. Living (with) Borders: Identity Discourses on East-West Borders in Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate. Meinhof, U.H. & Galasiński, D. 2005. The Language of Belonging. Houndmills: Palgrave. Merkel, I. 1994. “From a Socialist Society of Labour into a Consumer Society? The Transformation of East German Identities and Systems.” In Envisioning Eastern Europe. Postcommunist Cultural Studies, M.D. Kennedy (ed.), 55–65. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press. Misztal, B. 2003. Theories of Social Remembering. Meidenshead, Philadelfia: Open University Press. Mokrzycki, E. 2001. Bilans niesentymentalny, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN. Offe, C. 1996. Modernity and the State: East, West. Cambridge: Polity Press. Pine, F. 2002. “Retreat to the household.” In Postsocialism, C. Hann. (ed.), 95–113. London: Routledge. Poleszczuk, J. 1991. “Praca w systemie gospodarki planowej.” In Co nam zostało z tych lat, … Społeczeństwo polskie u progu zmiany systemowej, M. Marody (ed.), 106–130. Londyn: Aneks. Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge. Ryan, L., Sales R., Tilki, M. & Siara, B. 2008. “Social Networks, Social Support and Social Capital: The Experiences of Recent Polish Migrants in London. “ Sociology 42 (4): 672–690.



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Rychlewski, M. 2007. Absurdy PRL-u 2. Antologia. Poznań: Vesper. Sennett, R. 1998. The Corrosion of Character: Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. London: W.W. Norton & Co. Sikorska, M. 2000. “Przetransformować się na kogoś innego – definiowanie sytuacji pracy.” In Między rynkiem a etatem. Społeczne negocjowanie polskiej rzeczywistości, M. Marody (ed.), 93–110. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe SCHOLAR. Sowiński, P. 2000. Komunistyczne Święto. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio. Stenning, A. 2005. “Re-Placing Work: Economic Transformations and the Shape of a Community in Post-Socialist Poland.” Work, Employment and Society 19 (2): 235–59. Squire, C. 2008. “Experience-centred and culturally-oriented approaches to narrative”. In Doing Narrative Research, M. Andrews, C. Squire & M. Tomboukou (eds), 41–63. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore: Sage. Svašek, M. 2006. “Introduction. Postsocialism and the Politics of Emotions.” In Postsocialism. Politics and Emotions in Central and Eastern Europe. M. Svašek (ed.), 1–33. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Sztompka, P. 2000. Trauma wielkiej zmiany. Społeczne koszty transformacji. Warszawa: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN. van Hoven, B. (ed.). 2004. Europe. Lives in Transition. Harlow: Pearson. Prentice Hall. Wagner, I. & Wodak, R. 2006. “Performing Success: Identifying Strategies of Self-representation in Women’s Biographical Narratives.” Discourse & Society 17 (3): 385–411. Wedel, J.R. 1986. The Private Poland: An Anthropologist’s Look at Everyday Life. New York: Facts on File. Wedel, J.R. (ed.). 1992. The Unplanned Society. Poland During and After Communism. New York: Columbia University Press. Wodak, R. 1996. Disorders of Discourse. London: Longman. Wodak, R. 2001. “The Discourse-Historical Approach.”. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, R. Wodak & M. Meyer (eds), 63–94. London: Sage. Yurchak, A. 2006. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Transition to nowhere Homelessness in post-communist Poland as the hand of fate Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek University of Gdańsk

The text presents the analysis of seven out of 31 biographical narratives collected from homeless people in Gdańsk.1 In all of the narratives, losing home is related to the transition from socialism to capitalism in Poland. In the narratives we selected for presentation below, this connection is explicit, which makes history and personal biographies intersect in dramatic ways, providing rarely accessible accounts on how socio-economic changes affect individual lives. This intersection lends itself to interpretation in terms of the two research methodologies applied here: one being phenomenological and the other which can be associated with a Foucauldian understanding of discourse. In the former, subjects are seen as active agents, as meaning-making actors of their own lives. In the latter, subjects are “spoken” rather than speaking, and their meaning-making activities are framed by discursive practices extending their subjective selves. However, this is not an issue of either-or, of agency vs. external determination. The interviews clearly show that these dimensions make complex plots of situated, dramatic meanings. Therefore a phenomenological investigation is followed by an attempt at understanding the “orders of discourse” that speak through individual agencies (Foucault 1971; Fairclough & Wodak 1998). The interviewing methodology was guided by phenomenological assumptions (Denzin 1989), by D. Demetrio’s approach to the use of “autobiographical games” in therapy (Demetrio 2000a, 2000b), and by the action research approach. Our study was aimed at describing the “profile” of the homeless person, analysing the experience of becoming and being homeless and the conditions of lives of .  “The Homeless Agenda” project was run as part of the EU “Equal” initiative aimed at diagnosing the situation and enhancing the employment capabilities of homeless people in the Gdańsk region. The qualitative part of the research was run in 2006 by a team of educational researchers from the University of Gdańsk, headed by Maria Mendel. For a broader account on their findings see Mendel, 2007.

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

the informants in the light of what they would tell about themselves when asked to think of their lives. The key condition to achieve this result related to the informant – researcher interaction and its possible consequences for the interviewees. In this respect we were guided by Demetrio’s conception of self-narratives as self-therapy and his methodology of ‘biographical games’. The rationale behind it was that research engaging people who suffer social marginalisation must do more than collect data: it should contribute to an understanding that can be used by the informants to improve their life situation (Smolińska-Theiss 1988). This pedagogical dimension is coherent with Fairclough’s understanding of critical discourse analysis, it is also stressed by Demetrio (2000b). Our interviews followed stages of biographical reconstruction and reflection, where the informants were positioned as “theoreticians of their own lives”. Here, for instance, they were invited to imagine a desired state of things and identify the obstacles to changing their condition. The concluding phase was meant to make the informants think in terms of hope and possibilities; however, it usually failed in this pedagogical dimension. In general, the research was organised so that it could have a potential of changing the desperate situation of the informants.The issue placed in the center of biographical research defined the framework of the narrative while the interviewees gave it their personal shape. This means that the interviews involved an on-going interpretation, where Denzin’s idea of “interactive hermeneutics” proved fruitful (Denzin 1989). It oriented the course of conversations around discovering and interpreting meanings created, experienced and interpreted by the informants themselves. This is why it is sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish between the analysis and interpretation of the data. 1.  Social context: Transformation and homelessness The categories for analysis of the material were elicited from the narratives, and social transformation was one of the leading ones in the interviews we decided to include in this presentation. It is referred to in various ways (changes in housing prices and property laws, bankruptcy of state-owned industry, the risky nature of private entrepreneurship, etc.) and with different attitudes – the time after 1989 is perceived as abrupt and devastating, sometimes surprising, but also as something “normal” and to be appreciated. Normality took the shape of neo-liberal ideology. Its major features were decommunisation, privatisation of public property, and trust in individual initiative. An important reason for the popular support for these transformations was that “real socialism”, as it was called, was perceived as lacking social justice and was unable to provide decent living conditions for all. In a way, it was overturned



Transition to nowhere 

because of its failed promises. Hence the paradoxical expectation that “normality” (capitalism and democracy) would bring more justice. Transformation also involved a reconstruction of the welfare system. In socialist Poland, the system was based on the distribution of work (e.g. Imbrogno 1990). As Księżopolski puts it, “Certainty of work and wage were the foundations of social security in the states of ‘real socialism’. The partly social character of wages made them somehow similar to minimal income benefits in capitalist states.” (Księżopolski 1999: 118). The new system, following that elaborated in older market economies, implied that social security depends on secondary re-distribution of income. Very soon the paradox of workers’ expectations became clear. In spite of Jacek Kuroń’s2 left-wing orientation (Kuroń 2004), the unemployment benefit commonly called after his name (“Kuroniówka”) and free soup that he served in the streets of Warsaw, became the first signs of charity replacing attempts at providing equality. Homelessness did exist in socialist Poland. However, its forms and meaning were significantly different. When it was not connected to unemployment, people deprived of their own homes lived in workers’ hostels, in subsidised communal apartments, or in cramped rented rooms. The present form of homelessness started after 1989, with unemployment resulting from privatisation and marketisation of the economy. “Work establishments”, as they were called, with their social responsibilities, turned into profit-oriented “companies”. Reduction of their social infrastructure involved, for instance, the liquidation of workers’ hostels, where 270,000 people used to live (Stankiewicz 2005). The new property laws (possibility of the eviction of tenants without providing alternative housing by the owners), and the establishment of shelters and care centres, displaced and re-labelled the poor. Workers and tenants deprived of jobs and cheap housing became overtly and visibly homeless: they appeared in the streets and railway stations. Homelessness thus became one of the most visible negative consequences of the transformation (Porowski 1995). It is impossible to state with certainty, but most of our informants would probably not have become homeless if it had not been for the transformation. Their homelessness either started in the early 1990s, or became “stabilised” at that time, as the only possible way of living. 2.  Social change and private lives: Analysis of the narratives The analyses are presented in a threefold structure that reflects the stages of transition identified in the material after Victor Turner (1969). We speak here of .  Kuroń was minister of social welfare in the first post-1989 government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

pre-liminal, liminal, and post-liminal phases. The caesura of 1989 (the first elections that overturned the rule of the Polish Worker’s Party) is the liminal moment in which we situate the critical points of the investigated biographies. This is why we present the age of the informants at that moment: this is when their individual lives intersected with the course of history and – through some suspension typical of liminality – changed their meaning. The informants include: –– –– –– –– –– –– ––

Int. 1 – Shipyard worker, male, 42, in 1989 25 years old (int. M42Dz) Int. 2 – Driver, male, 45, in 1989 28 years old (int.M45Pl) Int. 3 – Worker, male, 50, in 1989 33 years old (int. M50Dz) Int. 4 – Building worker, male, 54, in 1989 37 years old (int. M54Dz) Int. 5 – “White collar worker”, male, 60, in 1989 43 years old (int. M60Pl) Int. 6 – Social worker, female, 48, in 1989 31 years old (int. K48Dz) Int. 7 – Economist, female, 57. In 1989 40 years old (int. K57Dz)

The overall result of this intersection was abrupt or gradual marginalisation. Displaced from the dominant routines and ways of life, our informants see the world in a weird close up, in which everything is near but cannot be reached. This distorted distance creates a unique positioning where there is no room for common sense or “politically correct” judgements. All 31 stories reflect the processes of social change in unique ways. It is difficult to find context variables that would group the material into clear “types”. Some differences between the stories relate, however, to the age of the informants. In the narratives of people older than 48 years of age (the oldest person was 53 in 1989) the last stage of their lives is often marked by some social passivity, and the changes are often perceived as taking place “outside” their lives, although they engage in them in numerous ways. In the narratives of younger people (below 48 years of age – the youngest person was 12 in 1989), it is the first period of their lives that is relatively passive in political terms. This does not mean that the young have nothing to say about socialism, while those who are older are ignorant of what is going on now. Created from different perspectives, these narratives are of different quality, and thus they contribute to the multifaceted, complex image of the time of change. The narratives do not lend themselves easily to “masculine” vs. “feminine” division in life histories, either, but the presence of these two perspectives makes the overall picture richer. Another such category is place of residence. Some of the informants live in shelters, others occupy tiny houses or shacks on allotments. Those living “nowhere” – in railway stations, heating sub-stations, etc. – are very difficult to reach and are not represented in the material.



Transition to nowhere 

The interviews lasted about one hour each and it is not possible to provide full transcripts here. In the seven interviews selected for this chapter, for the sake of length of the material and to maintain the aura of each story, we summarise the narratives and present them in a condensed way, quoting only fragments of the transcripts. Unavoidably, such summaries involve initial interpretation. In order to make it explicit, we title each of the interviews in a way that reflects the analytical framework based on Turner's threefold structure of change. The titles thus categorise the course of informants’ lives before and after the political transition, with the middle section aimed at grasping the nature of the liminal moment. 1. Working Class and Morality in Socialism/The End of the Worker/Indifference in a Time of Freedom. He says he has always drunk. His mother died when he was a child, and his threeyear-old brother was killed by a bus. But he found support in school, his history teacher let other students run the class while he played chess with him. When he started to work in the shipyard, he found himself to be one of the best welders right from the beginning. Communism demoralised him. Building houses for doctors who gave him false sick leaves, or parish houses from stolen material, he earned three times as much as he did building ships. In spite of that, and in spite of drinking, he kept his job in the shipyard. It gave him satisfaction: I was good. When I worked I did not smoke more than four cigarettes in eight hours, it was always like, wait a minute. Mates called me, they had smoking breaks all the time, and I would say no, I’m working, I could really work. (…) But I did show what I was capable of, I mean drinking. When I started I could drink like hell. (…) They tolerated me like that for some time, but then they told me to look for another job. So I sit there, at W4, I drink my coffee, and here comes the manager, he spots the papers in my hand. He grabbed them and disappeared. (…) Come when you finish the coffee, he says, so I drink up and I go there (…) and they give me promotion. Here they kick me out, and there I get a pay rise. ‘Cause they knew I could work. [158].

During the time of transformation, the shipyard was shrinking. (“You, and you, and you… grab those cables and clear off … and so we were two out of eight”). He became homeless and slept on trains, happy that the cloakrooms at the shipyard opened at four a.m. and that he could get some sleep before he started to work. The critical moment was when he followed his friends and moved to a private company. Stable work conditions ended there. Then “everything was lost or something like that… I am useless now” [159].

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

The time of post-communism brought a bitter feeling of powerlessness. He says nothing can change his life, it goes on like this, and he has “no free will” to change it, freedom is a fiction. This seems to be more than a lack of agency. The story is about the end of the worker. His life cannot be controlled, he “can’t find the strings” [159] because he is no longer among his peers. His homelessness means not only living “in the gardens”, but also being away from the shipyard and its working class culture. The feeling of loss and his defeat in life are associated with unstable work, for private owners. Unemployment, homelessness, helplessness, all those “lessnesses” around, create the meaning of social transition from belonging to the shipyard to being nowhere. 2. Work, Home, Normal Life/Crisis/Outside the World: Alienation, Indifference. He became homeless as a result of eviction, he paid no rent when he became unemployed. About his status of being homeless he speaks with a constant feeling of surprise: I lost my flat, for instance, because I just had no money. I never expected that we could have a situation that people would have no jobs. (…) Earlier, in communist times, even in the nineties, when you didn’t work you were forced to. And now, all of a sudden, the time has come when you have no job. No chance. So, when on top of that, I lost my driver’s licence, I couldn’t find work at all. Up till now I am in a hopeless situation, in Poland, moreover I’m homeless. (…) When I have no residence, nobody wants me, nobody will hire me, and I am at the age that I could easily work (…) Who would have expected that I could ever be homeless, there was nothing like that, that people are homeless, you know, in Poland before. And you must feel bitter about it, right? [168].

