Authors

Claudia Snochowska-Gonzalez¹;  ¹ Instytut Slawistyki PAN, Poland

Discussion

The ways of understanding the concepts characteristic of integral, radical, volkist nationalisms still occupy a hegemonic position in Poland. This certainly applies to the concept of nation, which has not changed despite numerous political transformations. In my presentation, I will show this using the example of the anthropologist Jan Czekanowski, who began his career as a participant in the Deutsche Zentral-Afrika Expedition in the early 20th century, and after Poland regained independence, he continued it at the University of Lviv (then belonging to Poland), where he became the creator of the so-called Lviv School of Anthropology, using methods of mathematical statistics for racial research and adapting racial science to the needs of the reborn Polish state. Surprisingly, Czekanowski's career was not interrupted by the change of political system after the end of World War II: his claims began to serve to prove the eternal Polishness of the so-called Recovered Territories. The concepts used by Czekanowski, among others, and originating from the nationalist/racist dictionary, have not been subjected to public debate and discredited to this day, and thus the desired disruption or break has not occurred in this case. These concepts still appear in everyday language, in politics, in the way the world is understood in Poland. In my paper, I want to consider why this is happening and whether it can change.