Public History in Poland

Joanna Wojdon, Joanna Wojdon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000505887
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'Europa orientale

This volume presents various aspects of public history practices in Poland, alongside their historical development and theoretical reflections on public history.

Despite a long tradition and variety of forms of public history, the very term "public history", or literally speaking "history in the public sphere", has been in use in Poland only since the 2010s. This edited collection contains chapters that focus on numerous practices and media forms in public history including historical memory, heritage tourism, historical re-enactments, memes and graphic novels, films, archives, archaeology and oral history. As such, the volume brings together the Polish experiences to wider international audiences and shares Polish controversies related to public history within the academic discourse, beyond media news and politically engaged commentaries. Furthermore, it sheds crucial light on the developments of collective memory, historical and political debates, the history of Poland and East-Central Europe, and the politics of post-World War Two and post-communist societies.

Authored by a team of academic historians and practitioners from the field, Public History in Poland is the perfect resource for students from a variety of disciplines including Public History, Heritage, Museum Studies, Anthropology, and Archaeology.

Part I Public History and Politics

1 Public History and Politics of History The Case of Poland in Central Europe: 1989–2015

Łukasz Kamiński

DOI: 10.4324/9781003165767-3

Communism, Opposition and the Past

Communist regimes placed great weight on the sphere of what we would today call the politics of history, which is the sum of actions taken with the aim of shaping collective memory. The communist party controlled historical research, access to archives, all publications, museums and the depiction of history in works of culture, such as movies or novels. Street names were changed, monuments were torn down and new ones erected. Some past events and their participants were sent into oblivion, some were distorted and others were glorified regardless of their real importance. A Marxist view of history was promoted, and “patriotic” legitimization of communist rule was not uncommon.¹

The democratic opposition emerging in some countries from the mid-1970s had few tools to oppose these practices. In most cases, its actions were limited to occasional statements and publications in the few independent imprints.² Poland was an exception in this regard. The Polish opposition was able not only to fight words with words, but also to organize commemorative events (such as masses and demonstrations), lectures on history and even research independent of the communist authorities already in the second half of the 1970s. These activities were expanded after the Solidarity movement developed. In 1980–1981, history was openly debated (especially topics that had previously been omitted or falsified), uncensored books and brochures were published, and celebrations of anniversaries rejected by the communists were organized. Moreover, multiple new monuments were erected (some of them were even devoted to victims of communism), numerous exhibitions were organized and a project for the reform of the school curriculum in history was developed.³ The martial law imposed in 1981 only partially limited these activities. History was one of the most important topics of independent underground publications. Documentation centers such as the Solidarity Archive or the Eastern Archive worked in conspiracy.⁴ It can be said that in the 1980s, the Polish opposition implemented its own politics of history that served both to delegitimize the communist system (by recalling its crimes) and to build its own (and at the same time national) identity by referring to particular elements of the past. The Catholic Church was an important ally in these actions by protecting and supporting many initiatives.⁵

After 1989

Paradoxically, this legacy prevented the state from implementing active historical policies in the first few years after the collapse of the communist system. On the one hand, the memory of the totalitarian aspirations of the pre-1989 governments created a resolve to reverse the practices, but on the other hand, many of the opposition activists (who at that point became prominent politicians) believed that the social awareness of history had already been improved by the earlier actions, and so they felt it unnecessary to conduct any significant projects in this sphere. Moreover, both political elites and the society were preoccupied by the problems caused by the political and economic transformation.

Under such circumstances, the activity of the state in the first years of the Third Republic of Poland was limited to legal matters – the traditional name of the country (Rzeczpospolita Polska – Republic of Poland, instead of The People’s Republic of Poland) and the coat of arms were restored, most communist celebrations were abolished and pre-war ones re-established (Constitution Day on May 3 and National Independence Day on November 11), and the school history curriculum was changed. Actions were taken that could be considered an element of transitional justice – bills were adopted that allowed unlawful court sentences to be appealed and reparations to be paid to victims of some forms of repressions, as well as crimes designated as Stalinist (committed in 1944–1956) to be prosecuted. No new institutions dealing with history were created, however – only the names and ranges of competence of some of the existing ones were changed. The Chief Commission for Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland became the Chief Commission for Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation; the Museum of the History of Polish Revolutionary Movement and the Museum of Vladimir Lenin were transformed into the Museum of Independence; and the Institute of Political Studies was built on the foundation of the Institute of Socialist Countries of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in which a small team of historians led research on modern history.⁶