The communist state is described as a paradise lost, and the astonishment at the fact of its fall, apart from the generally positive feelings about it, remains painful. There were those shared work days. We lived together with a friend, we worked hard in the fields, with sugar beet. It was hard, but it was fun. (…) When I left school I worked at Budimor, now that company is gone, and that used to be a powerful firm. [169]. I do not think anything can surprise me, I have gone through many things in life, right? For instance I thought communism would never… that it was there for ever, that no power would overturn it, and I was really surprised that we did it, right, that was a surprise. Still, there were good and bad sides to communism, on the one hand I would never be homeless in communism, no, that would not have happened, but on the other hand it is good they did it. It ended up with me being homeless. [170–171].



Transition to nowhere 

The big changes, in his private life marked by eviction into the street, are illustrated by a vision of huge shelters popping up in town: I had no idea that they existed at all, I learned about them later, when more and more people were made homeless, then it started, and those huge shelters started to emerge, then I found one for myself (…) Now I am back here again, and… it is so difficult to get out of this, once you are in, the pressure grows. With this unemployment, it is more and more difficult. [171].

He wants to get out of the “shelters”, and this is his hope for the future. Postcommunist reality, with its market rules and toughness, he judges like this: When I don’t have a room, what can be done? I won’t create it, nowadays it is hard to get a flat, you think it is easy for people like me? I have no chance at all, they would not give me anything.(…) What can I do? (…) Save some money, rent a room, start thinking in another way, I do not mean much, just spring out of here, from the worst, from those shelters. (…) First find a job that could make me safe, so that I can pay for that room, but you know how it is, one day you have a job and the next day it’s gone. So what can I do. Back here again? (…) No, there is always some chance, right? [174].

Noticeably shifting positions are associated with the social setting of his life. “In Poland” is used as a mark of astonishing alienation from where he once belonged (“I am in a hopeless situation, in Poland, moreover I am homeless”; “there was nothing like that, that people are homeless, you know, in Poland before”). The former political system was stable, but got overturned – still, the who that did it is similarly ambiguous: “I was really surprised that we did it, right”, and in the same sentence: “on the other hand it is good they did it”. Disillusioned, counting on himself, knowing that he “dropped out” [172] and that he cannot rely on anybody, he speaks from an outer space in his home country, from the outside within. 3. Homeless in women’s homes/de-sensitisation/an indifferent world. He says he has been homeless for 25 years, that he had no home when he lived with subsequent women “with apartments”, who one after another claimed that he had been the father of their children. Now he is a man devoted to being single. “I can’t tolerate women, I am on my own (…). I want nobody, this is what I have learned in life” [180]. This lack of tolerance towards women extends into his general attitude to reality. He is bitterly critical about the world as it is, he sets himself apart from it. “Not my business, not my world”, he says. “Different times, a different life” – today’s reality is contrasted to the old world where the systemic order did not produce indifference or lack of reciprocity in human relations. In communist

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

times, presented as more human than the world today, there was always someone you could complain to. The consequences were predictable, the rules were clear. A different time, a different life. Earlier, in communism, I could go to the Party’s secretary and complain. Where can I go now? When the cops (…) beat me, when they break my hands or back, where can I go? They did this to many [people], they beat me too, many times, I’m not quiet, I talk back (…) You should know that, lady, they are worse than the communists. They grab all the homeless, they took us all from the station the day before yesterday. (…) They will take you to the forest, beat you, break you, boys die then. What the fuck are you doing, journalists, you see nothing. I tell you: they beat us. They killed many boys (…). During communism I could go to the Party to complain (…), and now? Where can they go? You wanted fucking capitalism, and now they take us to the forests, beat us with batons. (…) Where to go? To you? You will write nothing, you do shit, I don’t like it, you just care about your examinations. You think I don’t know what it’s about for you, a young journalist? Carry out a good interview, pass your exam, that’s your job. Nobody to really act. Let them kill the bum, like here, in the gardens, let them burn the shack. They did that, they burnt a woman in the gardens, and what, who wrote about it?” [179].

The description of this reality justifies the sharp distinction between two worlds living with no mutual relation, and the stark contrast between “us” and “them” finds many justifications in utterances like “what do you know… you know nothing of such things” [178]. In such a reality, escape is a rational strategy. “I would rather go to jail… but they won’t take me” [178]. The world fell apart, and one of its parts, that which is “not-mine”, is impossible to identify with, so abstract and remote that it is almost sacred and justifies inaction. “Not my business, not my world, I am not God” [181]. With a feeling of loneliness, with no hope for understanding or sympathy from that cold reality, the man surrenders. His story ends with this: “I do not want to improve my position. I will stay where I am, this is what I have chosen, and this is where I will fucking die – tomorrow or today. I do not want to suffer any more.” [181] 4. Home and work/Generation shift/‘It won’t get better’ All his life he considered work to be the most important thing. The whole of his narrative is filled with references to building, to homes and houses, and with the ethics of work. Communist times are portrayed as a smooth flow of learning vocation and work. “Then it was like that. (…) Automatically, when I started vocational school, they sent me to that builder. So I worked there, how long, like ten years or eleven, in that private firm”. [190] Then, for many years he worked in the state-owned Transbud. That time is also narrated in terms of taking care of his own home.



Transition to nowhere 

You had a savings book, you had to wait for your turn, but it was fixed. (…) Well, and I worked at Transbud, a building company, so it went a bit faster, they had their own shares in the blocks, so they gave me a flat. So I got it, but it needed some work, to make it as it should be. All those cracks, slots, the door did not match, you know (…), a normal communist building.” [190] (…) In Transbud it was hard work. All the loading was done by hand, right? (…) I took my driving licence, but that was hard work too, twelve hours a day sometimes you had to work, sometimes Sundays and holidays, too. When carriages came, they took you from home and you had to go to the station. (…) Round and round: toil, cash, and the satisfaction, that I was working, right? And for good money, not peanuts. Satisfaction that I had that flat, that I had fixed it up myself, that I could have my family there, I wasn’t cramped in with my parents. [191].

The liminal moment is described briefly but clearly, in the slightly surprising terms of intergenerational relations. Something started to go wrong, so the older ones moved elsewhere, all the young ones remained, all newly employed, [almost] nobody was left of the old crew (…) from that time we worked until … ninety nine, or ninety seven, or later… not continuously, all the nineties was work with breaks. They started to fire people, reductions, and so on, so I worked here and there, for some more time (…)  [191].

It is worth noticing that both his generation and the “young” one come from subsequent waves of post-war baby booms: they came in abundance, in numbers that could not be catered for by the weak economy. His generation was pushed out of the market by that of their children. Perhaps systemic transformation has this unavoidable trait of forcing the “old” to go with “their old world”. The narrative is not bitter, though. This experience is balanced by the fact that he managed to avoid railroad stations, that he has a place “in the gardens”. “The fact that I live here, not roaming around railway stations, or (…) something” [191]. Continuing: “Well, how should things be? … well [sighing], that is not possible (…), right now you have to be happy with what you have and what there is, nothing more. It will not get better” [194]. 5. Personal way to freedom/De-socialisation/‘A state that does not care’ Like his father, he was supposed to become a doctor. However, for no particular reason, he did Physical Education, and then studied natural science with a specialisation in dendrology and grass. His early childhood was spent without a father, who after the war was a political prisoner who came back home in 1955. All that time he listened to stories about fighting for a free Poland. Together with his family he listened to Radio Free Europe broadcasting from Germany “the other” knowledge about Eastern Europe.

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

For many years he worked in the Gdańsk Shipyard as a sports and recreation instructor. “As a guide, I travelled a lot. (…) I organised recreation for the shipbuilders. Then they jailed me.” [211] Political activism was his real life, a share in true history, as he says. In 1976, I was in the group that started independent trade unions, and I was active in KOR.3 Yes, then I saw injustice with my very eyes. (…) I hated communism, I got this from home, I was White as I used to say, and then those arrests started, many times. First they took me for three months. Then, in 1976, I got the first sentence in November, three years. I went out, Solidarity, 1980… I got three years again (…). But that was not time lost, I learned a lot. [210].

When he left prison, he started working for the community maintaining the greens – “in my profession”, as he says [211]. Later, in the 1980s, he found his most satisfying job in a sports club owned by the Gdynia Shipyard. He became an expert in football pitch grass. His unique specialisation made him occasionally employable by other sports’ clubs in Poland and abroad, and an expert for the Polish Football Association. The turning point of 1989 he describes in relation to that place and that job. We lived like a family, that club, (…) I was really very close to them. And all that transition, those reforms, it was Shipyard property and the Shipyard stopped paying, so the club was taken over by the city, but they could not give that much money. We simply could not get by, the last three months I worked for no money.  [212].

International contracts were a normal part of his working life, but from that time he started to treat them in purely financial terms. “At the beginning of the nineties, I started to travel ‘for bread’, as they say, hard times began.” [211] Although he kept travelling and working, something changed: “I gave up politics entirely, even now I have nothing to do with politicians, no public work, no social activism, no unions, nothing, I just started to go to work” [211]. Going to work replaced working – and that is not the same. Transformation, in this biography, means changing the very nature of work, its alienation. The world after the breakthrough appears as literally broken. He occasionally went abroad, earned good money, but the constant costs of maintaining rented flats, with the vanishing perspective of buying his own place, made him finally live in a shelter. “A very scrupulous worker, a workaholic”, as he describes himself [216], became jobless and homeless, acutely seeing the deficits of a once desired “normality” and witnessing the collapse of his political efforts to replace the old

.  Committee for the Defence of Workers.



Transition to nowhere 

system with a more human reality. From his displaced position he bitterly questions the role of the state, nowadays abandoning its social functions: “I am not saying that the state should care totally; but it should somehow care. And the state [now] doesn’t care for anything.” [p.220] The description of this uncaring state reveals fictional practices that mask a lack of concern. The Employment Office runs “[…] fictional courses where some guys earn money” [220], and the housing projects are unaffordable for those who need them. He says all his mates from the shelter are on waiting lists for communal flats, but there have been only three moves. “There are many empty flats. (…) TBS4 are the most expensive flats, no homeless people can afford them. They have gas or electric heating, if you have to pay for the flat and then one thousand a month for the rent, you can’t do it.” [220] And it could be different. Asked about a desired state of things, he speaks of a vision of change. “They (…) could build cheap container flats perhaps.”[220] He says shelters could turn into co-operatives, with tenants working in construction teams or in cleaning services. “It is a matter of will, some small investment, and providing those people with basic living conditions. Let them work, work is essential [for] human beings” [202]. This notion of work addresses the problem of alienation in a Marxist way. Also the overall strategy of change is seen in revolutionary terms. “Indifference comes when you are not involved. (…) You have to feel it from the inside, when you come to see it from the outside it means nothing. You have to destroy it from the inside to make room for concrete change.” [202] 6. “I won’t work for the Reds”, or waiting for a “normal decent life”/…/Waiting for a normal decent life 2. She keeps comparing her life now and in the past, characteristically omitting the liminal phase of transition. There is “communism” and “now”, and no memories refer to what happened in between. The narrative seems to show that the informant has always waited for “normality” and that therefore she sees her time as steadily directed towards the present. She is filled with a feeling of injustice, and she wonders about the common consent and indifference to being treated unfairly. Referring to school education, she remembers history lessons: We had a class on Engels and Marx, and I asked, why don’t you talk about Katyń. (…). It was (…) so horrifying, and they just silenced all that. I had, I mean my mom had those acquaintances, we listened to the stories of exiles from Kazakhstan and people from Lvov or Vilnius, they said a lot, about Katyń and other places,

.  Community Housing Associations.

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

this is why I asked. And that was not fair on me. Why, I had to listen, I knew all about it, and she [the teacher] treated me like that (…) All that year was lost, I didn’t get promotion, and they would not tell me [why] of course. Only later, after some years, after I graduated, the PE teacher says if you are so smart come, I will drive you… and he took me to a man, outside the town, he spent a week in a death cell. Right before his execution he got a reprieve from [president] Bierut. And he left me there. We talked all through the night. (…) But that lesson about history, that was the first time I felt this injustice. And now, as you know: if you have money, you have background, you have everything. [49].

The leap between the past and the present is abrupt, but these realities are smoothly linked by injustice. With that “lesson” in mind, she goes through her life as a critical observer of subsequent change. All the time, I tell you, me and everybody around, we were against communism. And we would not work for communists, we did not care. Years passed, and now it is too late. Now you can’t do anything about it. Most of us have ended up like that. Not only people like me, normal families end up on the streets, too. Then, at that time, that was our choice. Work? Forget it, I would not work for communists. And then you could have got those years worked [for your pension], it would be different now. [57].

That anarchic attitude towards living with communism and being against it appears nowadays as a mistake, as overlooking one’s own interests and chances. She feels disappointed and realises that “being against” was an attitude of destruction and loss rather than of alternative construction and gains. It might be said that she is waiting for better times, even now, that waiting through injustice has become her living. The expectation of a “normal decent life” remains unfulfilled. She experiences it as a defeat. “No flat and no money. I do not mean a fortune, just, well, a normal decent living. Even if I get something from the centre, it is 154 zloty [around 40 Euros] a month. And buying medicine… it’s a parody. Well, just some cash for a decent life, so that you don’t have to go begging.” [57] It is as if both social systems have taught her a similar attitude. In communism it was passive resistance, while minimal living conditions were fairly easy to gain. In capitalism it is a passive demand for minimal living conditions, while political resistance has become cheap. She does not count on much, just a benefit that would make her life basically bearable. This much has been left from the ideal of a “normal decent life”, this much left from opposing communism. 7. Family and home/Obstacle to entrepreneurship/Fake time, substitute life.



Transition to nowhere 

She finished secondary school with good marks in her final exams and then graduated from a college of economics. She describes how she lost her home: That was not an eviction, actually, we had an agreement with the owner of the house (…). I lived there with my three children, my husband and my father. My father died, and that man decided to build a bar, and he needed to reconstruct the elevator. We lived on the top floor, it was a big apartment, earlier they had allowed us to expand it into the attic, for our children’s rooms. He said he needed that space, so we started to quarrel about it, formally about the rent. (…) We were getting in his way, an obstacle. (…) I was then on a pre-pension benefit, my husband was self-employed, he had a small firm, and it was not doing well, rather badly… We could not pay the rent. He sued us, pay or you are out. (…) Finally we reached an agreement. He gave us some money that was enough to rent another flat, and renovate it, there was no hot water there, a sink from before the first world war probably, we had to fix it, paint it… My husband did all the work. (…) And my husband had debts, his firm was not doing well, he had to pay his workers. So we decided, although I was very angry about it, to pay those wages from the money we got for the flat. It wasn’t those workers’ fault, they needed money. So we paid it, it was like half of the money we got for the flat. [87–88].

