Dynamika pamięci publicznej. Debata wokół książek Jana Tomasza Grossa a wybrane spory o pamięć zbiorową

Abstract

The contents of collective memory are determined by the public dimension of remembering and forgetting the ‘difficult past’. The dynamics of public memory are determined by public debates, which involve the symbolic elites and during which opposing discourses and knowledge about the past compete with one another. Comparative analysis of the debate in Poland about the books of Jan T. Gross — "Neighbors" (2000), "Fear" (2008) and "Golden Harvest" (2011), which concern Polish-Jewish relations around the time of the Second World War and other major controversies relating to the painful collective memory—allows us to distinguish the mechanisms common to such debates. The most important of these is the personalization of the dispute: the focus on the biography and ethnicity of the author of the controversial text. The Polish debate also displays characteristics that are typical of the discourses of post-communist states and societies with strong Catholic traditions, which impede settlement with the past.