In the first years after the fall of the communist system, the field of public history was populated mostly by NGOs. A particular role was played by the KARTA Center, established in 1991 by a group of people previously engaged in publishing an underground journal of the same name. The Eastern Archive continued its work under the auspices of KARTA while the materials documenting the post-war history of Poland were collected in the Peerel Archive,⁷ later renamed the Archive of Opposition. Karta became a quarterly journal educating about the history of the twentieth century in an engaging form. In 1997, the Center started organizing the Historia bliska (History at Hand) competition, encouraging young people to discover the stories of their surroundings, towns or families on their own. In 1997–2000, the KARTA Center also organized large historical exhibitions, presented both within and outside of Poland, devoted, among others, to the story of the opposition and resistance against totalitarian systems, the Solidarity movement and the fall of the communist system.⁸

Among the groups that contributed to the field of popularizing history was the Republican League with the first exhibition on the post-war armed resistance presented in 1993 and later expanded.

Some initiatives were undertaken by individuals, for example, the exhibition titled Winni? Niewinni? (Guilty? Innocent?) was an effect of the work of Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, who investigated the post-war staged trials and presented the judges and prosecutors involved in those practices. The scandal that arose out of the exhibition and attempts to block it under the pretext of protecting personal data brought this matter to public attention.⁹

Next to NGOs (including veteran associations), local governments were quite active in the 1990s. Soon after 1989 most of the toponyms connected to communism were changed and many monuments glorifying people, events and organizations tied to the old system were removed.¹⁰ However, new monuments, reflecting the shift in the historical consciousness of the Poles, were erected mainly as a result of social initiatives, i.e., actions undertaken by associations, committees, veteran organizations, etc. State structures (like the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites) showed greater activity only in the construction of the war cemeteries in Charków (Kharkov), Katyń and Mednoye which opened in 2000.¹¹

The lack of an active policy in the matter of dealing with the communist past, meager effects of investigations and numerous obstacles encountered by groups and individuals interested in these matters (ranging from lack of funding, through difficulties in accessing the archives, to lawsuits) increased the importance of this sphere in general politics. Appeals for a more active engagement of the government were made mainly with the slogan of decommunization, understood both as legal (the Czech experience was often referred to) and institutional changes (Germany and the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic, Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (BStU), served as a pattern to follow here).¹² To some degree, which is hard to determine exactly today, these actions were also connected to the ongoing procedures of Poland’s admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (especially matters of lustration) and to the European Union (accessibility of archives).

Institute of National Remembrance

Fulfilling the demands for a more active state engagement in matters of history and remembrance became possible after the parties which arose from anti-communist opposition (Solidarity Electoral Action and Freedom Union) won the parliamentary elections in September 1997. However, their options were limited by the veto power of the post-communist President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, which was overridden only once – in the case of the act of December 18, 1998, on the creation of the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (usually shortened to Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, or IPN). The Institute began actual operation in June 2000, after its first president (Leon Kieres) was elected. Other noteworthy actions in this period include active promotion of the history of Poland abroad, connected to the anniversaries in 1999 (60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War and 10th anniversary of the fall of communism). For instance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented the exhibition “End of Yalta 1945–89,” prepared by the KARTA Center, in multiple countries. In 2000, the 30-year withdrawal period limiting access to documents of the communist party was abolished. At the same time, the idea of creating two new institutions – the European Solidarity Centre and the Polish History Museum – was born, both of which materialized in the following years.¹³

As it later turned out, the main breakthrough was the creation of IPN. In its original form, it comprised three main divisions:

• − prosecutorial, whose job is to lead investigations on crimes committed in the period of 1939–1990¹⁴ by functionaries of occupying states (Germany and the Soviet Union) and communist dictatorship (the term “communist crime” was also defined then);
• − archival, whose job is to collect the documents of the widely understood security and repressions apparatus from the same period, and making them available to victims, researchers and journalists;
• − Office of Public Education, which conducts research and popularizes its results.

As the creators of the act admitted, the first two divisions were considered the core of the institution, while the third one was supposed to fulfil supportive functions. It is visible in the text of the bill, where very little space is devoted to the matters of research and education. In reality, this latter division tu...