After three years they had to move to a little summer house on an allotment. The house, which had no electricity and was lit by candles, burnt down, and they bought a still smaller one in the same place. The complex combination of economic factors (her retirement, the failure of her husband’s business, the entrepreneurship of their landlord) made these people – still faithful to the ethical vision of business – homeless. The 1990s were for them years of hectic activity. Work, business, helping to raise children to set up their own lives. They still help them while living on the allotment. Now they have managed to create “a substitute for a home”. She cares about the place, tries to keep it nice and tidy. “Last year, in December, we had electricity connected here. It was… it is very difficult. (…) But I am a person who needs to do something, I need action. (…) I can’t have a normal house, so here, at least is to have a semblance of a house… I keep trying, I keep trying, but what will happen, I don’t know.” [87] Even though she says she lives there, she doesn’t use the word “house” or “home” for it. “I think… I believe there must be something in this… in our country, in general, something really wrong.” [91] “When I started work, I had three places [to choose from]. And young people now have no jobs. So that… that is a struggle.”[93] She is socially active and keeps making ‘home” of whatever is accessible. But the gradual and constant decline makes her reluctant to position herself within the system “In this… in our country … in general” something is wrong.

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

3.  Th  e crossing discourses of transformation and heterotopia of homelessness How is homelessness constructed in the interview material? In the narratives, three discourses are interwoven. First, there is what can be called an “official” discourse of social transformation. Second, there is a “private” discourse of losing one’s home and making a living in an extremely difficult situation. Third, there is a pedagogical discourse of assistance which “invites” the informants, at the end of the interviews, to speak in the position of agency about the conditions for changing their present situation. The aim of “The Homeless Agenda” was to “bring the homeless back to the job market”. In this respect, it presents a variety of managerial discourse (research is planned to solve massive social problems). The interviews were meant to provide a better understanding of factors that keep people away from “normal” ways of life. If we apply the notion of transition here, the present situation of the informants is one of liminality: they have “left” one state and “not yet arrived” at the other one. Social transformation is meant to carry masses of people from the denigrated “bad” (socialist) state to the desired “good” (capitalist) one. This discourse is legitimised by the former striving against the oppressive apparatus of the socialist regime and by the hope that a “normal” social system is possible. In the discourse of transformation, the old legitimising hope is used as a vehicle of coercive inclusion: everybody should find a way into the new order, becoming an active player in the market economy and democratic regime. There is no room for guaranteed social rights, and people who still claim them need special programmes (like The Homeless Agenda itself) that will bring them into capitalist society. In the narratives we have presented here, we read another story of transition – towards homelessness rather than capitalism. The socialist state, where they used to be rooted, somehow “dissolved” around the informants. Then they found themselves homeless. They do not accept this condition, but they gradually develop their homeless identities (“everything was lost… I am useless now”: int.1; “I am in a hopeless situation, in Poland, moreover I am homeless”: int. 2). The informants perceive the course of their lives as unpredictable, driven by forces beyond their control. It does not lead anywhere, it just keeps them away from acceptable ways of life. Both these discourses intersect in the moment of liminality. The discourse of transformation – spoken by the outside world – positions the informants as still “in transition” between the worlds of socialism and capitalism, they just need some “help” to find their ways into the new system. In the “private” discourse, liminality is fixed into identity the moment they manage to say “I am homeless”. But this is a hardly visible, pivotal moment, where one discourse can turn into another.



Transition to nowhere 

A story that begins with political activism (e.g. int.5) may end with a deeply personal account on hopelessness; a story that starts with deeply personal motifs, may end with political rage (int. 3). These two discourses can shift, but are clearly conflictual. Their tension is visible in shifting subject positions (“we did it…, they did it…. I am homeless”, int. 2), and in fragments where informants “cannot decide” whether socialism was bad or not (“there were good and bad sides to communism”, int. 2; “the state [now] doesn’t care for anything”, int. 5; “I would not work for communists”, [but if I had] “it would be different now”, int. 6). It also makes the very place of their lives difficult to identify with (“in this…. in our country”, int. 7; “not my business, not my world”, int. 3). The third, pedagogical discourse, revolving around the questions of “what can be done” about homelessness, intervenes into the personal one and aims at transforming the one of social transformation towards self-directed agency. These interventions bring various reactions, from rage (“you wanted fucking capitalism, now they take us to the forests, beat us with batons”, int. 3), through minimalist pragmatism (“I keep trying” in the “semblance of a house”, int.7), a vision of social economy and political activism (“let them work”, “you have to destroy it from the inside to make room for concrete change”, int.5) to deep, passive pessimism (“that is not possible”, “It will not get better”, int.4 ; “all was lost”, int.1; “this is where I will fucking die…. I do not want to suffer any more”, int. 3). The generally pessimistic aura of these interventions is hardly surprising. With two exceptions (int. 5 and 3), homelessness is seen in strongly personal ways, as the hand of fate rather than a social problem. We believe that the apparent failure of pedagogical intervention during the interviews may be related to the conflict between the first two discourses. The intersection of “transformation” with personal life that leads to disaster makes people feel overwhelmed by uncontrollable forces, and renders their own situation incomprehensible. Their homelessness has no fixed meaning. It is a heterogeneous, internally incoherent topos impossible to be defined in a unitary way. Michel Foucault called such places of multiple meaning heterotopias (Foucault 1967; Mendel 2007). Foucault speaks of two kinds of heterotopias: those of crisis and of deviation. The first one is temporal, the second one is in space. Heterotopias of crisis are liminal spheres where things change. Having experienced a crisis, one emerges different. Deviant places are heterotopical in another way: they collect the marginalized, those pushed aside, avoided and forgotten. From this perspective, the point of change, which we symbolically situate in 1989, presents “the fatal intersection of time with space” (Foucault 1967) where the two discourses – the public discourse of transformation and private life stories – merge into a discourse of fate, of a blind machinery that plays freely on people’s lives and that tends to make the provoked

 Maria Mendel & Tomasz Szkudlarek

discourse of agency impotent. It involves an ancient, biblical mode of relating to events, simultaneously marked with astonishment, rage and resignation – sometimes with an almost religious aura of piety resembling the history of Job. In that discourse, the liminal moment of political transformation (the caesura of 1989) becomes a “ceasure”, a void that – as in Derrida – is “prior to being” and cannot be narrated within its logic (Derrida 1982, 1984). We may relate the heterotopia of homelessness to ambivalence, which in the anthropological tradition is often related to sanctity. Sanctity is construed and experienced in rites de marge that situate the person outside time, status or society (Leech 1976). Such liminality means that the person is both sacred and impure, dangerous, ultimately vulnerable, and untouchable (Agamben 1998). Being outside society, with no social status, also means that regular vocabularies lose their relevance. It needs a language of sacred symbols, or it remains in silence. It is, therefore, this impossibility to name the very moment of the “fatal intersection of time with space”, this void that cannot be verbalised, that marks the biographies of our informants with an aura of sanctity. In these stories of homelessness, the moment of transition is detoured or skipped in the “then – now” juxtaposition (e.g. int. 1,6). If it speaks, it does through traces, or epiphanies of fate. Old peers disappear and there are some strangers around me (int.4). For three months I worked for no pay (int.5). I had never seen those shelters before (int.2). In the structure of change, the very “moment of change” hardly exists, it resides outside time, almost outside memory. Things are such and such, and then they are different. The morphing, gradually reshaping from one state to another, can hardly ever be seen,. The exceptions are the stories of the woman moving from one flat to another, ending up in the “home substitute” on the allotment (int.7) and that of the dendrologist. These are gradual, but here also, it seems that it is only retrospectively, only afterwards, that people learn to read the events as symptoms of the coming difference – with an unceasing wonder. The sacred, owing to its singularity and exclusion from the social, also has the consequence of de-politicisation. The well educated man, critically thinking and fighting for other people’s freedom, loses his interest in politics when he becomes homeless, while he must understand that his homelessness is obviously connected to political transformation (int.5). The politically aware woman who did not want to “work for communists”, today cannot identify the “them” whom she could blame for her miserable condition (int.6). It seems that the singularity and sanctity of the experience of losing their home may lie behind the helplessness of the homeless. They cannot connect their fate to those of others, and they do not want to identify themselves with the truly homeless living in railway stations.



Transition to nowhere 

For our informants, the passage from communism to democracy and market economy has not ended: it is an on-going and ever-repeating ritual, an “eternal present” of the liminal moment in which they are caught for ever, immobilised in the margin, firmly positioned in the displaced no-space. And it is there, in that deviant heterotopia of homelessness, where they learn to fix their identities. Outside society in transition, and usually unable to articulate their rage against the course of social change. “Transformation to capitalism” did not take its time, it slipped out of their languages. How can they oppose it, then? The sanctifying “timelessness” of change has led them towards “placenessess” in the contemporary world.

References Agamben, G. 1998. Homo Sacer. Souvereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Demetrio, D. 2000a. Autobiografia. Terapeutyczny wymiar pisania o sobie. Kraków: IMPULS. Demetrio, D. 2000b. Zabawa na tle życia. Gra autobiograficzna w edukacji dorosłych. Kraków: IMPULS. Denzin, N.K. 1989. Interpretive Biography. Newbury Park, London, New Delhi: SAGE. Derrida, J. 1982. “Differance”. In Margins of Philosophy, 3–27. Transl. Alan Bass. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Derrida, J. 1984. “Deconstruction and the Other.” In Dialogues with contemporary Continental thinkers. The phenomenological heritage, R. Kearney (ed.), 107–126. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Fairclough, N. & Wodak, R. 1998. “Critical discourse analysis”. In Discourse studies: a multi­ disciplinary introduction, T. van Dijk (ed.), 258–284. London: SAGE. Foucault, M. 1967. Of Other Spaces. Heterotopias. http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/ foucault.heteroTopia.en.html Imbrogno, S. 1990. “Social Policy Planning and Social Work Practices in Poland.” Social Work 35 (4): 302–306. Księżopolski, M. 1999. Polityka społeczna. Wybrane problemy porównań międzynarodowych. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Naukowe “Śląsk”. Kuroń, J. 2004. Rzeczpospolita dla moich wnuków. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Rosner i Wspólnicy. Leech, E. 1976. Culture and Communiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mendel, M. 2007. Społeczeństwo i rytuał. Heterotopia bezdomności. Toruń: Adam Marszałek. Porowski, M. 1995. “Bezdomność – obraz zjawiska i populacja ludzi bezdomnych.” In Pedagogika społeczna, T. Pilch & I. Lepalczyk (eds), 433–443. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo “Żak”. Smolińska-Theiss, B. 1988. Badanie i działanie. W poszukiwaniu metod organizacji środowiska wychowawczego. Warszawa: Uniwersytet Warszawski. Stankiewicz, L. 2005. Zrozumieć bezdomność. Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu WarmińskoMazurskiego. Turner, V. 1969. The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago. Chicago University Press.

New discourses of migration in post-communist Poland Conceptual metaphors and personal narratives in the reconstruction of the hegemonic discourse Małgorzata Fabiszak

Adam Mickiewicz University

1.  Introduction The process of transformation from state socialism to free market and democracy involves changes in politics, society and economy (Lane 1999). These changes are reflected both in public and in private discourses. Certain master narratives or social myths are reproduced in both. For example, despite the fall of the Iron Curtain the myth of the affluent and liberal West perseveres in many post-communist discourses. This myth is embedded in a social reality, in which elite-induced economic changes including the rights of ownership and the organization of labour have led to the large-scale unemployment characteristic of chaotic capitalism. This, in turn, has roused feelings of confusion and insecurity. The collapse of national heavy industry and the opening-up of the borders after Polish accession to the EU on May 1st 2004 has provoked mass job migration, in particular to the UK, Ireland and Germany. The socio-economic and political transformation has also been reflected in the new official national narratives as well as in private discourses (cf. Galasiński 2004 on the emotions revealed by the unemployed). The present paper intends to investigate the change in the migrants’ discourses focussing on their understanding of what migration is like in their private experience.1 First, let us see how post-enlargement migration differs from that of the earlier period. Unlike the previous waves of political and ideological emigration, which was often framed in terms of exile or escape, the emigration of the 1990s emphasised .  Migration as a research topic has received much attention recently, see for example De Fina (2003) on Mexican migrants, their identity, categorization, agency and social representation; Triandafyllidiou (2006) on Polish migration patterns in Germany, Greece, Italy and the UK as well as on identity and gender; Jones and Krzyżanowski (2008) on the difference between identity and belonging.

 Małgorzata Fabiszak

the economic motivation. The emigrants were often considered to be there illegally and took menial jobs, undercutting the local wage rates. The conceptualisation of this migration experience is discussed in Galasiński and Galasińska (2007) and referred to by the authors as constructed helplessness. The migrants’ narrated experience focuses on the obstacles and hardships they had to conquer (the journey framework). Arriving in the West was construed as reaching the goal. The struggle to successfully complete the journey exhausted the migrants’ resourcefulness to such an extent that they did not have the energy or the motivation to adapt to the new society. This construal is contrasted with the post-accession wave in Galasińska (2006). Here, mostly young people describe their decision to go to England as an ad hoc choice, which did not require much deliberation or effort. Galasińska (2006, also 2009) points out that the stress on the ease of taking the decision and of ‘moving to England’ is clearly constructed in opposition to the previously dominant discourse. There would be no need to stress the ease if the difficulty was not expected. This most recent group of especially young migrants, no longer frames their experience in terms of irreversible emigration, but rather as a type of job mobility within the EU market. Such a reframing takes place in opposition to the former hegemonic discourse in which Poles were forced to move by the political situation in their country, while now, for the first time in many generations, they are able to choose to move (cf. Garapich 2006). This change in the narrative paradigm on migration is a result of the political and economic transition from an authoritarian system to democracy and from a centrally-planned economy towards a free market economy. As noted by Lane (1999) in his review of Holmes (1997), this transition can lead to instability and insecurity in a post-communist society. It seems that the older generation is more prone to experience frustration. The younger generation, on the other hand, seems to take a more balanced approach, without excessive expectations. They are therefore most likely to benefit from the opening of the borders resulting from Poland’s accession to the EU. The present study will focus on the narratives of a particular group of migrants, i.e. students and university graduates, which will be compared with the narratives of the generation of their parents recounting the migration experience of their children. Both generations were exposed to the exile myth of the 19th century later re-enacted by the political migration of the communist era, because it is a part of the nation-building narrative taught at school. Both generations are also aware of the myth of “the West, where streets are paved in gold” repeated in many private and semi-private narratives of the economic migrants of the 1980s. Following Lane (1997) it is expected that the younger generation will be more prone than the older generation to renegotiate or even subvert the hegemonic myths.



New discourses of migration in post-communist Poland 

The analysis will emphasize the role of metaphors and personal narratives in making sense of the migration experience. The next section will focus on how critical discourse analysis and conceptual metaphor theory can combine to elucidate the meaning of public discourses on the example of Musolff ’s (2004) analysis of the debates about Europe. A similar approach will be applied in the following sections to the private discourses of the young generation of migrants of the period shortly after the accession and to the discourse of the older generation who stayed in Poland.

