“You need to speak Polish”. Antony Polonsky interviewed by Konrad Matyjaszek
“You need to speak Polish”. Antony Polonsky interviewed by Konrad Matyjaszek

Summary/Abstract: The interview with Antony Polonsky focuses on the history of Polish-Jewish studies as a research field, analyzed from the time of its initiation at the turn of the 1980s until year 2014. Antony Polonsky is the chief historian of the main exhibition of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, as well as the editor-in-chief of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, a yearly research journal. He is also a co-founder of the frst research institutions focused of the field of Polish-Jewish studies, and a co-initiator of the frst academic events in this field. In the conversation, Polonsky discusses the context of the creation of the Polin Museum’s main exhibition, including the impact of politics on this exhibition’s final form. Afterwards, he recounts the history of the beginnings of Polish-Jewish studies, including the Orchard Lake meeting (1979) and the conference at Columbia University (1983). Polonsky gives a detailed account of the course and the outcomes of the Polish-Jewish studies conference in Oxford in 1984, which he co-organized. He also analyses the 1980s Polish political opposition circles’ reactions to the presence of anti-Semitic narratives in the opposition’s discourse. The last section of the conversation focuses on the presence within the field of Polish-Jewish studies of narratives that are apologetic towards the Polish nationalist discourse.

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