HISTORY POLICY OF THE POLISH RIGHT-WING FORCES (2015 – 2023) IN SCHOLARLY INTERPRETATIONS

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify the main approaches that have emerged in the professional literature regarding interpretations of the history policy pursued by Poland’s ruling “Law and Justiceˮ Party (and supported by its political partners and ideological sympathisers in civil society) in 2015 – 2023. The research methodology is based on the methods of intellectual history, historiographical analysis, and historiographical synthesis. Scientific Novelty. For the first time, an array of scientific literature devoted to understanding the history policies of the Polish right-wing forces during their dominance in the Polish political life has been analysed. This provides a basis for a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon as a factor in the country’s socio-political life and its international relations. Conclusions. A distinctive feature of professional research into the history policy of the Polish Right is the interdisciplinary nature of the studies, which provokes interest in its various aspects and manifestations. In the social sciences and humanities, its essence has generally been interpreted as a typical right-wing and conservative discourse, grounded in sentiments widespread among the Polish intellectual and cultural elite and in the Polish society at large – namely, a nostalgia for a “true Polandˮ allegedly lost as a result of communist and post-communist history amnesia. Professional literature convincingly argues that right-wing politicians and their supporters in various social groups actively promoted the “Polish viewˮ of history for reasons of both social appeal and political expediency. The desire to establish the Right agenda led to the intensification of official history policy and a transfer of its main efforts to the most ‘pain’ points of Poland’s past, which was relatively successful in terms of political instrumentalisation. It has been also identified that there was a lack of serious opposition to the “right-wingˮ turn among the traditionally influential circle of intellectuals who advocate the establishment of a European model and practices of historical memory in Poland. Overall, the contemporary social sciences and humanities have produced analytical works on the most significant issues of the right-wing government’s history policy during its time in power in Poland from 2015 to 2023. In view of this, it is timely to conduct synthetic studies on the issue.

Key words: history policy, Poland, “Law and Justiceˮ Party, scientific reception, historical memory.