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Reenacting ethnic cleansing: people's history and elitist nationalism in contemporary P oland[Note 1. The research was sponsored by the National Science Centre ...]
Author(s) -
Pasieka Agnieszka
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/nana.12113
Subject(s) - scrutiny , politics , nationalism , ethnic group , rhetoric , ethnic cleansing , democratization , sociology , media studies , political science , democracy , law , anthropology , philosophy , linguistics
This article addresses the problem of the present‐day historical discourse in P oland by taking under scrutiny one specific event: the historical re‐enactment of the ethnic cleansing of P olish villagers by the U krainian I nsurgent A rmy, staged in a small town in southeastern P oland, R adymno, in the summer of 2013. It is based on research, carried out by the author and a group of students in R adymno and its surroundings in the period preceding and following the performance, as well as on content analysis of the press. The comparison of the top‐down political and mass media discourse with local responses to the idea of re‐enactment and, more broadly, local understandings of P olish– U krainian relations, reveal many contradictions. In attempting to understand them, the article discusses broader ramifications of the ‘democratization of history’: the political contestation, class rhetoric and societal tensions that are tangled up in historical debates.