Polish authorities have placed so much importance on remembrance policy since the end of 2015 that it has led to the hypertrophy of the phenomenon. From the 1990s, Poland has been at the forefront of shaping the infrastructure of this form of politics in Europe. Admittedly, even before 2015, national remembrance policy referred mainly to martyrologic and heroic experiences from the period 1939-1956, but it was the victory of Law and Justice in the elections in 2015 and the creation of a oneparty government that resulted in the repeated official declarations of the necessity to defend national “dignity”. This has been accompanied by wiping from national memory past crimes committed by Poles, particularly against Jews.
The paper presents findings of the comparative study on relationships between remembrance story-telling and the transitional reconstruction of political identities. It identifies in which areas and fields of impact governments tend to use interpretations of the past to promote new leadership visions of society. Moreover, it verifies theoretical hypotheses related to the politicised remembrance and its role as a political asset during transformations, as well as it considers the theoretical framework of democracy-building (and a common prediction of its universal character). As a result, the study offers a detailed picture of the way remembrance narratives are transformed into explanations, justifications or legitimisation of new, post-authoritarian identities based on qualitative-to-quantitative analysis of the intensity of story-telling and its links with transitional identity politics. In the conclusion, the Authors present their consideration of research findings, and they discuss it with reference to the nature of transitional government’s remembrance policy as a sphere of social influence.
Российская «историческая политика» - это попытка инструментальной трактовки истории с целью формирования нового образа русского патриотизма после распада СССР. Его иниции-ровал Горбачев, новое содержание ему придал Ельцин, а особую форму использовал Путин. Последний из них использовал историю для текущей политики. Впрочем, к исторической правде это имеет мало отношения, но это не главное в его «исторической политике». Однако имеет значение возможность размещения её в ведущейся «информационной войне», а это, в свою очередь, направлено на наращивание имперских позиций современной России, в том числе с применением вооруженных сил. Понимаемая таким образом «историческая политика» служила формированию сильного русского национализма.
EN
The Russian “remembrance policy” is an approach to instrumental treating history for creating new image of Russian patriotism after the collapse of the USSR. It has been initiated by Gorbachev, supplemented by Yeltsin, and specified by Putin. The latter has used history for actual politics. It has little to do with the historical truth but that is not important in his “remembrance policy”. Significant is a possibility of placing its elements the “information warfare” that aims to enhance the imperial position of contemporary Russia, also by using military force. A “remembrance policy” understood in this way has served for building strong Russian nationalism.
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