Polish Memory Laws and Historical Identity in Europe: Analysing the Defence of 'Disinformation'
21 Pages Posted: 10 Jan 2020
Date Written: November 19, 2019
Abstract
This working paper focuses on the growing body of Polish memory laws, including the 2016 ‘Street De-Communization' Law and especially the 2018 Law on historical expression that introduced changes to the Act of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. The analysis first reconstructs evolution and current legal governance of historical identity in Europe, to further investigate how the recent Polish memory laws stand vis-à-vis general standards on memory regulation in the Council of Europe and the European Union. The analysis further zooms in on, in particular, the ‘Jewish’ and ‘Ukrainian’ components of the 2018 Polish memory law, putting this legislation into the wider context of 'memory wars' through memory laws in Central and Eastern Europe. The examination concludes that there is a discrepancy between the rationale to adopt this legislation in Poland, namely to counteract historical disinformation, and the legal solutions contained in the 2018 Law.
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