2.  The theoretical underpinnings Critical discourse analysts agree that social reality is partly linguistically construed and transmitted through language. Van Dijk (1997) defines discourse studies as an interdisciplinary endeavour aiming at explaining the relationship between language use, beliefs and social interaction. Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 258) see this relationship in the following way: discourse is socially constitutive as well as socially shaped: it constitutes situations, objects of knowledge, and the social identities of and relationships between people and groups of people. It is constitutive both in the sense that it helps to sustain and reproduce the social status quo, and in the sense that it contributes to transforming it.

In this way the linguistic representation contributes to the construction of what Barthes called myth, i.e. it avails the system of beliefs as expressed in language to the researcher. In the section below the extent to which such hegemonic myths influence the semi-private discourses and how they can be questioned and reshaped will be shown. Bruner (1991) stresses the importance of narrating personal lived experience in the construal of the self- and group- identity as well as in the making sense of the surrounding world. He refers to such cognitive processes as the narrative construal of reality. In what follows such narratives about the lived experience of the migrants told from their own perspective as well as from the perspective of the older generation who stayed in Poland will be compared and contrasted. Lakoff and Johnson (1980 [2003]) point out that linguistic analyses can give access to the conceptualisation of social practices and cultural institutions. They claim that much of this conceptualisation is metaphorical in nature. They introduce the notion of the conceptual metaphor as a mental operation allowing humans to understand one thing (target of the metaphor) in terms of another (source of the metaphor). Such analogical reasoning, ubiquitous as it is, results in highlighting

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some and hiding other aspects of the target. Kövecses (2002: 127–134) shows that abstract complex systems (target domains), such as the mind, economic systems, careers, social organizations, relationships and society are often conceptualised in terms of such source domains as buildings, machines, plants or persons (including human bodies). Musolff (2004: 122–140) combines an interest in analysing media discourses with insights from cognitive metaphor2 research and discusses the metaphor the eu is a house. The conceptualisation of the target domain European Union in terms of the source domain of the house is transparent in the political discourse, when journalists and politicians use phrases such as: [Germany] is clearly interested in bringing Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union into the European Community, to become new tenants of the common European house. There, the united Germany, probably won’t be the landlord, but it’s highly likely to be the one collecting the rent.  (The Times, 22 September 1990) (Musolff 2004: 129, Example 5).

In this excerpt the countries of Eastern Europe aspiring to join the EU are conceptualised as the future tenants of the common European house. Germany is placed in a position of a rent collector and the EU is seen as a house. This construal of the political situation is underlined by a number of metaphorical mappings: Eastern European Countries Are Tenants Germany Is (Not) a Landlord Germany Is a Rent-Collector Europe Is a House

These conceptual associations between the two domains of the EU and of a house allow the speakers to talk about abstract phenomena such as a political institution in terms of something well known and easy to understand, i.e. a house. At the same time, the knowledge about the house is used to draw analogical conclusions about the situation in Europe. In this type of reasoning the fact that political institutions and houses are not really exactly the same thing may escape the attention of discourse participants. They employ the common knowledge about tenants and rent-collectors to reason about political agents, such as nation states without noticing that these inferences are metaphorical in nature. It seems that much of

.  Zinken et al. (2008) stress the distinction between Conceptual Metaphor Theory (developed by Lakoff and Johnson and their followers who mainly investigate the mental and biological dimension s of metaphorical processes) and what they call cognitive approaches to metaphor, which concentrate on how embodied and socio-cultural planes interact to elucidate the role of metaphor in social interaction.



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our understanding of abstract concepts is metaphorically based and our knowledge of the source domains may influence the ways in which we view our role in social situations as well as the social phenomena themselves. 3.  The aim and the data In the present paper I will focus on the discursive construction of migration by the Polish migrants to Britain and Ireland in the period after the accession of Poland to the EU. The data comes from a series of informal interviews conducted with the migrants and with their parents about their lived-experience of the opening of borders of western labour markets to post-communist countries. The qualitative analysis of the interviews is hoped to show conceptualisation differences between the two generations and a partial convergence of the construal of migration by the younger generation of Poles with that of the British gap-year. As it is a work in progress report, the results described below are preliminary. So far we have conducted 6 interviews with the children’s/younger generation and 3 with the parents’ generation.3 The interviewers participated in a workshop on data gathering techniques in qualitative social research prior to field work to secure a certain uniformity of the data gathering procedure. The interviews were semi-structured, in that a list of questions was established before the interviews, but new themes contributed by the interviewees were also pursued. To reduce the observer’s paradox the interviews were conducted in informal settings, such as pubs and private houses, the interviewees knew the interviewers prior to the interview. The age of the interviewers was matched to that of the interviewees, gender was not. The subjects in the younger generation group were selected for the interview if they spent more than 3 months in the UK or Ireland (i.e. they spent more than holidays abroad). They were all students at Polish universities and did not have a permanent full-time job in Poland before migrating. The subjects in the older generation group were selected if their first or second order relative (child or niece/nephew) would qualify as the younger generation group member. All the interviews were conducted in November 2006 in Poland. The interviews were transcribed by the interviewers, the excerpts analysed in the present paper were translated into English retaining the key features of the Polish idiom and grammar by the author.

.  I would like to thank my MA students: Jakub Czaplewski, Karol Kosiniec, Magdalena Orłowska, Kseniya Tymko, Joanna Wróblewska and Agata Żelachowska for their help with conducting and transcribing the interviews.

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4.  The analysis All of our respondents construed migration in positive terms. Most of the younger generation, although they clearly saw the economic profits of job migration, emphasised their personal development as its major benefit. It partly referred to the noticeable effects on their foreign (English) language communicative skills. Interpersonal skills and living an independent ‘adult’ life were the other gains mentioned in the interviews.4 They usually phrased this experience in terms of a migration is learning conceptual metaphor.5 It could be seen in the following passages: (1) [I: Did your stay in Ireland change the way you are perceived here in Poland? S1: Maybe a little bit, yes. I learned that that I learned, I learned a positive, a more positive approach to life, I complain less, or at least I’m trying to complain less. I also think, that my attitude to work changed, it is more pragmatic, focused on problem-solving. Yes, that’s right, summing up I could say, that attitude to work and a much better approach to life as such is the most fruitful sign of my stay in Ireland.]

(2) [I: (laughing). Mhmm. OK, you have siblings, as far as I know, they are both here in Poland, would you recommend them the trip? S2: … Honestly, would I recommend it? Of course, I would recommend it. I would recommend to try that, because it is worth it. It is an hour or two by plane, why not.6 To try living in a different world, it can teach something useful after you return to Poland. Such a contrast may change a lot. If every Pole went away for a short time, then, who knows, maybe things would improve here [at our place]. Maybe we lack a look at a different world, a feel of a different world, not just looking at it through the media. So I would definitely recommend the trip to everyone, not necessarily for long. I: So you think, such a trip could also help here in a way… S2: yes, sure. I: … to reconstruct…

.  Trevena (In press) in her paper on the self representation of Polish educated migrants working below their qualifications stresses that they emphasize such values as personal development, including language learning, HR management skills and general life optimism as benefits of temporal migration. .  Within Conceptual Metaphor Theory conceptual metaphors are represented by small caps. .  This sentence further corroborates Galasińska’s (2006) and Galasińska and Kozłowska’s (2009) observation about the ease of traveling, which is contrasted, even if only implicitly, with the journey full of hardships scenario framing migration as an either/or choice characteristic of the master narrative of “escape to the West”.



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S2: of course, sure, yes. Because, really, such a trip only teaches and shapes…] (3) [I: So you consider this trip as a positive experience… S3: Sure, a very positive experience, cause you know, you take a break from the studies here, I took a Dean’s leave, but … I don’t think it was a lost time. A man learnt something. First of all the language, it allowed me to gather some financial means this is one thing, on the one hand; on the other hand a familiarity with other people, in a big city, in a big world, where you are practically left to your own resources and you yourself have to deal with the problems, say health problems or emotional problems or with other situations, which happen every day, you have to deal with it. A big school of life, really. I recommend the trip to everyone. You know, some are psychologically stronger, others are more … less resistant, if something goes wrong they will go back home, the stronger [person] will stay and learn more. This is a personal thing.

The expressions italicised above (learning, teaching, a school of life) clearly indicate that these speakers construe their migration experience as a learning experience. Within Conceptual Metaphor Theory these expressions could be interpreted as motivated by the following set of mappings: The Stay in Ireland Is Learning The Trip Abroad Is a School of Life The Migrant Is a Learner

The conceptual metaphor migration is learning which underlines these expressions activates the conceptual domain of school, in which the most salient elements are those of the teacher and the students. However, the personal narratives quoted above leave the position of the teacher in the educational framework unoccupied. Or at least unoccupied by a personal agent. It is the experience itself, which is educating (The Migration Experience Is The Teacher). The learners do not have any authority over themselves. They develop and increase their potential through their own work. They do not owe it to any superior. This is in contrast with what Sandikcioglu (2003) calls a prejudiced representation of the oriental in the American media in the context of the First Gulf War. There the source domain of school is used to explain the waging of war: The Oriental Is a Student, The Westerner Is a Teacher mappings come to the fore and result in the asymmetrical representation of the two groups, going back to colonial times, and the belief expressed by Kipling in talking about the colonized as the ‘white man’s burden’ (cf. Said’s 1979 Orientalism). Despite the schooling framework evoked in the stories of the Polish migrants, there is no such asymmetry implied there. The Poles do not feel they owe what they learn to the host society, but to themselves. The explanation for this difference seems quite easy. While Polish migrants in the UK often work below

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their qualifications and can be grouped together with migrants performing menial jobs, they are white Europeans and they often stress that identity in their personal narratives (see for example Trevena In press). This is why, even if they perform a job which degrades them in terms of their social status and despite coming from Eastern Europe, they do not feel the contrast between the West Europeans and themselves so strongly. A similar observation is made by Krzyżanowski and Wodak (2008: 172) concerning the employment possibilities in Austria: “The main distinction drawn by Austrian employers is between Europeans on the one hand, and non-Europeans from the “Third World” on the other hand”. It is also important to stress that what we analyse here is the migrants self-representation, not the representation of the Western media, as was the case in Sandikcioglu’s paper. The representation constructed by the Polish migrants themselves coincides with the Polish saying Podróże kształcą ‘Travels educate’ equivalent to the English ‘Travel broadens the mind’, in which the experience itself is the Agent of the educating, not the local society. At the level of a theoretical reflection the difference in the metaphorical representation of the role of the migrants and of the host society can be explained through the notion of perspectivizing within a metaphorical scenario (cf Musolff 2004). A metaphorical scenario is a narrative built around a metaphor which elaborates only some aspects offered by the metaphor in question. Different cultural background of the discourse participants, as well as different target domain may result in the choice of different metaphorical scenarios. Another element of the source domain of school/university are holidays. Half of the students described their migration experience in terms of holidays. Such a construal (migration is holidays) creates an impression of unlimited freedom, breaking free of stifling social ties, simply having fun. Sometimes these accounts border on the unreal:

(4) [I: Had you heard anything about Ireland, something interesting, something that made you choose Ireland? S4: You know what… First of all nature, you know, I’m fascinated with nature, the cliffs, the sea, things like that.. I: …the landscape… S4: …the sheep, castle ruins. And it is so fairy-tale like, say, attractive, this land of the elves, and I have always been fascinated with things like that.]

In this excerpt the respondent is describing Ireland as a country of ruined castles and elves, as if she were reading out of a tourist brochure rather than looking for a place to score points for a CV. This journey was to be a fairy-tale experience, not a career building step. A holiday, not work or self-improvement. The linguistic expressions used here do not easily lend themselves to CMT analysis. That is, despite the fact that experience of the host country as described here can hardly



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be viewed as literal, it is not straightforward what particular conceptual mappings may underlie this discourse. Barnden (2007) suggests a solution to the problem in terms of vehicle elaboration. Ireland as a holiday destination merges with the fairy tale image of the country and this blend of two source (vehicle) domains is elaborated in detail (the cliffs, the sea, the sheep, castle ruins, the elves) and used as a motivation for the action taken in the target (topic) domain, i.e. migration. Similar motifs, of unrestricted pleasure, appear in two other narratives:

(5) [I: uhm, OK. Now, tell me if after this stay, after the eight months, do you feel a bit English? S5: no, not really. I: Uhm, OK, why not? S5: Because I think it was too short a stay, to feel English and I thought of it more like holidays and I do not plan to stay in England for good. I rather still feel Polish, I did not lose this feeling of nationality.] [S2: At the beginning it was pure fun: we got there, a new place, we felt a bit like on a trip to the countryside, an outing, an excursion… I: So after all, you’re there just to make some money and to come back here? S2: Well, I’m there to make money… But really I spend the money there in England. I don’t bring it back here, I don’t build hotels or houses here. I just live in another country, that’s all, that’s just living. If you live there, it’s really a normal pay, you won’t earn big money on such normal life there, but… money and mainly the adventure.]

In these passages from two students the emphasis is on sheer delight at being away and enjoying life. It seems that the most salient source domains for conceptualizing the migration experience for students are, unsurprisingly, learning and holidays. For the Polish representatives of the younger generation interviewed for this study the migration is learning and migration is holidays metaphors stem from their dominant life experience, that of a student. This understanding of their private experience is partly motivated by the fact that their migration has been temporary (they all returned to Poland by the time of the interview, often to complete their studies), but at the same time they keep their possibilities open (cf. Garapich’s (2006) intentional unpredictability and Galasińska and Kozłowska’s (2009) extension of the living space). In the interviews with the parents’ generation the experience of the migrants is framed not in terms of school, but in terms of growing up. They phrased it in the following words: (6) [I: Has this trip changed your daughter and nephew? S6: Well, [nephew’s name] a lot. Here at home he was more like this. He isolated himself from everything. He simply was at home, well. He had a consumer’s …

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S7: …attitude… S6: … attitude to life. And there he had to take on the responsibility. He has to organize everything himself. He has to organize the apartment, he has to organize the whole day for [nephew’s wife] and the baby, and he takes care of all this (=lit. thinks of all this) and he is not looking for any help, from other people. And he does it all on his own. So he has become very independent and he can deal with many things. And before that he would ask if he should do it this way or that way, because he always had support (from someone). But now, well, he can only depend on himself. I: Well, but it was not England that changed him, but because he left home? S6: Yes, that he left home. I: But is it because he left for ENGLAND… S6: He left straight after school, after university, well maybe … S7: …Well, maybe it changed him. Because it is like that. He started earning money. He earned good money in comparison to what he had here. And he can appreciate the value of the money he is earning and this also changed the way he thinks in some way. Well, it was different here. I: But would you say it is an influence of another culture or did he just grow up… S6: He grew up… S8: Well, my daughter also grew up. S6: Well, the very thing that he had to leave home. … S8: Well, yes. My daughter grew up. She came back very different, simply changed. She had to take her decisions herself. I also don’t know if it is the reason that she went to England. If she went away to some place in Poland. But then she would come back home every week. And she couldn’t come back from there every week, so she was left entirely to her own resources. She had to take the decisions on her own, herself, and she had to execute them. If she performed badly, she got a hit on the head. If not, then she didn’t. At home there was always someone holding a protective umbrella over her. And one could say that whichever country she went to, it would be similar. At worst she wouldn’t like it as much as she did England.

