Полското поколение на ’89: между бунта, присмеха и края на историята
Poland's 'Generation of 89': Rebellion, Ridicule and the End of History

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses youth and in particular student youth that came of age in the final years of communist rule in Poland and which actively came to oppose the then regime. While some scholars deny the existence of a specific generational experience and thus the formation of a distinct generation, this article argues the opposite: that the age-cohorts of youth that entered higher education institutions from the mid-1980s had a common socialisation experience and subsequently were forged into a generation through their collective experience of political action, culminating the in period from 1988 to 1989. To this end, the article first explores the socialisation process of the age-cohorts of youth that would constitute the 'generation of 89' from the historical perspective and context of late state socialism in Poland. Secondly, the article presents a discussion of the social movements that characterised the political actions of these youths while also outlining an ideological typology of the youthful oppositional activists of the late 1980s. Finally, the article elaborates on these youths' decisive experience, the generational event, which was constituted by their role in and their experience of the demise of the communist regime in Poland.

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