Discourses of the wound and desire for the Other: remembrances of the Katyń massacre and the Smoleńsk crash

ABSTRACT

We investigate the commemorative debate in Polish newspapers about how the Katyń massacre and the presidential plane crash near Smoleńsk, Russia, should be remembered. We demonstrate that a psychoanalytic discursive analysis elucidates the insistence on remembering past wounds, nationalist politics of victimhood, and the difficulties in reaching rapprochement in intercultural relations. To this end, we analyze the commemorative debates in two main Polish newspapers and a news magazine. We argue that an emotive discourse of “Katyń as a wound” yearns for a therapeutic healing of the rifts in Polish national mythology and postcommunist identity. This discourse revolves around a demand for recognition from the Russian Other of a wounded subject by employing evocative metonymies and transposing logics of equivalence and difference.

KEYWORDS:

• Memory
• nationalism
• desire
• antagonism

Notes

1 The plane crashed due to bad weather that compounded the pilot’s error, but this did not stop speculations and conspiracy theories about a Russian plot. Leszek Koczanowicz, “The Politics of Catastrophe: Poland’s Presidential Crash and the Ideology of Post-Communism,” East European Politics and Societies 26, no. 4 (2012), 811–28.

2 Benjamin B. Fisher, “The Katyń Controversy: Stalin’s Killing Field,” Studies in Intelligence, Winter (1999): https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter99-00/art6.html.

3 Reuters, “Upheaval in the East: Soviets Admit Blame in Massacre of Polish Officers in World War II,” New York Times, April 13, 1990, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/13/world/upheaval-east-soviets-admit-blame-massacre-polish-officers-world-war-ii.html; Mark Kramer, “What Was Distinctive About Katyń? The Massacres in Context,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 44 (2012): 569–76.

4 Aleksandr Guryanov, “The Katyń Problem in Contemporary Russia,” Free Media Online, May 5, 2010; Anna M. Cienciala, Natalia S. Lebedeva, and Wojciech Materski, eds., Katyń: A Crime Without Punishment, trans. Marian Schwartz with Anna M. Cienciala and Maia A. Kipp (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

5 Adam Przewoznik and Joanna Adamska, Katyn: Zbrodnia, Prawda, Pamiec (Warszawa, Poland: Swiat Ksiazki, 2010); Pawel Machcewicz, Spory o Historię, 2001–2011 (Krakow, Poland: Znak, 2012); Dariusz Tołczyk, “Katyń: The Long Cover-up,” The New Criterion 36, no. 9 (2010): 4–9.

6 Previous commemorations had been hosted by the Polish government on Russian soil.

7 Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).

8 Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Stanford, CA: 2003), 25; Jolanta A. Drzewiecka, “Aphasia and a Legacy of Violence: Disabling and Enabling Knowledge of the Past in Poland,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 11, no. 4 (2014): 362–81.

9 Andrzej Nowak, “Westerplatte czy Jedwabne,” Rzeczpospolita, August 1, 2001, http://archiwum.rp.pl/artykul/347318-Westerplatte-czyJedwabne.html.

10 Yannis Stavrakakis, “Passions of Identification: Discourse, Enjoyment, and European Identity,” in Discourse Theory in European Politics: Identity, Policy and Governance, ed. David Howarth and Jacob Torfing (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005), 75.

11 Gerald A. Hauser, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 129.

12 Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (New York: Verso, 2004).

13 Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, eds., “Critical Discourse Analysis: History, Agenda, Theory, and Methodology,” in Methods for Discourse Analysis, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2009), 5.

14 Jie Gong, “Re-Imagining an Ancient, Emergent Superpower: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Public Memory, and National Identity,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 9, no. 2 (2012): 191–214; Brian L. Ott, Eric Aoki, and Greg Dickinson, “Ways of (Not) Seeing Guns: Presence and Absence at the Cody Firearms Museum,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 8, no. 3 (2011): 215–39.

15 Hanner Heer et al., The Discursive Construction of History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

16 Ott, Aoki, and Dickinson, “Ways of (Not) Seeing Guns.”

17 Nico Carpentier, “Discourse-Theoretical Analysis,” in The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, ed. John Flowerdew and John E. Richardson (London: Routledge, 2018). David Howarth and Jacob Torfing, eds., Discourse Theory in European Politics: Identity, Policy and Governance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Stavrakakis, “Passions of Identification”; Nico Carpentier, “Discourse-Theoretical Analysis (DTA),” in Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, ed. John Flowerdew and John E. Richardson (London: Routledge, 2018), 272–84.