As can be seen in the passages above, the parents’ generation does not refer to their children’s migration experience as a process of learning, but more in terms of taking on the responsibility for their lives. To describe this experience they accepted the framing suggested by the interviewer, i.e. migration as a growing up process. A similar use of discourse metaphor, i.e. adjusting to the metaphor suggested by the interlocutor and repeating it has also been observed in reconciliation talk and in Doctor – Patient interaction (see Cameron 2007 and 2008). From the methodological point of view this result is a drawback as at this point the interviewer is explicitly co-authoring the elicited story.



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In the following part of the interview, despite the explicit questions for clarification from the interviewer, S7 and S6 were not able to tell whether it was the host culture, the experience of migration or simply leaving the family home which stimulated the growing up. S8 was more unequivocal on the issue. She claimed that the distance which separated her daughter from home was the triggering factor for her daughter’s taking the responsibility for her life. Both S6 and S8 use metaphorical expressions when talking about the relationship between the young people and their families. S6 talks about it in terms of support. This construal of social relations is motivated by the Helping Someone Is Physical Support conceptual mapping. S8 views her role in her daughter’s life as that of someone holding a protective umbrella. This image stems from two conceptual projections: Protecting Someone from Adversities Is Holding an Umbrella over Her and Adversities Are Rain.

These metaphorical expressions were used only once and did not contribute to the discourse structure of the passage. That is, these images did not spread over more than one sentence. The two complementary visions of migration as construed by the younger generation (migration is learning, migration is holidays) correspond to the concept of the gap year now gaining ground in the Anglophone culture. As our field work was limited to Polish respondents, we do not have access to the British private discourse. This is why I will refer to the media representation of the phenomenon as exemplified by the six articles on the gap year in the Independent online published on August 14th 2006. In these reports taking a gap year is also often construed in two ways: as a way of personal development that will later help in the job market and as the last chance for indulging in exciting and adventurous trips around the world. We can compare the Polish migration is holidays with the British gap year is an adventure construal as indicated in the following passages (7) a. If you are looking for adventure, however, and a chance to do some good as you go, … b. it was Battery’s first taste of life away from family and friends. … for me the whole experience was fantastic. It was the best time in my life. c. Sleeping under the stars, hacking your way through the jungle and building bridges over streams may seem a bit Indiana Jones and alpha male, but with training arranged by Trekforce in the UK, and acclimatisation in Borneo …

In these excerpts (7a and 7b) the gap year is described as an adventure (compare S2 in (5)), the first taste of life and the best time in my life. The fragment in (7c) is very similar to the description of Ireland as a fairy tale place by S4 in (5). In (7c)

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working for an NGO in Borneo is compared to an adventure film. Certainly the distance covered in both cases differs (from Poland to Ireland or UK, and from the UK to Borneo), although some Poles also go to non-European destinations as indicated in the following passage:

(8) [S2: Well, they also go away. I have a mate, he goes to Tokyo, a [female] friend goes to France again and again, so we exchange thingies from different countries, it is I think very much in and popular today, going abroad. So the only thing is that my Gran is worried, and sometimes my parents as well.]

Apart from distance, another difference between the Anglophone gap year and Polish students’ migration is related to volunteerism. Work for a non-profit NGO does not feature in the Polish descriptions of the British experience. No wonder, after all Great Britain is not an underdeveloped country in need of NGO initiatives. Some of the British gap year descriptions, similar to the Polish ones, include the motif of earning money for future student loans. All of the Polish respondents stress that they make better money in Britain or Ireland than they would at home. And the money-making is an important motivating element for their migration. This aspect will be discussed in more detail from the perspective of the parents’ generation in the following paragraph. The older generation, when relating their children’s experience to their own, even if they described their short trip to Britain and their children’s experience in enthusiastic terms, were contrasting it with real life, often, construing the prototypical real life as life under communism, and fell into the characteristic Polish discourse of complaining and passivity (cf. Galasiński & Galasińska 2007). See, for example: (9) [S8: But we have it coded in ourselves, that there has to be more, that when we come back to Poland, then it would be good if we could, for the money earned there, buy at least a car or something. I don’t know why. And so my … my [daughter’s name]. She came back from Britain, and she, and I tell her maybe you [pl] would sell this small flat and buy something bigger. No Mum, we’re buying a car. And this is about the cars, or other things that one is earning the money for. Because, as a rule, these young people travel, mind you, not just to support their family, but to earn for something here. I don’t know, to show off, because everyone has it. I find it difficult to describe – S7: Well, then, I’ll say something too. I think the young people are impatient. – S8: – they want to have everything at once, that’s right – S7: – they would like to have a lot instantly. And we were waiting for the small fiat, how many years? Exactly. And they now, you see. They see that other people are driving cars, so that they would also want to have a car –



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S8: – yes that’s right. And this is exactly this consumerist approach to life – S7: – yes. – I: And how did it come about here S7: How did it come about, well? – S8: I think that no. That our entire life teaches us, we are learning, we were taught, that everything is so hard to get. My father was saving money for a TV set. When he was about to buy it this TV [‘s price] went up again. So he saved some more and it went up again. Nobody even dreamt about a car. Now it would just be funny, you just have a car (?) – S7: That’s right. A life without a car is now not quite so.

The passage in (9) can be divided into three narratives: “our children’s drive to acquire consumer goods fast”, “the small-fiat in our generation” and “the grandpa’s TV set”. The first narrative corresponds to what Galasiński and Galasińska (2007) refer to as the hegemonic narrative of success, where the children follow the discursive imperative “to make it in the West”. This discourse imposes on them the need to earn enough money abroad to buy something substantial (a bigger apartment, a car) after returning to Poland. This construal of migration is in contrast with the British idea of the gap year, which can be a source of fun or experience, but not wealth. This difference does not result solely from the discursive construal, but is also related to the exchange rates, however today, they are much less favourable for the Polish migrant workers than they used to be in the 1980s. The linguistically expressed and transmitted myth of the rich West hinders the change in the construal of the students’ migration only in terms of the gap year, although the economic situation invites such a reframing. Some of our interviewees, though, for example S2 in (5) are aware of the discrepancy between the hegemonic myth of making a pile in the West and bringing big money to Poland and his personal experience. He stresses that he spends all the money he earns in Britain. But in response to the hegemonic myth he feels a need to justify this. It is also worth noting that in (9) S8 first made a reference to the hegemonic narrative of success and then reframed the story in terms of “young-people-driveto-acquire-consumer-goods-fast”. The use of pronouns and subject NPs (shown in bold print in the passage) is quite symptomatic. It changes in the following way we → we → my daughter → she → she → you [pl] → the young generation → impersonal construction. It seems that first the speaker identifies herself with the “us” subdued by the myth of “making it in the West” and then introduces her daughter’s personal story7 to draw a general conclusion about the young generation,

.  On the subversive power of the personal small stories to counter the hegemonic narrative see Bamberg (2004 and 2007) and Galasińska and Horolets (2010).

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which is finally phrased as an impersonal construction – a generally accepted truth about the young. This first narrative is contrasted by the interviewees with their generation’s and their parents generation’s experience recounted as “the small fiat” and “the grandpa’s TV set” narratives, both characteristic of the “life under communism” master narrative. S7 agrees with S8’s representation of the younger generation as focused on acquiring goods fast and contrasts it with the story of the small fiat that their generation was prepared to wait for as long as necessary. S8 further supports the argument by a reference to her father’s attempt to buy a new TV set, and how he was saving money for it and as soon as he almost saved the necessary sum, the prices would go up. These two narratives coincide with the passivity identified by Galasiński and Galasińska (2007) as a feature of the communist discourse about labour. My respondents seemed to consider waiting the best policy for achieving their aims and are aware of the contrast with the younger generation’s post-transformation attitudes. 5.  Conclusion To recapitulate, the present study analysed the ways in which conceptual metaphors and personal narratives were used in communicative attempts to reconstruct the hegemonic discourse of migration. Private discourses of two groups of respondents were analysed showing that the younger generation of the well-educated temporary migrants perceived their experience as learning or as an adventure. It was similar to the discursive construction of the gap year as presented in the British media. The older generation viewed the experience of their children as a growing up process and as motivated by the negatively evaluated drive to acquire consumer goods fast contrasted to “virtuous” waiting as long as it takes characteristic of life under communism. The private discourses revealed in the interviews analysed in the present paper testify to a weakening of the two old Polish myths of emigration – the Exile myth and the Journey-full-of-hardships myth. The first one is certainly well-known to our respondents as it is a part of the Polish 19th c. literature and 19th c. history curricula constitutive of the institutional discourses sustaining and reproducing the national identity myth. However, neither the younger generation nor the parents generation respondents refer to the exile myth. Clearly, it is not activated as an appropriate frame for their experience (cf. Galasińska and Kozłowska 2009; Galasiński and Galasińska 2007). The second declining/weakening myth, that of the Arduous Journey is referred to only implicitly by S2 in extract (2), where he seems compelled to stress the



New discourses of migration in post-communist Poland 

ease of travelling when recommending short-term migration as a character building experience. Only the third myth mentioned in the introduction, which can be phrased as “The Streets in the West Are Paved with Gold” perseveres in the transformation period, even though it seems to be facing a challenge. Interviewee S2 in (5) openly denies the myth by emphasising that the money earned in Britain he intends to spend there and not save and build a house or a hotel in Poland. In the excerpt his counter-narrative can only be fully interpreted through the reference to the master narrative of “Making it in the West and bringing money home”. The implied presence of the hegemonic myth does not only allow the speaker to emphasize the discrepancy between his lived experience and the dominant ideology, but also to show to what extent his personal narrative is complicit and to what extent it counters the dominant frame (cf. Bamberg 2004). In the parents’ generation discourse the myth undergoes a more moderate change. S8 transforms the making-a-pile-bringing-it-home canonical version into a more general young-people-drive-to-acquire-consumer-goods-fast framework. In this reframing migration ceases to be the goal in itself, the only way to make big money, but rather becomes one of the means for young people to make a career equalled to gaining consumer goods and property. Through the two small stories of “Grandpa’s TV set” and “The Small Fiat” she clearly identifies herself with the frame of life in a communist country, which she considers “the natural way” (on the power of hegemonic narratives to be the vehicles of a society’s value system see Bamberg 2007). She does not refer to the contradictory frame of “Longing for normal life” identified in the studies on post-communist societies (e.g. Kennedy 1994; Eglitis 2002; Rausing 2002). The eroding of the old myths in the period of transformation makes room for the new understanding of the migration experience. Both of the investigated groups view the job migration as an opening up of new possibilities and gaining new interpersonal and language skills. For them transformation, and in particular the opening of the job market is a promising expansion of possibilities. The young generation construes their migration in terms of two related conceptual metaphors migration is learning and migration is holidays. These metaphors testify to the most salient experience in the young people’s lives, that of school and university life. The parents’ generation describe their children’s experience in terms of growing up and going away from home. Some parallels can be noticed between the younger generation’s construal of their migration and the British (press) construal of the gap year. Both focus around the idea of having a year off from school and on personal development. It may be considered as a tentative indication of the converging of discourses on population mobility after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The discourses of exclusion, victimisation and passivity (the Exile myth and

 Małgorzata Fabiszak

the Arduous Journey myth) are discarded by both the Polish younger and older generations in favour of the new narratives of personality development concurrent with the Anglophone construal of the gap year. The narratives of personal development, it needs to be stressed, are viewed as an individual achievement that Polish migrants owe to nobody but themselves.

References Bamberg, M. 2004. “Considering counter narratives”. In Considering counter narratives: Narrating, resisting, making sense, M. Bamberg & M. Andrews (eds), 351–371. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bamberg, M. 2007. “Stories: big or small—Why do we care?” In Narrative—State of the art, M. Bamberg (ed.), 165–174. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barnden, J. 2007. “Metaphor and artificial intelligence”. A workshop presented at Researching and Applying Metaphor Workshop in Ciudad Real, Spain. April 2007. Bruner, J. 1991. “The narrative construction of reality.” Critical Inquiry 18: 1–21. Cameron, L. 2007. “Patterns of metaphor use in reconciliation talk”. Discourse and Society 18(2): 197–222. Cameron, L. 2008. “Metaphor and Talk”. In The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Gibbs, R. (ed.), 197–211. Cambridge – New York: CUP. De Fina, A. 2003. Identity in Narrative: A Study of Immigrant Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Eglitis, D.S. 2002. Imagining the nation, history, modernity and revolution in Latvia. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Fairclough, N. & Wodak, R. 1997. “Critical Discourse Analysis”. In Discourse as structure and process, vol. 1, van Dijk, T. (ed.), 259–284. London – Thousand Oaks: Sage. Galasińska, A. 2006. “Stories of suitcases and rucksacks: changing values of material objects in the narratives of Polish post-communist immigrants to the United Kingdom”. A paper delivered at EASA Biennial Conference, Bristol, UK. Galasińska, A. 2009. “Small stories fight back. Narratives of Polish economic migration on an internet forum.” In Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, A. Galasińska & M. Krzyżanowski (eds), 188–203. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. Galasińska, A. & Horolets, A. 2010. “Migracja jako wielka narracja w zderzeniu z “opowieściami emigranckimi”: przypadek dyskusji o emigracji do Wielkiej Brytanii na forum internetowym” [Migration as grand narrative in contrast to “migrant stores”: A case of discussion on emigration to Great Britain on an Internet Forum]. In Migracje po wejściu Polski do UE – perspektywa psychologiczna i socjologiczna. [Migration after Polish accession to the UE. Psychological and sociological perspective] H. Grzymała-Moszczyńska, A. Kwiatkowska & J. Roszak (eds), 55–69. Kraków: Nomos. Galasińska, A. & Kozłowska, O. 2009. “ “Either” and “Both” – the changing concept of living space among Polish post-communist immigrants to the United Kingdom”. In Globalization and Language in Contact: Scale, Migration, and Communicative Practices, M. Baynham, J. Collins & S. Slembrouck, (eds), 170–188. London: Continuum. Galasiński, D. 2004. Men and the language of emotions. Basingstoke and New York: PalgraveMacmillan.



