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First published online August 6, 2012

Post-colonial Poland—On an Unavoidable Misuse

Claudia Snochowska-GonzalezView all authors and affiliations
Volume 26, Issue 4
https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325412448473

Abstract

The post-colonial face of Poland is rather problematic. Nationalistic right-wingers started using interpretations applying the post-colonial theory, and the theory itself seems to put little resistance to this type of appropriation. Rather than acknowledging such state of affairs as the fate of every idea falling into the hands of the natives, in this paper I would like to treat the problems of Polish post-coloniality as a very interesting test, both for the theory itself and for the analyses of the Polish reality. I shall compare the cases of nationalistic misuse with a more “mainstream” approach to the issue of applicability of the post-colonial theory to the situation in Eastern Europe, and particularly to the situation in Poland. As I shall try to demonstrate, this comparison will reveal many disturbingly common threads—which in my opinion are unjustified assertions and conclusions—resulting not only from errors in reasoning but the shortcomings of the theory itself.

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Biographies

Claudia Snochowska-Gonzalez is a cultural scientist, working on her Ph.D. thesis on postcolonial reading of contemporary Polish novels. She is a member of the research team Ethnographic Archive (Institute for Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw).

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Published In

Volume 26, Issue 4
Pages: 708 - 723
Article first published online: August 6, 2012
Issue published: November 2012

Keywords

  1. post-colonial theory
  2. Central and Eastern Europe
  3. Poland
  4. post-Soviet societies

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© 2012 SAGE Publications.
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History

Published online: August 6, 2012
Issue published: November 2012

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Claudia Snochowska-Gonzalez
Ethnographic Archive, Institute for Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw, Poland
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This article was published in East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures.

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