Transnational,transborder, antinational? The memory of the Jewish past in Poland

The aim of this article is to explore the interaction between local, national, and transnational frames of memory as it manifests itself in the contemporary commemoration of the Jewish past. Focusing on the case study of Poland, I argue that articulations of transnational memory still remain deeply rooted in local and national interests and mythologies, reflecting the fears, desires, or longings of memory makers. Ranging from digital media which stress the interactive and agency-based dimension of transnational memory, through to vernacular “stumbling blocks” inspired by German citizens and subsequently transplanted onto the Polish ground, to public memorials which are either embraced or contested by a variety of social actors, these initiatives urge us to rethink traditional approaches to memory. In particular, these different scales and locations of remembrance question the common perception of collective memory as rooted in rigid nation-state frameworks in favor of memories that travel, move, and transgress multiple boundaries and affect multiple communities.     

The uses of history by the Polish democratic opposition in the late 1970s

During the late 1970s, members of the Polish democratic opposition revised and reinterpreted key elements in the Polish past in support of their contemporary ideas about Polish society and opposition. The birth of the independent press in Poland in 1976 provided these debates with a medium for wide dissemination and discussion. Analysis of democratic opposition debates in the independent press on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, historic Polish–Russian relations, and the struggle for and achievement of independence in the early twentieth century shed light on the ways in which the democratic opposition perceived Polish society and the legacy of tolerance, diversity, nationalism, and socialism within it. It also reveals the major divisions within the democratic opposition and its primary tactical proposals prior to the birth of the Solidarity trade union in 1980. Forty years later, these debates continue to reverberate.     

Poland's conception of European security and Russia

This article examines the problem of contemporary bilateral relations between Poland and Russia. Its thesis largely attributes the rivalry of these two states in Eastern Europe to conceptions relating to the balancing and bandwagoning of power. This rivalry can be put down to the fact that Polish-Russian relations are being developed within broader global processes such as Russia's relations with NATO, the USA and European Union. The greatest obstacle to the maintenance of mutually beneficial relations is the sensitive issue of security. In recent years Poland has consistently underlined its willingness to reinforce NATO's mutual defense mechanisms by supporting the organization's continued presence in Central-Eastern Europe. This issue has been compounded by Poland's striving to bring the countries of Eastern Europe (especially Ukraine) into closer affiliation with Western institutions favoring European integration, which is evidently perceived as interference in what is regarded by Moscow to be a sphere of Russian influence. This has provoked a number of serious crises in bilateral relations between Poland and Russia since the Euro-Maidan Revolution in Ukraine. Russian plans to install new (Iskander) missile systems close to the Polish border and Poland's effective attempts post-2014 to extend NATO presence within its own country testify to the scale of conflicts of interest between the two states and the lack of trust afforded by both sides. The issues highlighted in this paper are of great importance, since they not only enable the complexity of Central European issues to be more fully comprehended but also help to elucidate other global actors' conceptions relating to cooperation with Europe.     

Prison officers in Poland: A profession in historical perspective

This study concentrates on the changing nature of the prison officer profession in Poland as the country developed from a Stalinist satellite to a liberal democracy and member of the European Union. Drawing on a range of archival materials, the study also aims to demonstrate how a social institution is shaped by political forces. The analysis supports two theses. Firstly, because for two generations the prison system was deployed ‘against the people’, it is unsurprising that Polish citizens view prison officers in a negative light. Secondly, if prison staff wants to be recognised as professionals devoted to a decent and worthy task, they are likely need to deploy imaginative public relations.     

Determinants of foreign direct investment and entry modes of Polish multinational enterprises: A new perspective on internationalization

This study uses firm data to examine the locational trends of foreign direct investment projects undertaken by Polish companies. The findings of the study are consistent with the evolutionary models of internationalization. Companies in the early stages of internationalization are motivated by markets and resource seeking, whereas efficiency seeking and strategic asset seeking are significant motivators in the advanced stages of internationalization. However, our results with respect to Polish cross-border acquisitions by service companies and greenfield foreign direct investments by industrial or manufacturing companies did not confirm the evolutionary model findings. We found evidence that, in both cases, investments are motivated by the need for efficiency or strategic assets.     