18 Barbara A. Biesecker, “Rhetorical Studies and the ‘New’ Psychoanalysis: What’s the Real Problem? Or Framing the Problem of the Real,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 84, no. 2 (1998): 222–40; Joshua Gunn, “Refitting Fantasy: Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity, and Talking to the Dead,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 90, no. 1 (2004): 1–23; Christian Lundberg, “The Royal Road Not Taken: Joshua Gunn’s ‘Refitting Fantasy: Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity, and Talking to the Dead’ and Lacan’s Symbolic Order,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 90, no. 4 (2004): 495–500.

19 Christian Lundberg, “On Being Bound to Equivalential Chains,” Cultural Studies 26, no. 2–3 (2012): 299–318.

20 Wulf Kansteiner, “Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies,” History and Theory 41, no. 2 (2002): 179–97.

21 Jacques Lacan, Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. Bruce Fink in collaboration with Héloïse Fink and Russell Grigg (New York: Norton, 2006).

22 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (New York: Verso, 1985).

23 Slavoj Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1993), 202.

24 Lundberg, “On Being Bound to Equivalential Chains.”

25 Stavrakakis, “Passions of Identification.”

26 Iver B. Neumann, “Russia as Central Europe’s Constituting Other,” Eastern European Politics and Societies 7, no. 2 (1993): 349–69.

27 Tomasz Zarycki, Ideologies of Eastness in Central and Eastern Europe (London: Routledge, 2014).

28 Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative.

29 Renata Salecl, The Spoils of Freedom: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Ideology After the Fall of Socialism (London: Routledge, 1994).

30 Lacan, Écrits, 425.

31 Leszek Koczanowicz, “The Politics of Catastrophe: Poland’s Presidential Crash and the Ideology of Post-postcommunism,” East European Politics and Societies: And Cultures 26, no. 4 (2012): 811–28.

32 Barbie Zelizer, “Reading the Past against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12, no. 2 (1995): 214–39; Carole Blair, Marsha S. Jeppeson, and Enrico Pucci Jr., “Public Memorializing in Postmodernity: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial as Prototype,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 77, no. 3 (1991): 263–88.

33 Wojciech Radziwinowicz, “Najpierw Katyń, potem Moskwa,” Gazeta Wyborcza, January 22, 2010, http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,114881,7482304,Najpierw_Katyn__potem_Moskwa.html.

34 Wojciech Lorenz “To wielki gest moralny i polityczny,” Rzeczpospolita, March 2, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/428882-To-wielki-gest-moralny-i-polityczny.html.

35 Szymaniak, “Tusk i Putin razem w Katyniu,” Rzeczpospolita, February 4, 2010; Joanna Prus, “Putin będzie w Katyniu,” Rzeczpospolita, February 3, 1020, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/428806-Putin-bedzie-w-Katyniu.html.

36 Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1994), 25–73.

37 Antoni Lazari, “Nie żądajmy przeprosin,” Rzeczpospolita, February 7, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/430665-Nie-zadajmy-przeprosin.html.

38 Bogdan Musiał and Dominika Matusiak, “To nie była rosyjska zbrodnia,” Rzeczpospolita, March 13, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/446391-To-nie-byla-rosyjska-zbrodnia.html.

39 Ibid.

40 “Katyń to nasz wspólny ból.” Gazeta Wyborcza, February 26, 2010, http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7601549,Katyn_to_nasz_wspolny_bol.html.

41 Jan Dudek, “‘Wiedomosti’: Ból powinien laczyc,” Rzeczpospolita, February 7, 2010.

42 Wociech Radziwinowicz, “Niech Putin wyrzeknie sie Stalina,” Gazeta Wyborcza, March 19, 2010.

43 Justyna Prus, “Katyń: miejsce wspolnej tragedii,” Rzeczpospolita, March 15, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/447128-Katyn--miejsce-wspolnej-tragedii.html.

44 Justyna Prus and Piotr Zychowicz, “Putin będzie w Katyniu,” Rzeczpospolita, February 3, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/428806-Putin-bedzie-w-Katyniu.html.

45 Lazari, “Nie żądajmy przeprosin.”

46 Antonii Nowak, “Ostrożnie z rosyjską grą,” Rzeczpospolita, February 7, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/430664-Ostroznie-z-rosyjska-gra-.html

47 Prus and Zychowicz, “Putin bedzie w Katyniu.”

48 Pawel Śpiewak “Polskie spory ideowe i nasze rozmowy o pamieci,” in Polska po 20 latach wolnosci, ed. Joanna Wawrzyniak et al. (Warszawa, Poland: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2011), 501–19.

49 Ibid., 511.

50 Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative, 208.

51 Prus and Zychowicz, “Putin będzie w Katyniu”; Jan Dudek, “Szyderstwo Kremla?” Rzeczpospolita, February 4, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/429085-Szyderstwo-Kremla-.html.