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Galasiński, D. & Galasińska, A. 2007. “Lost in communism, lost in migration: Narratives of post-1989 Polish migrant experience.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 2 (1): 47–62. Garapich, M. 2006. “Londyn jako szkoła życia. Zmiana paradygmatu w polskiej narracji migracyjnej” [London as a school of life. A change in the paradigm of the Polish migration narrative]. A paper delivered at a UCL – SSEES conference 100 lat Polskiej Macierzy Szkolnej pod hasłem: Kontynuacja, Zmiany i Nowe Wyzwania [100 years of Polish Educational Society: Continuity, Change and New Challenges]. London, UK. Holmes, L. 1997. Post-communism: An introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Jones, P.R. & Krzyżanowski, M. 2008. “Identity, Belonging and Migration: Beyond Describing Others.” In Identity, Belonging and Migration. G. Delanty, R. Wodak, P.R. Jones. (eds). 38–53. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Kennedy, M.D. 1994. “Introduction to East European Ideology and Identity in Transformation”, in Envisioning Eastern Europe. Postcommunist Cultural Studies, M.D. Kennedy (ed.), 1–45. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press. Kövecses, Z. 2002. Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford: OUP. Krzyzanowski, M. & Wodak, R. 2008. The Politics of Exclusion: Debating Migration in Austria. New Brunswick: Transaction Press. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1980 [2003]. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Lane, D. 1999. “Transformation of state socialism; from communism to chaotic capitalism?” Sociology 33 (2): 447–450. Musolff, A. 2004. Metaphor and Political Discourse. Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe. New York: Palgrave. Rausing, S. 2002. “Re-constructing the ‘Normal’ ”. In Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism, R. Mandel & C. Humphrez (eds), 127–142. Oxford: Berg. Said, E.W. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Sandikcioglu, E. 2003. “More metaphorical warfare in the Gulf: Orientalist frames in news coverage”. In Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads. A cognitive perspective, A. Barcelona (ed.), 299–320. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Trevena, P. [In Press]. “Konstruowanie tożsamości jednostkowej przez wykształconych migrantów w sytuacji sprzeczności pomiędzy jaźnią subiektywną a odzwierciedloną” [Identity construction of highly educated migrants in the situation of conflict between subjective and looking-glass self]. In Procesy tożsamościowe. Symboliczno-interakcyjny wymiar konstruowania ładu i nieładu społecznego [Identity processes. Symbolic and interactive dimension of construing the social order and social chaos]. K. Konecki & A. Kacperczyk (eds), Łódź: Łódź University Press. Triandafyllidou, A. (ed.). 2006. Contemporary Polish migration in Europe. Complex Patterns of Movement and Settlement. Lewinston: The Edwin Mellen Press. van Dijk, T.A. 1997. “The Study of Discourse.” In Discourse as structure and process, vol. 1, T. van Dijk (ed.), 1–34. London and Thousand Oaks: Sage. Zinken, J., Hellsten, I. & Nerlich, B. 2008. “Discourse metaphors”. In Body, Language, and Mind. Vol. 2: Sociocultural Situatedness, R. Dirven, R. Frank, T. Ziemke & J. Zlatev (eds), 363–385.  Berlin: Mouton.

Post-communist masculinities Dariusz Galasiński

University of Wolverhampton

1.  Introduction While there is some research showing changing gender relations in postcommunist countries (see e.g. Pascall & Kwak 2005; Gal & Kligman 2000; NikolićRistanović 2004; Kligman 1996; and for women in Poland Platek 2004; Tarkowska 2002), it almost exclusively takes the macro-perspective and focuses on women, their changing roles (especially with reference to unemployment, Pascall & Kwak 2005) and status (for example with reference to newly re-ignited debates on abortion, Zielińska 2000). Researchers paint a relatively grim picture of a patriarchal society (albeit changing, Pine 2002) in which the absence of any significant feminist agenda, together with a strong role of the Catholic church in Poland (and particularly its stance towards women, let alone towards abortion) has led to a largely discriminatory labour market and women’s high unemployment (Pascall & Kwak 2005; Pine 2002). Indeed, in 1999 the Polish Parliament rejected a bill introducing gender equality (Arcimowicz 2003). This picture might be complemented with the new media ideal of a professional woman: available only to a narrow elite of highly skilled women, unburdened by family, with the remainder having to find succour in the old image of the self-sacrificing ‘brave-victim’ model of femininity (Marody & Giza-Poleszczuk 2000). Arcimowicz (2003) seconds these analyses, commenting that the image of the man in the Polish media after 1989 is deeply rooted in a traditional, patriarchal model of masculinity. Thus, while researchers have been unanimous in describing the social situation of women in post-communism as disadvantaged, men have been practically invisible, and mostly dealt with the implicit assumption that they are the ‘allpurpose male oppressors’, to use the Johnson’s (1997) term. Yet, it is men who have also borne the brunt of the Central and Eastern European transformations. As the nationalised heavy industry collapsed, unemployment hit men on a large scale, as it has removed one of the central planks upon which modern masculinity is built. The sharp reconfiguration of the job market had to mean redrawing of the ‘traditional’ gender dynamics.

 Dariusz Galasiński

In a rare, if not the only so far, book-length study on men in post-communism, Kay (2006) paints a complicated picture of men in Russia, showing them also as the losers of the transformation, with increasing pressure to perform as financially successful breadwinners (see also Pine 2002). In my own earlier study on men’s experiences of depression (Galasiński 2008), I show men’s stories of the increasing pressure to work as a source of psychological distress. Yet, the men I interviewed never sway from seeing their recovery from depression in terms of returning to work and resuming their breadwinner’s role. In this chapter I would like to continue closing the gap between research on women and on men in post-communism. So, I would like to take the men’s perspective and through their voices and experiences explore the transformation. The main aim of this paper is to investigate men’s constructions of masculinity in their narratives of the post-communist reality. More particularly, I am interested in the construction of the role of the dominant model of masculinity in men’s positions within the new economic reality and in exploring the dominant ideology of men in the narratives of coping with the new social and economic situation in Poland. What I would like to argue is that the interviewees see the new reality in gendered terms. Moreover, it is the dominant model masculinity which is constructed as the force driving the men in the new times, both in their economic or professional choices and others. The data comes from two projects studying unemployment and lived experience of post-communism in Poland, and was collected in 21 interviews1 with men in urban and rural areas. The sample of interviewees was deliberately varied – both in terms of age and social class.2 Significantly, neither age nor social class can be seen as providing a significant context in which to see the corpus of the narratives. Gender seems to be the primary and overriding lens through which the informants see the reality of transformations. The paper is anchored in the critical discourse perspective (see Chapter 3 for details). 2.  Men, masculinities and work There are at least two ways in which masculinity can be understood: as a performance and as a gender ideology, a system of social representations (Galasiński

.  I am also drawing upon eight interviews with men carried out by Olga Kozłowska in her study of lived experience of unemployment (Kozłowska 2004), which I gratefully acknowledge. .  I take occupation to be proxy for social class. In the case of one informant who still lived with his family, I took the parents’ occupation as significant for class categorisation.



Post-communist masculinities 

2004). It is the latter perspective that will inform this chapter. Ochs (1992) proposes that masculinity refers to patterns of behaviour that become associated with being male or female. They are social constructs reducing masculinity to biology, or some non-negotiable identity core, underpinned by perceptions of biologically based ‘sex categories’ (West & Zimmerman 1987). In other words, these are ideologies of men and masculinity, idealisations which can be aspired to as much by men as by women (Bordo 1997) In this understanding masculinity has little to do with the locally constructed masculine identities, even though it might, of course, act as a regulatory frame in which social actors construct themselves. Such ideologies are constructed both by individual and public discourses, with various social and communicative purposes, with various audiences. They are unlikely to be homogenous and without contradictions (e.g. Edwards 1997; Chapman 1988; Rutherford 1988). In this sense, of course, one can speak of a number of masculinities coming into interaction with such social factors as historical location, age and physique, sexual orientation, education, status and lifestyle, geography, ethnicity, religion and beliefs, class and occupation, culture and subculture (Beynon 2002 ). But one could also add disability, illness, military service, imprisonment, trauma, political system and probably a number of other, more micro-scale, contexts (Galasiński 2004). Towards the end of the chapter, I shall, however, refer also to the other understanding of masculinity: as local accomplishment. Starting from the act of gender endowment: ‘It’s a boy’ – a human subject is put into a regulatory frame within which he performs masculinity (Butler 1990), or it is performed for him, especially at the beginning of his life (McIlvenny 2002a). In this understanding, masculinity is achieved in a situated conduct (West & Zimmerman 1987; see also Cameron 1997; McIlvenny 2002b). Masculinity is something that is done (Morgan 1992; see also Whitehead 2002), always local and subject to change (Brittan1989). 2.1  Dominant masculinity Despite the diversity of masculinities and their representations, there is what is often referred to as the dominant model of masculinity. In his analysis of masculinity and emotions, Jansz (2000) proposes that contemporary masculinity can be seen in terms of four attributes: autonomy, achievement, aggression, and stoicism. Jansz’s formulation, despite the claims to the contrary, leads to the inevitable essentialising of masculinity. However, Jansz’s model of masculinity is useful as a description of the dominant model of masculinity. This is in fact the model that is not only anchored in the stereotypical images of men, but also in the academic descriptions of what Connell calls ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1985), common in cultural studies and social theoretical critiques of men and masculinity,

 Dariusz Galasiński

represented most acutely by Seidler (1989, 1994; see also my critique of such studies in Galasiński 2004). Men, according to Jansz (2000), are characterised by: Autonomy: A man stands alone, bears the tribulations of life with a stiff upper lip, and does not admit his dependences on others. Achievement: A man is achieving in work and play in order to be able to provide bread for his loved one and family. Aggression: A man is tough, and acts aggressively if the circumstances require so. Stoicism: A man does not share his pain, does not grieve openly and avoids strong, dependent and warm feelings.

I shall assume here that men’s explicit or implicit references to such aspects of behaviour or practice are related to the dominant model of masculinity. I do realise that without explicit reference to men or masculinity, one cannot be certain that it is the model of masculinity that is at stake in the narrative (Schegloff 1997; but see also Kitzinger 2000; Wetherell 1998; Stokoe & Smithson 2001). However, the informants’ narratives cannot be analysed outside the social context both of the socialisation and continuing submergence in the ideologies of masculinity. It is therefore likely that references to achievement, toughness and taking care of one’s family are anchored in discourses of masculinity rather than others. 2.2  Men and work In her account of modern masculinity, a radical feminist author proposes a view much sympathetic to men. Men have been stiffed – the society has removed the very plank upon which masculinity has been hinged – employment. Comparing women’s ‘problem-with-no-name’ (Faludi 2000: 15) with men’s predicament, she suggests that while women organised themselves, men, because of the ‘master of the universe’ kind of masculinity, get more and more isolated. These ideas about the clash between the social expectations placed upon men and the new reality, and more particularly unemployment, have been encapsulated by a quote from a memoir of an unemployed men cited by one of the leading Polish political weeklies. The 45-year-old unemployed father of six (who, incidentally, found the job because of the memoir), says: I cringe when I see the way Masia (wife) looks at a nice piece of clothing or cosmetics for herself. A moment of pensiveness, sometimes a touch, and then a rapid push of the goods away, with a sad smile. And she always hides in me, so we go away. After all, she is a woman, and has a natural need to dress nicely or smell. And it gets me then, because it is I who should buy it for her. I am her husband and I cannot take decent care of her. We both have not bought a single piece of



Post-communist masculinities 

clothing for years. First, you have to take care of the boots, clothing and school items for the children. (….) When you are unemployed, you dream of blackness. Not coffee, a woman, just blackness. You wake up at 5 in the morning in blackness. I have work now and I still wake up in blackness, because I know this fucking state. I know how it hurts (Polityka, 11/2003; my translation)

Patriarchal gender relations in the family, represented by positioning of the husband as the physical ‘rock’ and the carer are, in fact, what makes this fragment particularly poignant. It is precisely the identity of the ‘master of the universe’, as Faludi (2000) calls it, that it is the man’s undoing. He constructs himself not only as a man, but also as one who cannot fulfil the expectations of the society placed on him as man. But the author of the memoir goes on – unemployment is not merely a ‘legal’ condition defined by an employment contract. It goes further than that – unemployment is a lifestyle, or perhaps lifestyle of having no lifestyle. It is also a stigma, an identity which is not easy to shed. Indeed, academics are quite in agreement. Unemployment is a major assault on one of the foundations of men’s identities or masculinity in general (Morgan 1992; Brittan 1989; Willis 2000; Willott & Griffin 1996, 1997, 2004). Masculinity had always been associated with paid employment, men were supposed to provide for themselves and their family (Mattinson 1988); in fact providing for the family is part of the success of what it is to be a man (Nonn 2001; Hood 1986; see also contributions to Hood 1993). Unemployed men feel disempowered, useless, emasculated, their self-esteem is shattered (Brittan 1989; Beynon 2002), with the ultimate humiliation constituted by being supported by one’s wife (Kelvin & Jarrett 1985). Willott and Griffin (1997) offer ethnographic evidence to Brittan’s (1989) claim that unemployed men need to come to terms with their uselessness. In their study of working-class masculinities they show the unemployed’s discourse as constructing them as ‘idle scroungers’, falling back on the welfare system, rather than paying their way. Unemployed men are consumers who cannot consume – particularly beer in their pub, they are breadwinners without the bread (see also contributions to Gaillie et al. 1994). But unemployment is not only about masculinity for masculinity’s sake. Unemployed men need to deal also with masculinity in relation to their partners or wives. Willis (2000) posits that unemployment means shedding the traditional dignity masculinity was invested in on account of a job. This, continues Willis, might have dramatic consequences for working-class women who might be asked to respect the man for what he is, rather than for what he does. And the men will continue working on their biceps’ definitions and the visibility of their six-packs (Willis 2000). There is also the reverse side of the

 Dariusz Galasiński

gender relations coin. Pyke (1996) shows that the masculine power of the ‘unsuccessful’ man may shift to the resentful wife, the less earning, let alone unemployed men can very easily be blamed for not caring enough. These are the cases of the Mr Phillips character from John Lanchester’s novel Mr Phillips, who, having lost work, still keeps up the appearances, gets up, dresses up and leaves for work (just like another character in the hugely popular British film The Full Monty). How can a man tell his wife that he is not working? To reverse the argument, it is through work that men become men and reach the status of a ‘real man’, so to say. A man without means, without capital, in the words of Kay’s (2006) informants, is hardly worth being called a man. What I would like to show below is how it is the dominant model of masculinity which is the primary frame through which the informants see their activities.

3.  Experiences of post-communism Before I discuss men’s stories of post-communism, I would like to contextualise them with an extract from a study into the re-negotiation of gender roles in postcommunist Poland:3 Extract (1) BR: (…) men …. were the first to lose their jobs, least of, secondly they are like big children, they have no character at all, they break down completely, it would be best if they were allowed they would hang themselves and the problem would be gone. They weep a lot, they complain much and they do little, but want a lot of fuss around it, big time. They are impractical. I can’t see them, maybe in the past, when there were these caves, and he went with the spear and caught the animal, for free, so the woman could hunt it, but now it has got flatter big time. And here life is now a jungle, battle to survive. They just do not fit in. Maybe they would fit in the jungle, but absolutely not the urban one. Women are more practical and smarter. That’s what I have said. I: [laughter] and what’s it like in your family? BR: that’s what I said, as above, exactly, exactly the same.

