Rethinking History, Reframing Identity : Memory, Generations, and the Dynamics of National Identity in Poland

Annotation This book contributes to the theoretical and methodological discussion about how the diverging experiences of generations and their historical memories play a role in the process of national identity formation. Drawing from narratives gathered within the Ukrainian minority in northern Poland and centered on the collective trauma of Action Vistula, where in 1947 about 140,000 Ukrainians were resettled from south-eastern Poland and relocated to the north-western areas, this study shows that three generations vary considerably with regard to their understandings of home, integration, history and religion. Thus, generational differences are an essential element in the analysis and understanding of social and political change. The findings of this study provide a contribution to debates about the process based nature of national identity, the role of trauma in creating generational consciousness and how generations should be conceptualized Front Matter....Pages 1-13 Introduction: National Identity in Eastern Europe after Communism....Pages 15-29 Front Matter....Pages 31-31 National Identity as a Process....Pages 33-51 The Life Course and Social Change....Pages 53-67 Methodology....Pages 69-94 Front Matter....Pages 95-95 The Ukrainians in Poland: Social Structure and History....Pages 97-120 Homeland and Belonging as Factors of National Identity....Pages 121-160 Overcoming the Past: Experience, Memory and the Present....Pages 161-196 Talking about Identity and Prejudices: Interweaving Sameness and Otherness....Pages 197-242 Religion, Language and Traditions in Everyday Life....Pages 243-300 Conclusions: Explaining Heterogeneity in National Identity by Means of Generational Change....Pages 301-324 Back Matter....Pages 325-347