Polish ultras in the post-socialist transformation

Abstract

The world of radical football fans across Europe is dominated by anti-system groups. While their sympathies in the west of the continent are mostly leftist, the ultras in the east tend to display right-wing attitudes. Poland makes a particularly interesting case in point, as the most intensive and emotional ideological criticism of the processes of ‘transformation’ and ‘modernisation’ is to be observed at the stadiums. As a result of historical developments, opposition against the system in the country can only be expressed using Catholic–patriotic symbolism, which in the case of collective actions of radical football supporters has produced sociocultural and aesthetic effects not to be found anywhere else in Europe.

Acknowledgments

The Radosław Kossakowski’s research was conducted thanks to a research grant from the Polish National Centre of Science (no. 2013 /09/D/HS/6/00238).

Notes

1. The Polish term Cursed Soldiers (Żołnierze Wyklęci) refers to the soldiers of the Polish underground independence movement, members of different partisan organizations, towards the end of the Second World War and in the first years of the post-war period. They became the victims of communist repressions and it is only today that their memory is being revived, including such initiatives as monuments and the National Day of Remembrance of the ‘Cursed Soldiers’ (Narodowy Dzień Pamięci ‘Żołnierzy Wyklętych’).

2. After the Polish Cup final between Legia Warsaw and Lech Poznań at the National Stadium in Warsaw (2015), the President of the Polish Football Association (PZPN), Zbigniew Boniek, issued a letter to thank Lech fans for their ‘excellent show of support involving impressive choreographies’ which created ‘an atmosphere of football festival’. On the other hand, interestingly, the club was fined for the use of several dozen flares by the fans. http://www.poznan.sport.pl/sport-poznan/1,124479,17915959,Prezes_Zbigniew_Boniek_napisal_list_do_kibicow_Lecha.html (accessed 12.03.2017).

3. 2009 Act on Mass Events Security.

4. In Poland, fandom is almost entirely masculine activity. Only very few individual female supporters are on the stands and the best to our knowledge, there are neither ultras nor hooligans groups solely by populated by women. In this respect Polish fandom seems to stand out from many other Western countries (see Cere 2002; Dunn 2014).

5. In the old-school fans jargon the regular spectators used to be called ‘picnic fans’ which shows best the contempt and willingness to distinct themselves from the rest of the audience.