Negative Memory: Communism and the Perpetrators
Negative Memory: Communism and the Perpetrators

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the question of the perpetrators in the context of the communism studies in Poland. The author examines the possibility of applying this category in the context of the studies on the Peoples’ Republic of Poland. The main thesis is based on the conviction that Polish public discourse after 1989 has stressed the question of the victim and silenced that of the perpetrator in the anti-communist narratives. The question of the perpetrator is closely connected to the problem of violence, not only physical but also psychic or institutional. Opening the discourse on perpetrators can, according to the author, contribute to more diversified representations of the past era, where both the perspective and the trauma of victims and perpetrators will be equally addressed.

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