IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/eurrev/v30y2022i4p490-504_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Persistent Legacies of Communism, or the Ongoing Purification of Public Space in Post-1989 Poland

Author

Listed:
  • Kończal, Kornelia

Abstract

This article explores how Poland’s cultural landscape has been cleared of the material legacies of communism between 1989 and 2019. By studying political discourses, legal regulations and social practices aiming to rename streets and remove monuments associated with communism, it argues that the Polish de-communization project has undergone a major transformation: from a popular need expressed in a variety of decentred initiatives to a political programme revolving around one centrally organized idea. The persistence of the material legacies of communism in Poland’s cultural landscape reveals both the mobilizing potential as well as the limits of anti-communism, it demonstrates how difficult it has been to provide for a legally binding and practically effective definition of communism and it exemplifies a broader struggle over the question of who should play which role in shaping Poland’s public realm.

Suggested Citation

  • Kończal, Kornelia, 2022. "Persistent Legacies of Communism, or the Ongoing Purification of Public Space in Post-1989 Poland," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 490-504, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:30:y:2022:i:4:p:490-504_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1062798722000114/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:30:y:2022:i:4:p:490-504_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/erw .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.