Return to Europe – A double-edged sword for notaries? The case of Poland and Hungary

Using Poland as a case study, the Polish sociologist Piotr Sztompka has demonstrated most persuasively the significance of trust (and distrust) as a key to the analysis and understanding of socio-political and socio-cultural developments in Central Europe in the transition to democracy. Sztompka's study ends upbeat with a brief glance at the situation in the late 1990s. Had the book been written a decade later, it would have revealed that the path ahead has remained rocky. Public trust in governments, politicians and public institutions generally has remained a scarce commodity.It is against this background that the restoration of an independent civil law notariat, as an integral part of the ‘return to Europe’ project, has occurred in Poland, and, mutatis mutandis, in other Central European countries. However, following a first decade of successful transformation from state employment to liberal profession, notaries in Central Europe now find that it is precisely because they have embraced the status of Western-style liberal professionals that they are coming under attack by both the European Commission and their own national governments. As a result, they have had to embark on a process of reconsideration of their position in order to ensure the profession's survival. This paper traces and compares developments in Poland and Hungary. As can be expected there is a strong common denominator between them. But equally and more interestingly, there are distinctive national features which now, as ‘bloc history’ recedes, are coming increasingly to the fore.     

Parties, rules and government legislative control in Central Europe: The case of Poland

A distinguishing feature of Central European polities is a strong policy-shaping role of parliaments. This article demonstrates how party political and procedural factors set the scene for the executive's loss of legislative control in Poland. Parties undermine the governmental grip because of their limited internal cohesion and competitive coalitional strategies. Parliamentary rules reinforce such party effects. The executive can shield its bills from amendments by relying mainly on partisan controls, not formal privileges. But, as an analysis of over 300 bills shows, when party discipline and coalition cooperation are in short supply, partisan controls are ineffective as instruments of legislative control.     

The fascist who would be king: Count Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk

ABSTRACT

Macklin and Fowlie explore the political life of Count Potocki de Montalk, a poet, pagan and pretender to the Polish throne. Count Potocki is perhaps most famous as a minor cause célèbre among London’s literary intelligentsia after his imprisonment for obscene libel in 1932. Historians, when they consider him at all, often discount him, viewing him as little more than a colourful eccentric, a view reinforced by Stephanie de Montalk’s fascinating biography of the man, which appeared in 2001. Eccentric he most certainly was. However, as this article demonstrates, Potocki also played a key role as an enabler of fascist and extreme right-wing activism through the services he provided myriad groups as a printer of their literature, a career that spanned the interwar and post-war periods. The article examines how his preposterous pursuit of the Polish Crown, coupled with the innate elitism this engendered, led him to reject egalitarianism and democracy and embrace fascism. While the Spanish Civil War saw an outpouring of literature from his literary contemporaries in support of the Spanish Republic, Potocki responded by establishing The Right Review as a mouthpiece for his own personal mélange of monarchism and fascism. Utilizing newly released security service files combined with archival research in the newly deposited Searchlight archive at Northampton University, this article pays closer attention to the political side of Potocki’s activities than has hitherto been the case, particularly his wartime publishing activities. This includes his anti-Soviet pamphlet on the Katyn massacre, which caused great vexation in government circles for fear of the harm Potocki’s (correct) accusations might do to relations with Britain’s crucial wartime ally. The authors conclude with a detailed examination of the role Potocki played in post-war National Socialist networks, for both personal and political ends, not least of which was his continued efforts to further his claim to the Polish throne, which he never ceased to believe was his by divine right.     

近二十年波兰外交转型刍议

近二十年来,伴随着政治和经济领域的转型,波兰外交亦经历了一个发展演变的过程。总体看来,这一过程既带有东欧国家的普遍共性,亦表现出波兰自身的鲜明个性。对1989年以来波兰外交在不同阶段上的变化背景及走向加以考察,并且进一步分析波兰与主要邻国之间的外交关系,在此基础上就后冷战时期波兰外交转型的目标、业已取得的成就与面临的问题及与国内政治发展之间的关系等做出分析与解读,可以更好地理解转型时期波兰外交政策和实践的总体特点和发展轨迹,对于把握波兰外交的未来走向有着重要意义。     

Party identity change in post-communist politics: the cases of the successor parties in Hungary, Poland and Russia

In recent years much has been written on the communist successor parties. Although much of the existent work focuses on the electoral performance of these parties or has described, in great detail, the development of single parties, this paper evaluates the utility of theories of party identity change in application to the successor parties. As an initial exploration we investigate the successor parties' programs before and after the initial competitive parliamentary elections in Hungary (in 1990), Poland (in 1991) and Russia (in 1993) to determine the extent to which poor electoral performance in initial competitive elections compelled the successor parties to alter their political identities.