World War II and Two Occupations

Dilemmas of Polish Memory

Anna Wolff-Poweska, Piotr Forecki

• Publisher: Peter Lang Group
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783653055337
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Europa del Este

This anthology presents the work of several authors from different academic disciplines. Film and literature experts, sociologists, historians and theatrologists analyse the Polish memory of the Nazi and Stalinist occupations, which are key components of Polish collective identity. Before the political turn of 1989, the memory of World War II was strictly controlled by the state. The elements of memory related to the Soviet occupation were eradicated, as well as any other elements that did not fit the official narrative about the war. Unblocking the hitherto limited public discourse resulted in the process of filling the blank pages of history and the development of different and frequently conflicting communities of memory.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Introduction ([Anna Wolff-Powęska] [Piotr Forecki])
• World War II as Collective Experience for Polish Society (Piotr Tadeusz Kwiatkowski)
• Fighting for Victim Status: Polish Debates on Genocide and the Collective Memory of World War II (Lech M. Nijakowski)
• World War II in the Politics of Memory of the Polish People’s Republic 1944–1970 (Bartosz Korzeniewski)
• The Unusual Everyday Under the Occupation (Pawel Rodak)
• Between Biographical Experience and Social Construction of Memory: The Oldest Generation of Poles on the Soviet Occupation and the Soviets (Anna Wylegala)
• Between Biographical and Collective Memory: The Experience of War in Narratives from the Kresy (Kaja Kaźmierska)
• War Trauma in the City Museums of Saint Petersburg, Warsaw and Dresden ([Zuzanna Bogumil] [Joanna Wawrzyniak])
• The German Occupation of Poland in German and Polish History Schoolbooks (Katarzyna Woniak)
• The Representation of the Soviet Occupation in Polish Film (Tadeusz Lubelski)
• War Films After 1989. A Dialogue Among Three Generations (Malgorzata Hendrykowska)
• Why Does Theatre Need War? Why Do Historians Need Theatre? Images of War and the Subject of Occupation in Polish Theatre After 1945 (Joanna Krakowska)
• Żydokomuna: The Construction of the Insult (Anna Zawadzka)
• Information about the authors