POLISH WAR MOVIES AS A CASE STUDY OF THE MYTH OF THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW STATEHOOD AS THE LEGITIMIST CATEGORY IN THE POLISH PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

Abstract

This article attempts to reconstruct the mythology surrounding the beginnings of state-hood of the Polish People’s Republic after the Second World War. As the means of conveying political propaganda, myths were primarily propagated in the Polish war movies of the period 1956 through 1989. The myth pertaining to the origin of statehood aimed to legitimize the roots of the communist system in Poland. As such, it is the part of a broader mythology which had developed over centuries in the national consciousness, the “myth of Polish statehood. It was used by the communists as propaganda after the Second World War. Its other mythological components include: permanence, reference to tradition and nationalism. Its main elements are: the portraying of the beginning of statehood as a drama, the myth of the army as an institution and the myth of the soldier as a charismatic figure, the myth of Western and Northern territories and the myth of Bieszczady mountains as the new Polish Eastern Borderlands, the myth of the lost patriot hero, the myth of the folk hero and the myth of widespread support for the new state authorities in years 1944-1947. It is important to note the attempts to connect the nationalistic (anti-German and anti-Ukrainian) threads with the elements of military ethos. It appears that after 1956 the current socialist realism was replaced by the myths of the beginning and the military ethics.