.  The research was carried out in the Institute of Psychology at the University of Opole in Poland by Aleksandra Zarosa for her MA dissertation. She interviewed women whose husbands either were unemployed, or earned considerably less than their wives. I am indebted to her for making this extract available to me. The quoted extract is my translation of the Polish original.



Post-communist masculinities 

What is striking about this statement is not merely the complete reversal of stereotypical masculinity, but also the speaker’s total lack of hesitation in making it. The stereotypical and academic models of masculinity have been dismissed in one move. The helpless men are juxtaposed with practical women who manage to survive in the urban jungle. Linguistically, men are constructed as agents in activities such as crying, while their bread-winning activities are limited to catching animals, with connotations of luck, rather than strategy. It is women who are possessed of strategy and skill and thus can be the real hunters. It seems men are not even capable of taking their own lives, waiting for permission which is unlikely to come. Men cry, men break down, have no spine, no character. It is the woman who seems to be the foundation upon which the weakling man can lean. The image of men the interviewed woman paints seemingly runs counter just about all the models of masculinity, yet, I would argue, it is very firmly anchored in the dominant one. The men she refers to are slagged off precisely because they do not live up to the expectations of the stereotype of the ‘real man’. As she takes over breadwinning, she fills in the space her husband should be occupying. As he does not, he is cast outside the model – he is no longer a man. Moreover, as much as what she says is rooted in the model, the image she paints is actually closer to the complex lived model conveyed by both men and women in their narratives. Extract 1 in conjunction with the memoir excerpt I quoted above provide a good scene against which to show the pressures on men after 1989. Not only is there no escape from the model, but those who do not fit into it are judged extremely harshly. Indeed, the most obvious trait in the corpus I am analysing here is that that the interviewees constructed the model of masculinity as the most powerful frame within which they operate, and within which they see themselves in the new reality. But the model of masculinity they construct in their narratives is not merely a social expectation placed upon them, more importantly, it is a requirement, a responsibility to do things, to achieve, to behave in a particular way. The following extract is a typical example of the corpus. Extract (2), JZ, 60+, “middle class” I: but you don’t see it in terms of, say, courage, that all your partners, as you said, withdrew […] and just you stayed on, was there no courage in it, to give up a permanent salary? JZ: it was simply, it was that, was it courage? It was necessity in my case, I had no choice, I had no choice, the home was dependent on my, on this my single salary, so it’s not the question of, I had no choice.

The fragment is part of a larger stretch of conversation about the informant’s choice to set up and run his own company, first with a number of partners and, later, on

 Dariusz Galasiński

his own, as his partners decided to withdraw from the business. It is a story of success, as his company has not only survived about 15 years in a relatively hostile economic environment, but also continually developed. JZ constructs masculinity as the ultimate frame in which he operates, one which forces him to take his decisions. What must have been a prolonged decision process is completely backgrounded by his repeated reference to having no choice. Not only is he not an agent taking independent decisions in this story, he is not even an actor endowed with powers to act. He seems to slide in the grooves laid down by gender ideology. JZ’s story is typical of the corpus. Every single narrative which contained a reference to the model of masculinity constructed it more or less explicitly as a rigid frame of behaviour which cannot be shed. Yet, even though the informants all see the masculine ideology in similar terms, they differ significantly in what they do with it. There are two kinds of stories in my corpus. On the one hand, the informants see the masculinity model as a trigger for action, a challenge which presents itself in life, a frame which makes them do things, much like JZ. The other group of informants sees it negatively, as a problem and a constraint, a responsibility which stifles them. 3.1  The challenge In the extracts below the dominant model of masculinity is constructed as a challenge for the informants. It spurred them to action in the past, sometimes it still does. Here are three different extracts, in extract 3 (which is a continuation of the turn excerpted from in extract 2), the informant’s story is positive, he orients towards what he achieved in the past, in extract 4, in extract 6, on the other hand, a younger informant positions the ideology of masculinity in terms of what is yet to come. Extract (3), JZ, 60+, “middle class” I could have taken the company in two directions. Either take profit from it, I could drive a luxury car, a four by four, dress well, I could invest in nothing. I went in a different direction because I think that every man should leave something behind, when he passes on, he will give, he should create something and leave behind. Because everybody must have his property, he should, at least he strives for property. So I simply started looking for my property so I could leave it to someone. As I repeat what I was saying before, I liked the system which, the system of ordination, that a son stayed on all what his father made, the son was ordained, he didn’t have, he could only, he should only multiply, but this was as if taken for granted that he could not sell it, but must develop this family nest, it’s not about, but as I say, everybody strives for something of his own, and I strove to work for something of my own.



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Extract (4), TZ, 20+, “middle class” I would like to have children, so the family develops, I would like to build a house for the children, so I could secure a sensible future for them. The family is the most important thing for me, it has always been and it will be. I have not got a cult of work, or I don’t know, parties with [male] friends. Above all, the family. And the main challenge is associated with it for now. I would like to build a house, to have my own place, created from scratch. But these material goals, because I have not got, I mean it would be nice, I mean it is not so important for me to succeed professionally. This social prestige, awards, distinction are not important for me, in terms of some academic titles or degrees. It does not attract me.

JZ in extract 3 is very explicit in the construction of the model of masculinity in terms of what is required of a man, a father. What is quite interesting in his story is the juxtaposition of the obligation that the model places on a man – done with the use of the modal verb musieć (‘must’, ‘to have to’) and his own activities rendered in linguistically agentive terms. Even though JZ does not speak of the ‘building’ of his properties, there is no doubt of his own role in it and his perspective upon reality. The dominant model of masculinity is fully ‘internalised’, it is his model. In extract 4, in contrast, TZ, a lawyer, implicitly rejects the model. The latter part of the extract positions him outside the apparently masculine wishes to be successful at work. By positioning himself as more of a family man, he chooses the stereotypically feminine sphere of life, domesticity. At face value it is the family over work and his mates. Yet, the story of a rejection of the dominant model is anchored within the main ideology of masculinity. As much as he stresses the family, the building of the house belongs to him, it is he who will be securing his children’s future, it is he who would like to create a place of living for his family. These are all elements of the bread-winner masculinity, a domain in which TZ’s wife, also a lawyer, does not feature. Furthermore, securing all these things, implicitly requires him to work and provides him with the challenge of financial success. What appears to be happening is that while TZ rejects work as a source of his own satisfaction, he does not reject it as a source of his ability to be the breadwinner, a man with means, albeit for his family. Even though differently, in both extracts, the dominant model of masculinity provides a basis for the informants’ activity. The informants differ, however, in the explicitness of their acceptance of the model. I shall comment on this later on. 3.2  Stifled by masculinity The other side of the spectrum of negotiating the dominant model of masculinity is positioning it as stifling. A number of the informants, while acknowledging the

 Dariusz Galasiński

model, were unable to follow it. Although the model provided them with a frame for their life, they were unable to translate it into their own lived experience. In order to satisfy the model, there would have to be conditions in which to do it. There is nothing active, achieving, autonomous about these men’s narratives. I would like to start with a couple of most dramatic fragments from one interview in which the juxtaposition of the model of masculinity with experiences of reality leads to helplessness and despair. Extract (5), RC, 40+, “middle class” I: What do you feel now as an unemployed person? RC: Well I feel a kind of helplessness that (.) I still have a kind of commitments like alimony, among others, and I am not able, say, to satisfy such commitments and I feel a kind of, as they say, helplessness. I: How do you imagine your future. RC: I mean how I imagine the future. Well, I can see two scenarios. First is that I shall eventually take up employment which will simply enable me, not only me, but also, say, my family, some kind of functioning. Moderately normal. And the other, well I am still on benefit right now and, I am eligible. After a time, well, what’s left is black despair, after losing the right to the benefit. Well, it’s difficult to live on, say, [my] pensioner mother, isn’t it? So the other is rather I don’t know (a little) macabre.

In contrast to the extracts I presented above, the narrative constructions in terms of material process, processes of doing (Halliday 1994), the informant begins the narrative by constructing himself in terms of feeling. His helplessness is underscored by the informant positioning himself as a senser, rather than an agent. He feels, rather than does anything. But his helplessness goes further in that also the rescue is positioned outside his activity: it is the job that will be enabling, he will be eligible for benefits, once again he does not construct himself as doing. Even the obligation to support his family is located outside him – it is a commitment that he must fulfil. Furthermore, his inability to fulfil his manly obligation – that of supporting his family and the prospect of living on his pensioner mother, leads to despair. The despair, it seems, originates from his being outside the model – he is unable to function within the obligations socially placed upon him. RC sees the model as his own, and his problem is his inability to make good on it. Implicitly, the final solution is that of suicide, the last ‘honourable’ thing a man can do. The next extracts contain similar accounts, albeit in less dramatic terms. Extract (6), LC, 20+, “middle class” LC: Well, one lives, certainly one lives better, I mean if you have a job, this is what I would start with. If I studied, I lived well, if I have a job, I live well.



Post-communist masculinities 

‘cause if I studied, I got money from my parents, now when I work I have my own money. But I would be afraid to start a family now. It’s the question of finance. Perhaps one could manage with a flat, but supporting the family, it’s hard. Extract (7), PK, 40+, “working class” I: What is it like, when one is employed for short periods of time. PK: I don’t know how to put it, it’s simply that one is useless, ‘cause is your contract is for 6 months, and then off you go home and no one is interested whether for example there is something to live on. Extract (8), ZK, 30+, “working class” ZK: The house is unfinished, I would like it to be finished, I also would like in the future perhaps to buy a car. Because I have a family and perhaps I would go on holidays somewhere. My dream is to go away somewhere with the children, with the whole family. To spend a week there for example, so when they grow up and make set up their own families, so they have the memories that there was something like that. But generally there is no chance. There is no chance. We have no chance.

LC cannot start a family because he has not got enough financial security, PK feels useless being unemployed, ZK cannot fulfil his dreams providing for his family better. In different ways they all refer to the dominant model of masculinity. There is, however, one aspect which their stories have in common – the difficulties in meeting the demands placed upon them by the model of masculinity lie outside their capacity to deal with them. It’s hard, as in LC’s narrative, there is no work and no one cares, as in the narrative of PK, there is no chance to fulfil the dreams in the narrative of ZK. While the requirements of being man are implicitly acknowledged in the narratives, the solution is nowhere to be seen and is, in fact, nothing to do with them. It seems that while these informants have been equipped with the discursive resources of positioning themselves within the dominant masculinity, they have not been given the resources to deal with post-communism. Their stories, I think, are still anchored within the communist discourses of work. They construct work as something which is provided on a plate, it’s a discourse of a reality in which one does not have to fight for survival, but rather follows the lead of the mythical ‘them’ who provide with opportunities that the men will take (see Galasiński & Galasinska 2007). In this sense the society’s model of masculinity has not adjusted to the new reality of brutal capitalism in which one needs to fend for oneself. I would like to finish this section with another quote from ZK who, when asked a hypothetical question of going unemployed, gives an optimistic and upbeat account of his – hypothetical – actions.

 Dariusz Galasiński

Extract (9), ZK, 30+, “working class” ZK: as a man for example […], if my factory went bust, for example, I keep thinking all the time, because it’s also, if my factory went bust, I would not sit idly. I would have to do something. I would try somewhere, to go abroad in order to for example, work three months, if I worked three months abroad, I am of the opinion that I would live a year [continues for some time in a similar mode]

This account is in quite a contrast to the one I quoted above (extract 8). While in (8), the informant constructs his future mostly in terms of his dreams, his volition, and so mostly in terms of mental processes, the account in (9) is not only more upbeat, but it is also constructed in terms of material clauses – going, working, living – the informant constructs himself in terms of actions. He is an unfettered agent in his activities. The problem is, of course, that while extract 8 refers to the ‘real’ reality, the reality of his life, extract 9 refers to the negative, yet very much hypothetical scenario of losing his job. We can see (9) as a sort of posturing, being very brave when bravery is uncalled for, and can go unchecked. It seems that ZK is at his most masculine when he is hypothesising!

4.  Private masculinities When I approached the data presented in this chapter, I expected that there would be at least one significant axis along which the data would be divided. I thought that both class and age of the informants would be significant enough as to feature in the men’s accounts of masculinity. I particularly expected the level of education (as a proxy of social class) to provide the informants with resources with which to deal with the changing reality better. My guess was also that the informants’ age might be significant, with the younger informants more ready to take on the reality than the older ones. The reality of the data turned out to be more complex. The most important conclusion from the study is that masculinity is negotiated by men in the local context of their own experience. The experiences of class and age are probably significant but not sufficient to understand masculinity both as a resource (i.e. as masculinity ideology), but, probably, also as a locally negotiated masculine identity. So, while the dominant model of masculinity is ever present in the stories of the informants, the way it is present probably mostly depends on the current circumstances of those men. This finding, incidentally, coincides with the findings of a larger study of men’s experiences of depression. The dominant model of masculinity was also ever-present in their stories, yet, it was the depression which provided the crucial context through which the model was negotiated and,



Post-communist masculinities 

in the process, the depressed men constructed themselves as losers (Galasiński, 2008). In conclusion to this point, one could say that men’s masculinities are much more private than we tend to think. Masculinity as a model is historical and changeable, masculinity as an identity not only is articulated (Hall 1992, 1996) with other identities, but is also submerged in the narratives of other experiences, local, individual experiences of life in which one lives. Let me illustrate this point with yet another extract from the interview with ZK. The fragment is part a larger of stretch of the interview concerning the abundance of goods in Polish shops after the fall of communism, in contrast with their scarcity in the communist economy. Extract (10), ZK, 30+, “working class” ZK: I queued two nights to get the furniture, or a fridge, or a washing machine. Two or three were delivered to the shop and now there are thousands. You can buy even ten if you can afford it. No problem. I don’t know, it’s difficult for me, as I am a man and have lived a few years, but when I go into a shop sometimes, I really wonder where it all came from.

