POLISEMIA KRZYŻA W PRAKTYKACH SPOŁECZEŃSTWA POLSKIEGO The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland

• Authors: Zubrzycki, Geneviève

Abstracts

EN

This article analyses the controversy which emerged as a result of the crosses erected by nationalist Polish Catholics just outside the former death camp Auschwitz in the summer and fall of 1998. This episode, known as “War of the Crosses”, crystallized latent social conflicts regarding the role of Catholicism in defining Polishness, the place of religion in new democratic polity and the role of anti-Semitism in the construction of Polish identity. The article focuses on the conflict among Poles about the appropriateness of the association between Polishness and Catholicism. The use of the cross by self defined “Poles-Catholics” and conflicting meanings of the cross in the discourses of the multiple communities in Poland are examined. It is argued that the historic binding that has held Polish identity and Catholicism together has begun to erode.

Keywords

EN

nacjonalizm; religia

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Gdański
• Journal: Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 13(1)

Contributors

author

Zubrzycki, Geneviève

Identifiers

DOI

10.5604/20842937.1093900