Postcolonial Europe

On Democracy, or post-colonial aspects of the discourses in Fourth Republic of Poland

Janusz Korek

For about two years, the language of the new authorities has been constituting in Poland, made up by the comments of Jarosław Kaczyński, Chairman of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, and enunciations of the most important state officials and experts loyal to the ruling party, members of parliament, senators, Catholic church authorities and journalists who support the idea of the so-called “Good Change.” Many important, sometimes controversial words spoken by the representatives of the ruling camp appeal or directly concern democracy, its principles of operation or legitimacy. Due to the specificity, repetitive nature and regularity of these state- ments, one may speak of the formation of a “PiS-style democracy” discourse. The main rules of its formation are imposed by the chairman and ideologist of the ruling party and its programming documents. The presented article is therefore based primarily on statements made by the Chairman of Law and Justice and on the party’s official programme. The starting point is the hypothesis that the PiS-style democracy discourse and discourse formations in the Fourth Republic of Poland analysed in the article do not only recall or paraphrase slogans dating back to the Polish People’s Republic, but they also use cognitive categories, thought patterns and reasoning in line with the discourses imposed on Poles by the Soviets in the PPR era.

Seeking the Authentic: Polish Culture and the Nature of Postcolonial Theory

Stanley Bill

The notion of postcolonial theory has been floating around the Polish intellectual scene for the last ten years like a colorful balloon that nobody can ever quite capture or claim. Given the country’s experience of foreign occupation and domination throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – and an earlier quasi-colonial history of its own in present-day Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine – postcolonial theory seems at first glance to open some intriguing possibilities in Polish historical, political, sociological, cultural and literary studies. Indeed, various scholars in all these fields have advocated a turn towards it, though the discussion has generally failed to advance far beyond repeated prefatory remarks and prolegomena. Postcolonial theory in Poland increasingly resembles an unrealized possibility that has somehow already exhausted its creative potential – a stillborn theory.

Jerzy Stempowski, or how Poles should have bid Farewell to Ukraine

Janusz Korek

Jerzy Stempowski was one of the closest collaborators of Jerzy Giedroyc, editor of the Paris monthly Kultura, from the time of the journal’s inception, and had a serious influence on its political standpoint.[1] As an author publishing on its pages, he co-created the particular profile of the journal and his texts became a crucial component of Kultura’s“Eastern European” discourse. It’s worth reminding ourselves that for a long time he occupied fourth position in the list of Kultura’smost frequently published authors.[2] Commissioned by Giedroyc, he wrote various kinds of text—from essays and reportages, reviews and verdicts of literary awards, to commentaries on current political affairs. He signed himself not only with his own name, but also with pseudonyms: “The Unhurried Passerby” (“Nieśpieszny przechodzień”), Paweł Hostowiec or Leon Furatyk.

Book Review: “Internal Colonization. Russia’s Imperial Experience”

Madina Tlostanova

Alexander Etkind’s works are well known both to Russian readers and to Slavists in Europe and the US. In this present, ambitious and controversial project, Etkind attempts to enrich postcolonial theory with new concepts by introducing the Russian imperial experience into the postcolonial scope rather than simply applying postcolonial theoretical constructs to the analysis of the Russian context. The reader will know the purport of Etkind’s approach to the problem of the Russian empire from his previous publications [Etkind 2001, 2003].

A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space

Radim Hladík

Few historical events have affected social theory as much as the end of the Cold War. Almost overnight, an entire tradition of thought grounded in Marxism-Leninism, the official paradigm in the social sciences and the humanities in the state-socialist bloc,disappeared. The legitimacy of Marxism of various strands around the globe also suffered. Even less politicized disciplines, from literature to economics, had to reevaluate their hitherto well-established concepts. The once politically supported and burgeoning Sovietology was converted from a political science into a historical discipline.

Stefan Żeromski’s "Ashes" as a Postcolonial Narrative

Ewa Thompson

During a trip to Poland in the 1970s I visited the headquarters of Tygodnik Powszechny in Kraków. Its editor, Jerzy Turowicz, proudly displayed in his office a portrait of Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and Hungary. From our conversation I learned that he was a great admirer of the Emperor. According to him, under the reign of the Habsburgs Kraków was a truly international city, and its artistic and intellectual life was flourishing.

Russian Projects of Europeanism and the Polish Factor (from the Middle Ages to the Age of Nationalisms)

Alexander V. Lipatov

The historical paths followed by Poles and Russians towards Europe-from a common geographical space (as it appeared in Antiquity) to a common civilizational space (which took shape as various ethnic groups adopted the universal values of Christianity) were distinctly different. And it was this that determined the particularity both of the way in which they expressed universal cultural values and the way in which they understood their own identity as offshoots of those values, thus influencing the notions they had of each other as neighbours.

Western ‘Eurasianism’ and the ‘New Eastern Europe’: Discourse of Exclusion*

Mykola Riabchuk

The term ‘Eurasia’ has many meanings but all of them can be subsumed under two main rubrics. The first is purely geographical, referring to a formidable landmass stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and considering Europe and Asia as a single continental entity, with a former as a peninsula of the latter. The second meaning is much more versatile but in all its multi-facet representations it refers typically to a Greater Russia, to some space dominated historically by the Russian Empire and its Soviet (and post-Soviet) reincarnation.

The Discourse of Europe and the Search for a European Identity

Hayden White

The current „discourse of Europe” features an effort to „identify” a Europe that is good and noble, capable of serving as a spiritual basis for a new and (let us not fear the term) post-modernist economic system based on consumerism, multinational capitalism, and commitment to what is euphemistically called „the free market”.

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Page 1 of 2

Postcolonial Europe

On Democracy, or post-colonial aspects of the discourses in Fourth Republic of Poland

Seeking the Authentic: Polish Culture and the Nature of Postcolonial Theory

Jerzy Stempowski, or how Poles should have bid Farewell to Ukraine

Book Review: “Internal Colonization. Russia’s Imperial Experience”

A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space

Stefan Żeromski’s "Ashes" as a Postcolonial Narrative

Russian Projects of Europeanism and the Polish Factor (from the Middle Ages to the Age of Nationalisms)

Western ‘Eurasianism’ and the ‘New Eastern Europe’: Discourse of Exclusion*

The Discourse of Europe and the Search for a European Identity

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