52 Ewa Łosińska, “Gest Wladimira Putina,” Rzeczpospolita, February 4, 2010.

53 Justyna Prus, “Memorandum Moskwy to przejaw cynizmu,” Rzeczpospolita, April 3, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/456393-Memorandum-Moskwy--to-przejaw-cynizmu.html; Ewa Łosińska, “Rosjanie negują mord w Katyniu,” Rzeczpospolita, April 3, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/456406-Rosjanie-neguja-mord-w-Katyniu.html; “Skandal zamiast prawdy,” Rzeczpospolita, April 5, 2010.

54 Łosińska, “Rosjanie negują mord w Katyniu.”

55 Ibid.

56 Justyna Prus, “Nie slyszeli o zbrodni w Katyniu,” Rzeczpospolita, April 5, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/457270-Nie-slyszeli-o-zbrodni-w-Katyniu.html.

57 Stavrakakis, “Passions of Identification.”

58 Marcin Wojciechowski, “Katyń w Strasburgu, mina do rozbrojenia,” Gazeta Wyborcza, April 5, 2010, http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7734320,Katyn_w_Strasburgu__mina_do_rozbrojenia.html.

59 Wacław Radziwinowicz, “Rosji potrzebny jest Katyń,” Gazeta Wyborcza, April 6, 2010, http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7738365,Rosji_potrzebny_jest_Katyn.html.

60 Gunn, “Refitting Fantasy.”

61 Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative.

62 Hauser, Vernacular Voices.

63 Wacław Radziwinowicz and Marcin Wojciechowski, “Niech Katyń nas pojedna,” Gazeta Wyborcza, April 8, 2010, http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7743413,Niech_Katyn_nas_pojedna.html; Agnieszka Kazimierczuk et al., “Wspólny dług, pamięć i wstyd,” Rzeczpospolita, April 7, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/457970-Wspolny-dlug--pamiec-i-wstyd.html.

64 Radziwinowicz and Wojciechowski, “Niech Katyń”; Agata Kondzińska, “Putin sklonil glowe przed Polakami pomordowanymi w Katyniu,” Gazeta Wyborcza, April 7, 2010.

65 Joanna Niżyńska, “The Politics of Mourning and the Crisis of Poland’s Symbolic Language After April 10,” East European Politics and Societies: And Cultures 24, no. 4 (2010): 467–79.

66 Ibid., 470.

67 Ibid., 474.

68 Aleida Assmann, Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Arts of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), xi.

69 Wojciech Lorenz, “Prezydent nie był rusofobem,” Rzeczpospolita, April 11, 2010, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/462467-Prezydent-nie-byl-rusofobem-.html.

70 Rozmawiał w Moskwie Marcin Wojciechowski, “Olbrychski: Rosjanie zachowali sie jak trzeba. Nie zmarnujmy tego,” Gazeta Wyborcza, May 7, 2010, http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7855350,Olbrychski__Rosjanie_zachowali_sie_jak_trzeba__Nie.html.

71 Katarzyna Naszkowska, “Smutek i wazne slowa,” Gazeta Wyborcza, April 16, 2010.

72 Borusewicz, “Dziękujemy Wam Rosjanie. Nigdy nie byliście nam tak bliscy,” Wprost, April 16, 2010, http://www.wprost.pl/ar/192536/Borusewicz-dziekujemy-wam-Rosjanie-Nigdy-nie-byliscie-nam-tak-bliscy/.

73 Gunn, “Refitting Fantasy.”

74 Andrzej Talaga, “Po co Rosja gra wrakiem?” Rzeczpospolita, April 5, 2013, http://www.rp.pl/artykul/997027-Po-co-Rosja-gra-wrakiem.html.

75 Wojciech Radziwinowicz, “Rosjanin pyta: Czego wciaz od nas chcecie,” Gazeta Wyborcza, April 5, 2013.

76 Jaroslaw Kaczynski, “Mamy w Polsce,” Rzeczpospolita, April 18, 2013.

77 Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative.

78 Kaczanowicz, “The Politics,” 827.

79 Wacław Radziwinowicz, “Czas otworzyc sie na Rosje,” Gazeta Wyborcza, May 17, 2013, http://wyborcza.pl/1,75968,13924756,Czas_otworzyc_sie_na_Rosje.html.

80 Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative, 212.

81 Kaczanowicz, “The Politics.”

82 Ibid.

83 “Nowe zdjecia z miejsca katastrofy smoleńskiej,” Gazeta Wyborcza, December 12, 2013.

84 Ibid.

85 Wodak and Meyer, “Critical Discourse Analysis,” 1.

86 Heer et al., The Discursive Construction.

87 Wojciechowski, “Katyń w Strasburgu, mina do rozbrojenia.”

88 John Louis Lucaites, and James P. Mcdaniel, “Telescoping Mourning/Warring in the Global Village: Decomposing (Japanese) Authority Figures,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (2004): 1–28.

89 Gunn, “Refitting Fantasy.”