The gist of the informant says is that he cannot understand how come, after the fall of communism, all of a sudden the shops became full of goods. Where did it come from, he asks, as if those goods were brought to life by some magical force, or were stashed away somewhere so, before, people could not buy them, and now they can. What is quite fascinating is that he chooses to frame this experience in terms of his masculine identity. Despite the fact that he is a man, he does not understand. He is drawing upon the stereotype (gender ideology) which consists of the notion that men are better at mechanical affairs, they can repair things, they know how things are built. Despite all that, ZK does not understand. What is important for me here, however, is that his locally negotiated masculinity is interweaved with the new economic reality. The new reality, with the abundance of fridges and washers, puts his masculinity to test. More generally, however, the extract shows how post-communism, or transformations in general, interpellate masculinity. Men, it seems, not only must deal with the expectations the society puts upon them in the new reality, but, perhaps even more surprisingly, the new reality engages with masculinity at a more fundamental way. Post-communism seems to challenge masculinity and demand that it more or less explicitly finds its way within it. And this is a very tall order for your average man. Indeed, in the little village in south-east Poland, where some of the interviews presented here were collected, one can regularly hear of men’s hanged bodies found in the forests around. They are always men driven to suicide by unemployment, their inability to fulfil what they perceive as their duty. Perhaps,

 Dariusz Galasiński

if they didn’t perceive it in such a way, they would not leave the women to pick up the pieces, but work with them to make their families survive. My argument in this chapter is that men experience post-communism also as men, that is to say they perceive the changing political and economic realities as gendered beings and ones whose masculinity interacts with the transformation. This is done both at the level of gender ideologies and at the level of identity. And while ideologies are negotiated depending on men’s actual experiences, it is also identities, being a man here and now, that are in interaction with the stories of what is happening around. Finally, as much as the dominant gender ideology expects men to cope with the reality around them, men’s stories show a picture which is by far more complicated than the ‘stiff upper lip’ which ingrained in the dominant model of masculinity. I would propose that both the systemic changes as well as those of their discourses have been happening considerably faster than any possible changes in the discourses of masculinity. One of the tasks still to be done in accounting for and explaining the gendered aspects of post-communism will be to track these changes.

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 Dariusz Galasiński Rutherford, J. 1988. “Who’s That Man?” In Male Order. Unwrapping Masculinity, R. Chapman & J. Rutherford (eds), 21–67. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Schegloff, E. 1997. “Whose text? Whose context?” Discourse & Society 8 (2): 165–87. Seidler, V.J. 1989. Rediscovering Masculinity. London: New York. Seidler, V.J. 1994. Unreasonable Men. London: Routledge. Stokoe, E.H. & Smithson, J. 2001. “Making Gender Relevant.” Discourse & Society 12 (2): 217–44. Tarkowska, E. 2002. “Intra-household gender inequality.” Communist and Post-communist studies 35: 411–32. West, C. & Zimmerman, D.H. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society 1 (2): 125–151. Wetherell, M. 1998. “Positioning and Interpretative Repertoires.” Discourse & Society 9 (3): 387–412. Whitehead, S.M. 2002. Men and Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity. Willis, P. 2000. Ethnographic Imagination. Cambridge: Polity. Willott, S. & Griffin, C. 1996. “Men, Masculinity and the Challenge of Long-term Unemployment.” In Understanding Masculinities, M. Mac an Ghaill (ed.), 77–92. Buckingham: Open University Press. Willott, S. & Griffin, C. 1997. “ “Wham Bam, am I a Man?”: Unemployed Men Talk about Masculinities.” Feminism & Psychology 7: 107–128. Willott, S. & Griffin, C. 2004. “Redundant men: constraints on identity change.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 14: 53–69. Zielińska, E. 2000. “Between ideology, politics, and common sense.” In Reproducing Gender, S. Gal & G. Kligman (eds), 23–57. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Index

1st of May  50, 90–1, 96–9, 192 A Absence see Public Absence Anti-Polonism  81–3, 85 Anti-Semitism  68, 69, 70, 80, 83–5 Auschwitz  67–71, 84, 179, 183 (Auto-)Biography  92, 100, 220 B Bishop(s)  134–5, 148–9; see also Polish Episcopate’s Conference Blood  25–42 C CDA  49, 113, 212, 231 Catholic Church see Church in Poland Catholicism  33, 72, 76, 85, 136, 143 Church in Poland  8, 132–48, 183, 247 authority of  68 discourse of  9, 135–149 influence of 33, 85, 160 Collective memory  48–9, 62, 156 Commemoration  49, 51, 62 Commemorative speech  51, 56–9 Cross  67–86 D Democratic Left Alliance  84, 151, 154, 155–63 and constitutional debate  156–7 and fragmentation of memory  156, 159 and discourse on national identity  160 pragmatic identity of  159 Denial  94, 106, 114, 120, 123–4, 172

Discourse  5, 9, 11, 25, 49, 68, 92, 223, 132, 152–3, 168, 211, 231 analysis of  49, 132, 152 and communist past  144, 178–82 and identity  92, 97 and transformation (transition)  42, 101, 135–7, 169, 192, 224–5, 226, 229 discourse-historical approach in CDA  9, 68, 113 educational  168, 178 hegemonic  27, 160–1, 164, 230, 231, 242 historical  50, 178 homophobic  106 memorial  67, 86 national  24, 31, 42 of church see Church in Poland of IPN  167, 184–6 of media (press)  51, 53–6, 106, 110, 113 of Solidarity  157, 161 of work  193, 197–8, 205–7, 257 political  42, 100, 155, 159 power/knowledge  167–8, 184 private  90, 91, 224, 225, 242 public  50, 51, 60, 71, 89, 90, 106, 135, 149, 225, 231, 249 Discursive construction  48, 100, 148, 198, 233, 242 practices  22, 24, 49, 53, 63, 132, 201, 206 strategies  42, 59, 63, 113–4, 119, 122, 156, 159 E Emotions see Social emotions Exile  229 government in  31

myth of  230, 242, 243 of Germans  50 G Gender  123, 125, 247, 251–2 equality  118, 122, 125 German(y)  28, 29, 30, 41, 42, 49, 90, 170, 219, 229, 232 Germans  26–8, 39–40, 50, 57, 80, 178, 182, 183; see also Exile of Germans H Heterotopia  224–7 Historical truth  168, 171 Historiography  26, 49, 171, 172, 186 language of  182–4 Homelessness  212–3, 224–7 I Identity  92–3, 153, 154, 196, 231 see also Discourse and Identity and homelessness  224 and migration  229, 236 and narrative see Narrative and work  194, 200, 201–6 collective  48 men and  249, 251, 258–60 national  27, 247 Polish  26, 42, 63, 71–6, 85, 160 political  151, 154–60, 164 Institute of National Remembrance see IPN Instytut Pamięci Narodowej see IPN IPN  167–8, 170, 173–8 language of  182–4 see also Discourse of IPN J Jews  67, 69–71, 73–86, 180

 Index L Liminality  214–5, 219, 221, 224–7 M Macro-Strategies  106, 113–4, 115, 117, 118, 120, 122, 125 Marginalisation  212, 214 Masculinity  248–9, 253, 258–9 dominant model of  249–50, 252, 254–5, 257, 260 Media see Discourse of media Men  109, 125, 247–9, 253, 258–60 and work  250–2 homosexual  105–7 Messianism  72 Metaphor  231–2, 234, 238, 242–3 biblical  33 of kinship  27 of soil  29, 42 Migration  179, 207, 229–31, 234–43 N Narrative  92, 212, 231 and identity  97, 236 biographical  211 counter- 243 hegemonic  241, 243 dominant on communist reality  97, 182, 248 historical  159, 161 historiographical  184 master-  229, 234, 242, 243 meta-  97 national  47, 49, 54, 63, 90, 229, 230 personal  50, 90, 92, 96, 98, 100, 195, 230–1, 242–3 self- 212 Nation  24, 26–7, 28, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 40, 42, 47–8, 56, 73, 85, 140–2, 145–9, 155, 164, 170–1, 174–5, 183; see also Identity; Discourse National Assembly  159, 160–2 Nationalism  26–8, 33, 41, 71, 112, 145, 185 P Parliament  32, 43, 56, 70, 73, 111, 139, 155, 158, 169, 170, 171, 174, 247

Pastoral letter(s)  131 People’s Republic of Poland see PRL Polish Episcopate’s Conference  79, 131, 136 see also Bishops Polish history  6–9, 28, 39, 85, 155–6, 160, 161 national identity see Identity national historiography  26 see also Historiography Polish Historical Policy (PPH)  176–8 Polish United Workers Party see PZPR Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa see PRL Post-communism construction of  131, 132, 135–9, 144–8 discourse of  201, 229 lived experience of  90, 195–6, 200, 205–6, 243, 248, 252–8 Post-communist studies transition paradigm in  152, 154 transformation (transition) see Transformation PPH or Polska Polityka Historyczna see Polish Historical Policy PRL  50, 76, 155, 157, 160–2, 174, 178–9, 182 Public Absence  106–107, 109, 126 Public Debate  67, 148, 178, 184, 198 Public Sphere  105, 107–10 women in  106, 108–9, 110, 114, 115, 117, 123, 124, 126 PZPR  11, 154–5, 159, 161, 173, 179 and socialist patriotism  159 R Racism/Racist  30, 68, 83, 86, 113 Radicalism/Radicals  83, 86, 110, 112 Ritual  25, 68, 153, 227 socialist  89 Russia  28, 39, 42, 48, 49, 50, 52–6, 62–3, 72, 248

S Second World War  47–63, 67 Sejm see Parliament Sex-Affair  105, 110–1, 122–5 SLD see Democratic Left Alliance Social emotions  144 Soil  25–42 Solidarity  8, 30, 62, 99, 175, 177, 179, 220, 255; see also Discourse of Solidarity discursive hegemony of … in early Third Republic  155–6, 159–61 Solidarność see Solidarity Stereotype(s)  77, 78, 82, 85, 253 T Transformation (Transition)  23, 25, 42, 47–8, 89–90, 152–4 symbolic  167–8, 184 Transition see Transformation Trivialisation  106, 114, 118, 132–4 U Unemployment  90, 98, 142, 191–2, 194, 196–8, 200–1, 206, 213, 247, 248, 250–1, 259 USSR  50, 54, 179 V Victim(s)  28, 38, 58, 71, 78, 85, 112, 115, 116, 117, 170, 177 of post-communism  147 Victimisation  106, 114, 115, 117, 123, 243 Victory Day in Europe  47, 48, 49–51 W Work  191–4; see also Discourse of work; Men and work Z Żydokomuna  77, 82, 85

In the series Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 39 Tekin, Beyza Ç.: Representations and Othering in Discourse. The construction of Turkey in the EU context. ix, 264 pp. + index. Expected September 2010 38 Ilie, Cornelia (ed.): European Parliaments under Scrutiny. Discourse strategies and interaction practices. vi, 372 pp. + index. Expected July 2010 37 Galasińska, Aleksandra and Dariusz Galasiński (eds.): The Post-Communist Condition. Public and private discourses of transformation. 2010. xi, 264 pp. 36 Okulska, Urszula and Piotr Cap (eds.): Perspectives in Politics and Discourse. ix, 416 pp. Expected June 2010 35 Le, Elisabeth: Editorials and the Power of Media. Interweaving of socio-cultural identities. 2010. xiv, 239 pp. 34 Bazzi, Samia: Arab News and Conflict. A multidisciplinary discourse study. 2009. xiv, 222 pp. 33 Hogan-Brun, Gabrielle, Clare Mar-Molinero and Patrick Stevenson (eds.): Discourses on Language and Integration. Critical perspectives on language testing regimes in Europe. 2009. xiii, 170 pp. 32 Ramsay, Guy: Shaping Minds. A discourse analysis of Chinese-language community mental health literature. 2008. ix, 149 pp. 31 Johnstone, Barbara and Christopher Eisenhart (eds.): Rhetoric in Detail. Discourse analyses of rhetorical talk and text. 2008. viii, 330 pp. 30 Powers, John H. and Xiaosui Xiao (eds.): The Social Construction of SARS. Studies of a health communication crisis. 2008. vi, 242 pp. 29 Achugar, Mariana: What We Remember. The construction of memory in military discourse. 2008. x, 246 pp. 28 Dolón, Rosana and Júlia Todolí (eds.): Analysing Identities in Discourse. 2008. xi, 204 pp. 27 Verdoolaege, Annelies: Reconciliation Discourse. The case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 2008. xiii, 238 pp. 26 Millar, Sharon and John Wilson (eds.): The Discourse of Europe. Talk and text in everyday life. 2007. viii, 200 pp. 25 Azuelos-Atias, Sol: A Pragmatic Analysis of Legal Proofs of Criminal Intent. 2007. x, 180 pp. 24 Hodges, Adam and Chad Nilep (eds.): Discourse, War and Terrorism. 2007. ix, 248 pp. 23 Goatly, Andrew: Washing the Brain – Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. 2007. xvii, 431 pp. 22 Le, Elisabeth: The Spiral of ‘Anti-Other Rhetoric’. Discourses of identity and the international media echo. 2006. xii, 280 pp. 21 Myhill, John: Language, Religion and National Identity in Europe and the Middle East. A historical study. 2006. ix, 300 pp. 20 Omoniyi, Tope and Joshua A. Fishman (eds.): Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion. 2006. viii, 347 pp. 19 Hausendorf, Heiko and Alfons Bora (eds.): Analysing Citizenship Talk. Social positioning in political and legal decision-making processes. 2006. viii, 368 pp. 18 Lassen, Inger, Jeanne Strunck and Torben Vestergaard (eds.): Mediating Ideology in Text and Image. Ten critical studies. 2006. xii, 254 pp. 17 Saussure, Louis de and Peter Schulz (eds.): Manipulation and Ideologies in the Twentieth Century. Discourse, language, mind. 2005. xvi, 312 pp. 16 Erreygers, Guido and Geert Jacobs (eds.): Language, Communication and the Economy. 2005. viii, 239 pp. 15 Blackledge, Adrian: Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. 2005. x, 252 pp. 14 Dijk, Teun A. van: Racism and Discourse in Spain and Latin America. 2005. xii, 198 pp. 13 Wodak, Ruth and Paul Chilton (eds.): A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. Theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity. 2005. xviii, 320 pp. 12 Grillo, Eric (ed.): Power Without Domination. Dialogism and the empowering property of communication. 2005. xviii, 247 pp. 11 Muntigl, Peter: Narrative Counselling. Social and linguistic processes of change. 2004. x, 347 pp. 10 Bayley, Paul (ed.): Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parliamentary Discourse. 2004. vi, 385 pp.

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Richardson, John E.: (Mis)Representing Islam. The racism and rhetoric of British broadsheet newspapers. 2004. xxiii, 262 pp. Martin, J.R. and Ruth Wodak (eds.): Re/reading the past. Critical and functional perspectives on time and value. 2003. vi, 277 pp. Ensink, Titus and Christoph Sauer (eds.): The Art of Commemoration. Fifty years after the Warsaw Uprising. 2003. xii, 246 pp. Dunne, Michele Durocher: Democracy in Contemporary Egyptian Political Discourse. 2003. xii, 179 pp. Thiesmeyer, Lynn (ed.): Discourse and Silencing. Representation and the language of displacement. 2003. x, 316 pp. Chilton, Paul and Christina Schäffner (eds.): Politics as Text and Talk. Analytic approaches to political discourse. 2002. x, 246 pp. Chng, Huang Hoon: Separate and Unequal. Judicial rhetoric and women's rights. 2002. viii, 157 pp. Litosseliti, Lia and Jane Sunderland (eds.): Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis. 2002. viii, 336 pp. Gelber, Katharine: Speaking Back. The free speech versus hate speech debate. 2002. xiv, 177 pp.