|
|
'The Holocaust Law' and the defence of Polish history under the PiS government
Marková, Lucie ; Šmidrkal, Václav (advisor) ; Kochnowski, Roman (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to describe two central narratives of the Holocaust in the collective memory of Poland on the example of the clash of these narratives in one of the biggest debates in Polish history, triggered by the publication of Jan Tomasz Gross's book Neighbours in 2000. The first attempt to focus legislatively on those who do not follow the official narrative of the past of the Holocaust, was the creation of "Lex Gross" in 2006 during the first period of the reign of the right-wing conservative political party PiS. In 2018, the proposed legislation was elaborated into an Amendment to the Act on the IPN, known as "Holocaust Law" which had provoked a great controversy. The aim of this one-case study of the amendment is to present the motives for the amendment and explain the controversy it provoked within the framework of politics of memory of PiS. The amendment is interpreted in the context of different narratives of Holocaust, so-called memory wars - that means in the collective memories of the national states on the one hand, and of transnational acteurs on the other. Thus, memory may become the subject of populism, which heralds the disintegration of the neoliberal consensus.
|
guest ::
