When the past matters: memory politics and ethnic relations in Poland

Abstract

This article identifies the conditions under which the interplay of past and present enables or constrains political action in the Polish public sphere. Using data from the Polish quality broadsheet Gazeta Wyborcza, I account for the puzzles in the Jewish, German and Ukrainian minorities' memory work. The study reveals that history empowers ethnic groups differently, in the function of the certification by external allies, diverse salience of the arguments raised and the state's distinct memory projects. Namely, the high resonance of the Jews' claims that seize on the Holocaust narrative and official acknowledgement of their past allow the group to escape the limits of their narrow organizational capacities. In contrast, the state's rejection of the Germans' and Ukrainians' interpretations of the past has the effect of channelling minority claims towards the fight for acknowledgement.

Keywords:

• collective memory
• ethnic relations
• memory politics
• history
• claims-making
• Poland

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments that provided substantial assistance in reviewing this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Minority size numbers come from the Polish 2011 national census.

2. As claims on participation account for a modest share of minorities’ demands (see Table 1), I focus the analysis only on statements about recognition and redistribution. It is worth indicating, however, that the Jewish minority leaders completely refrain from demanding more participation in the public sphere. One could hypothesize that the Jews do not call for greater public involvement as their symbolic presence is already safeguarded.

3. In 1947, the newly established communist authorities in Poland launched an operation called ‘Action Wisła’ whose goal was to resettle large populations of Ukrainians and Lemkos (an ethnic minority of a Carpatho-Rusyn origin) that lived in the southeastern part of the country to its western side.

4. I did not collect newspaper data from the years 2000 and 2001 also because, during this period, only a small number of events linked to ethnic issues occurred that could have triggered public discussion related to Poland's minority relations. The vast amount of data gathered (excluding the years 2000 and 2001) was sufficiently large and provided a solid base for a systematic analysis (I coded and examined 889 claims, each claim contains up to three different issues).

5. The Copenhagen Criteria obliged states that aspired to membership in the European Union to, among others, develop institutions that guarantee respect for and protection of minorities.

6. See Jasiewicz (2011, 747, 748–749) for the distribution of topics of the entire 889 claims set.

7. Polish authorities set up a Central Labour Camp in Jaworzno in 1945 to lock up people suspected of collaborating with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In fact, the camp was a tool of repression directed at people of German, Ukrainian and Silesian origin as well as those of Polish origin who opposed being controlled by the Soviet Union authorities.

8. In the analytical section, I focus on the Jews’ claims for redistribution as the relative frequency of this category stands out in comparison to the patterns in the German and Ukrainian minorities’ claims. However, the Jewish minority's demands for recognition still account for nearly half of their demands. These claims relate to, among others, condemning anti-Semitism in Poland and to the atrocities perpetuated by Poles in Jedwabne in 1941.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant Juan de la Cierva [BOE de 28-12-2010].

Notes on contributors

Joanna Jasiewicz

JOANNA JASIEWICZ was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI).