Pop pod flagą biało-czerwoną
Pop Under The White-Red Flag

Summary/Abstract: The article examines some national topics, figures, and events which occur in and influence popular culture. Frequently, one does not see pop culture in a global perspective, but only in its local versions and varieties. Thus, the question arises whether the diversification of models of culture may bring into existence individual "national pop cultures." The author cites some examples from rock music, comic strips, and fiction to present various manifestations of ethnic and national elements in Polish pop culture. The rock group Lao Che, for example, makes references to the Warsaw Uprising and induces contemporary young Poles to reflect on their generational experience and ties. Hagiographers of such historical figures as John Paul II and Rev. Jerzy Popieluszko, comic book authors demythologize their subjects. Authors of pop fiction create pictures of Poland as a superpower. The author believes that in this way a permanent complex of "defensive imagination", passiveness and defensiveness, is revealed in the Polish mentality. The sphere of "national pop culture" needs further research, both concerning symbolic culture and the practices of every day life (only mentioned in the article).

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