Polish Collective Memory, The Jedwabne Pogrom inPolish Newspapers 2016-2018

Abstract: This study examines the Cultural Trauma associated with the Jedwabne pogrom, as portrayed in three Polish newspapers. The essay seeks to answer the following questions: How did the chosen three Polish newspapers with varying ideological and political views depict the discussion about the Jedwabne pogrom in their articles in the years 2016-2018? In what ways do these usages and representations reflect or challenge the dominant narratives of Polish national mythology? How has the discussion on Polish antisemitism in relation to the Jedwabne pogrom changed after the conservative Law and Justice party came to power in 2015? The source material used consists of 45 newspaper pieces from Gazeta Wyborcza, Tygodnik Powszechny, and Polonia Christianapublished between 2016-2018. The theory applied was inspired by Barbara Törnquist-Plewa's studies which originate from the theory of Cultural Trauma and Collective Memory and Geneviève Zubrzycki's theory of National Mythology. The method used to analyze the source material could be best described as a qualitative close reading of the sources, where the theory of cultural trauma with its associated diagnosed coping strategies and the perspective of national mythology is used as an analytical lens to highlight how the Jedwabne pogrom discourse is being portrayed intertextually. The study's results found two camps with different stances on the topic concerning the Jedwabne pogrom and Polish antisemitism, namely, the pro-Gross/identity-transformative camp and the anti-Gross/Gross-skeptical camp. The presented two camps used two different strategies concerning the pogrom debate, namely, the politics of shame and the politics of pride, which suggested a laboriously political state of the discourse in the years 2016-2018. The resulting politicization of these two political strategies was explained by their link to cultural trauma responses used by the camps conforming to Törnquist-Plewa's results. The study found that the national myth of Polish messianism was used in the source material. However, it was predominantly used mindfully by the newspaper's authors in an attempt to combat this national myth, which was tied to a cultural trauma response and political usage. The study found that the debate on Polish antisemitism tied to the Jedwabne pogrom has regressed after the Law and Justice party came to power in 2015, as their political meddling with state institutions sabotaged the Polish scholarly debate and effectively polluted the public debate in various scandals