The Heroic 90s: The Triumph of the Polish Intelligentsia after 1989 and its Legitimization by Historical Discourses

• In Event: Between Democracy and Chaos: The 1990s in Political and Cultural Memory in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Although the 1990s in Poland can be considered a very turbulent period, they are now mostly presented positively in public discourse. Even if the problematic dimensions of this period are recognized, it is believed that it was Poland's path in the right direction, towards prosperity and integration with the Western world, towards the supposedly ongoing "golden age of Poland." Radical critics of the 1990s, whether from the right or the left, are in the minority. Systematic academic criticism of the period is also a marginal phenomenon in Poland. In my paper, I will present an interpretation of this state of affairs, which will be based on the assumption of the intelligentsia hegemony, which, as I will be arguing was fully reinstated in 1989. This resulted in the idealization of the 1990s, which marginalized critical perspectives, particularly in the economic dimension (both in terms of national inequalities and international dependencies).

Author

• Tomasz Zarycki, U of Warsaw (Poland)