Politics of history on the screen: unveiling the continuity of myths in Polish state-endorsed cinema

Abstract

This thesis examines cinematic portrayals of the Warsaw Uprising in historical fiction films endorsed by two ideologically divergent regimes: the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) and the Law and Justice Party (PiS). Both regimes advanced conflicting memory of Polish history, tailoring the discourses to align with their respective ideological agendas by focalizing or silencing some pages of history. However, through a comparative analysis of films endorsed by the regimes, this thesis argues that the PZPR and PiS followed the same template in constructing their memory narratives that framed Poland as a nation of exceptional heroism and martyrdom, and justified an uncritical approach to politics of history. This thesis analyzes cinematic narratives presented in films about the Warsaw Uprising—a traumatic historical event that was marked by “blank spots” in the official memory during the People’s Republic of Poland but became an widely commemorated and glorified event, emblematic of Polish collective identity under PiS-led politics of history. A cinematic discourse analysis of six state-endorsed productions (five feature films and one episode from a popular television series released between the 1950s-1970s and the 2010s) was conducted to identify, decode, and interpret memory narratives and depictions of heroism using elements of the dominant Polish myth. The interpretation of the cinematic renderings of the Uprising relied on concepts of collective identity, national myths and schematic narrative templates, and considered the ideological, social and political contexts in which the films were produced. The research demonstrates that, while introducing some critical reflections and “remembering” the Uprising differently, the state-enforsed films produced under both regimes build their narratives on the dominant myth of Poland being “Christ Among Nations”. Ultimately, this thesis seeks to understand why seemingly ideologically divergent political regimes deploy similar narrative strategies.