This article contains a comparative analysis of presentations in selected Polish periodicals in November 2018 of the war between Poland and the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic over Lviv and Eastern Galicia in the years 1918–1919. In an analysis of the media discourse the author takes into account factographic, axiological, teleological, ideological, and political dimensions. He distinguishes five conventions for the presentation of the events: national-dramatic, national-heroic, martyrological-defamatory, tragic, and tragi-comical. He argues that not all have been represented in the different models of memory policy functioning in the public debate in Poland under the governments of the Law and Justice party (2015–2019). He considers that there have been four such models: the nationalist-Catholic, conservative-nationalist, universalist-patriotic, and self-critical. He argues that the rightist political party (Law and Justice) has long aligned itself with the conservative-nationalist model, while centrist groups, and especially the leftist group, do not attach great importance to memory policy. The author points to the danger resulting from neglect of historical issues in the Polish media.
This article includes an analysis of results of a research on collective memory, carried out by authors at the request of the National Centre of Culture (Ukraine, 2016) and within the project financed by the NCC (Poland, Ukraine, 2018). The analysis reveals the diversity of attitudes towards World War II and the communist/Soviet rule amongst the residents of four different regions in each of the countries, basing on the assessment of historical role and feelings of support or opposition towards the individuals and events of those times. The diversity of opinions in Ukraine turned out high. Integrated group of national heroes includes individuals from the times of revolution (1919–1921) and the dusk of Soviet rule, but not the World War II period. Whereas in Poland a larger integration of collective memory referring to the 20th century history is present, nevertheless big differences in the level of knowledge about individuals and historical events between the regions were observed.
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