Post-Communist Poland - Contested Pasts and Future Identities

Download or read book Post-Communist Poland - Contested Pasts and Future Identities written by Ewa Ochman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the reinterpretations of Poland’s past which have been undertaken by Polish national and local elites since the fall of communism. It focuses on remembrance practices and traces the de-commemorating of communism to examine the ways in which collective remembering and forgetting shapes present power constellations in Poland and impacts on foreign and domestic policy. The book outlines the detail of the new hegemonic national myths which are being established but also investigates fragmentation and diversification of commemorative practices at the local level that has the most potential to challenge the dominant vision of national Polish identity, historically centred on martyrdom, heroism and independence, as less relevant to Poland’s new aspirations for the future.