Soviet war memorials and the re-construction of national and local identities in post-communist Poland

Abstract

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

Keywords:

• Soviet war memorials
• post-communist Poland
• collective memory
• identity politics

Acknowledgements

Research funding for this article was provided by the Leverhulme Trust. The author would also like to thank the anonymous readers of this article for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

In January 2007 the Estonian parliament passed legislation permitting the reburial of the remains of soldiers killed in the Second World War. This made possible the relocation of central Tallinn's Bronze Soldier monument, which was situated next to the graves of 13 Red Army soldiers. The relocation was opposed by the Russian community in Estonia, which considered the monument as a site commemorating not only Soviet soldiers but also recalling the wartime suffering of Russians. On 26 April 2007, in demonstrations against the relocation, which included looting and the smashing of windows in Tallinn's city centre, one person died. The legislation and the reallocation angered Russian politicians and religious figures. Estonians were accused of rehabilitating fascism and calls to impose economic sanctions against Estonia followed. See Brüggemann and Kasekamp.

On political and administrative decentralization reforms and democratization of local self-governments in post-communist Eastern Europe see Baldersheim, Illner, and Wollmann.

This cannot be said about scholarly debates involving historians researching the Soviet offensive of 1944/1945 in Poland's historic borderlands. See, for example, the debates and documents published by the Institute of National Remembrance in its monthly Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej (e.g. 4 (2001), 7 (2004), and 5–6 (2005)). There are also several academic publications re-examining the wartime conduct of the Red Army rank and file in Upper Silesia, Pomerania and Kujawy (e.g. Madajczyk; Baziur).

Between February 1940 and June 1941 several hundred thousand Polish citizens were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan by the Soviets from the eastern part of Poland after it was occupied by the USSR in 1939. Polish historians' estimates of the number of deported Polish citizens vary from 300,600 to 1.5 million. On the Soviet deportations see Ciesielski.

The Katyń massacre refers to the mass executions of Polish prisoners of war captured during the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. The operation carried out by the Soviet Security Forces (NKVD) in spring 1940 was initiated by Lavrenti Beria and approved by the entire Soviet Politburo including Stalin. The total death toll was around 22,000. The best known site of execution is Katyń Forest near Smolensk where 4400 Polish officers from Kozelsk camp were executed. The truth about the mass executions was suppressed after the war in Poland and Germans were blamed for the Katyń massacre. In 1990 Gorbachev admitted that the NKVD murdered Polish prisoners. On the Katyń massacre see Sanford.

The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 was undertaken by the Polish underground Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) to liberate the capital from German occupation. The battle started on 1 August 1944, lasted 63 days and claimed the lives of 200,000 civilians and AK soldiers. The Red Army was stationed on the banks of the Vistula River, just 10 miles from Praga (a district of Warsaw) and did not attempt to storm the city to help the insurgents. The Soviet Union also refused permission for Allied aircraft flying supplies to the AK to land on its airfields. The uprising's failure increased the chances of the pro-Soviet Polish administration gaining control over Poland. On the Warsaw Uprising see Davies.

The Katyń Committee demanded that those Soviet monuments, maintained with Polish taxpayers' money, that promoted propaganda about the Soviet liberation of Poland should be removed. The Association of Ex-Combatant and Independence Organizations recommended that that Polish municipalities follow the example of Kraków, which has been described as “a city free from Soviet remains.” See Grabowski.

See Sejm of the Republic of Poland. Ultimately, the PiS was unable to get the bill through the first reading in parliament due to an early parliamentary election in autumn 2007.

The first administrative reforms were introduced in 1990 by the government led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki. For the first time in post-war Polish history local councillors were chosen in democratic and direct elections, and councils could make decisions on matters affecting their respective jurisdictions. In 1998 further reforms were introduced by the post-Solidarity government led by Jerzy Buzek. It introduced a three-tier division of local self-government: the municipality (basic level), the county (an intermediate level) and the voivodship (a regional unit). The regional self-government administration shares power on the regional stage (the voivodship) with a separate administrative apparatus of the state which is governed by wojewoda (voiovode) nominated by the prime minister. See Swianiewicz.

In the original: “W Latach 1769–1770, 71 W Białej Krakowskiej Mieściła Się Siedziba Generalności Naczelnej Konfederatów Barskich, Których Czyn Zapoczątkował Marsz Polaków Ku Wolności. Rada Miejska, Bielsko-Biała, 2002” [In the years 1769–1770, [17]71 the headquarters of the Confederates of Bar, whose action initiated the Poles' march towards freedom, were located in Kraków's Biała. The City Council, 2002].

In the original: “W latach 1949–1990 na tym cokole stał pomnik wdzięczności Armii Czerwonej. Symbolizował zależność Polski od imperium sowieckiego.”

There are specific regulations governing the treatment of war graves in Poland. Firstly, there is the still standing Law on War Graves and Cemeteries of 1933 which identifies the national government as responsible for protection of war burial sites and a voivode as responsible for exhumations. There are also bilateral agreements signed between Poland and Russia, Ukraine and Belarus that oblige the signatories to protect and maintain sites where the war dead are buried. The agreements were signed in 1994 (with Belarus in 1995).

In the original: “Poległym Bohaterom Armii Radzieckiej Wdzięczni za Wyzwolenie Obywatele Pszowa 1945–51.”

The monument was erected in 1967 and it was situated in the central location of the village. The inscription on the obelisk reads: “Na Wieczną Chwałę i Cześć Poległym w Walce z Faszyzmem Hitlerowskim o Wyzwolenie tej Ziemi w Marcu 1945 r. Bohaterskiemu Dowódcy Brygady AR Bohaterowi Związku Radzieckiego Płk P. Amworosowowi w 50-tą Rocznicę Wielkiej Socjalistycznej Rewolucji Październikowej. Społeczność Ziemi Wodzisławskiej Rogów, Listopad 1967.”

Poland's Minister of Culture and National Heritage Kazimierz Ujazdowski qtd. in Mężyński; spokesman for the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Jan Kasprzyk qtd. in Grabowski; and Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage Jarosław Sellin qtd. in Olechowski.

See note 12.

In the original: “Kilkakrotnie pomnik usiłowano usunąć. Pozostał jako świadectwo minionej epoki.”

See, for example, an Internet campaign to save a monument to the Revolutionary Achievement in Rzeszów signed by 12,945 Poles by Aug. 2008: <http://pomnik.rzeszow.net/petycja.php> (accessed 5 Aug. 2008). See also Kwiatkowski 314–24.

For a typical Internet chatroom debate on the future of a local Red Army monument see Forum, “Z Polski znikną symbole” and Forum, “Pomnik na piaskach.” For a typical website created by young people interested in historical heritage of their city that acknowledges Red Army monuments see “Pomniki i rzeźby” and “Pomniki historyczne.”

Internet chatrooms appeared after every article on the topic of monuments and de-communization published in the Internet edition of Gazeta Wyborcza in April and May 2007.

The survey was conducted by GfK Polonia. Thirty-three per cent of respondents indicated that they would rather not support the removal of Soviet monuments and 27% would definitely not support such action. Amongst those opposing the monuments 20% would rather see them removed and 10% would definitely have them removed. See Olechowski.

In 2007 Jerzy Gorzelik, the leader of the Silesian Autonomy Movement (Ruch Autonomi Śląska, RAŚ), explained: “It cannot be expected that in the central square of Katowice [there is a monument that] commemorates the actions undertaken by the army, which had committed atrocities against Silesians and later aided their deportation to the East” (Gorzelik qtd. in Madeja).