This texts are the result of from the book Hourras et désarrois. [Hurrahs and Turmoils] Scenes of a Cultural War in Poland published on 16 May 2019 by Éditions Noir sur Blanc (Lausanne) edited by Agnieszka Żuk.
What is the root of the political events which are today shaking Polish society and echoing across Europe: refusal to accept migrants, a proposed historical memory law on the Shoah, introduction of laws which affect the independence of the judiciary or the attempt to totally ban IVF, to name but the most widely publicised issues? And finally, how does one explain the causes of the anti-European volte-face which the “European Union’s best student” has performed?
The aim of this collective work is to bring an in-depth, nuanced and intimate view of contemporary Poland, through its culture, understood here to mean the entirety of ways of thinking, feeling and acting specific to a given society. Current events of recent years appear here within a complex network of narratives and historical omissions, traumas and pressures; they are confronted with existing cultural models, immersed in the collective imagination, defused by humour or distorted by stereotypes.
The authors include: Agata Adamiecka, Przemysław Czapliński, Olga Drenda, Agnieszka Graff, Mikołaj Grynberg, Maciej Jakubowiak, Dariusz Kosiński, Iwona Kurz, Andrzej Leder, Jan Sowa, Aleksandra Małecka, Piotr Marecki, Karol Sienkiewicz, Kaja Puto, Maja Staśko, Stach Szabłowski, Ziemowit Szczerek and Oksana Zabuzko.
