The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecution service components exercising investigative, prosecution and lustration powers. The IPN was established by the Polish parliament by the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance of 18 December 1998 through reforming and expanding the earlier Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation of 1991, which itself had replaced a body on Nazi crimes established in 1945.
The Polish People's Republic was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern-day Republic of Poland. From 1947 to 1952 it was known as the Republic of Poland, and it was also often simply known as Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million near the end of its existence, it was the second most-populous communist and Eastern Bloc country in Europe. A unitary state with a Marxist–Leninist government, it was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact alliance. The largest city and official capital since 1947 was Warsaw, followed by the industrial city of Łódź
In German culture, Ostalgie is nostalgia for aspects of life in Communist East Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German words Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). Its anglicised equivalent, ostalgia, is also sometimes used. Another term for the phenomenon is GDR nostalgia
Wanda Wasilewska, also known by her Russian name Vanda Lvovna Vasilevskaya, was a Polish and Soviet novelist and journalist and a left-wing political activist. She was a socialist who became also a devoted communist. She fled the German attack on Warsaw in September 1939 and took up residence in Soviet-occupied Lviv and eventually in the Soviet Union. She was the founder of the Union of Polish Patriots there and played an important role in the creation of the 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division. The division developed into the Polish People's Army and fought on the Eastern Front during World War II. Wasilewska was a trusted consultant to Joseph Stalin and her influence was essential to the establishment of the Polish Committee of National Liberation in July 1944 and to the formation of the Polish People's Republic.
Józef Adam Zygmunt Cyrankiewicz was a Polish Socialist (PPS) and after 1948 Communist politician. He served as premier of the Polish People's Republic between 1947 and 1952, and again for 16 years between 1954 and 1970. He also served as Chairman of the Polish Council of State from 1970 to 1972.
The Balcerowicz Plan, also termed "Shock Therapy", was a method for rapidly transitioning from an economy based on state ownership and central planning, to a capitalist market economy. A group of experts, which they formed together with Balcerowicz, including Dr. Stanisław Gomułka, Dr. Stefan Kawalec and Dr. Wojciech Misiąg, in September 1989 created a reform plan based on an earlier idea of prof. Jeffrey Sachs, and on October 6, an outline of this plan was presented to the public by Balcerowicz at a press conference broadcast by TVP.
Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party and the publicist Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) were important early Polish Marxists.
Yugo-nostalgia is an emotional longing for the former country of Yugoslavia which is experienced by some people in its successor countries: the present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Slovenia. It is a political and cultural phenomenon that includes nostalgia for a time past when the splintered states were a part of one country, grief over the war that tore it apart, and a desire to again unite. Self-described "Yugo-nostalgics" may assert their grief at the failure of brotherly love, unity, and coexistence, and their distress at division and nationalism, or they may assert that their quality of life was better in Yugoslavia.
A bar mleczny is a Polish cafeteria which during the Communist era provided government-subsidized traditional Polish cuisine at low cost. The name comes from cheese cutlets, which were often sold when meat was rare.
Żydokomuna is an anti-communist and antisemitic canard, or a pejorative stereotype, suggesting that most Jews collaborated with the Soviet Union in importing communism into Poland, or that there was an exclusively Jewish conspiracy to do so. A Polish language term for "Jewish Bolshevism", or more literally "Jewish communism", Żydokomuna is related to the "Jewish world conspiracy" myth.
Lustration in Poland refers to the policy of limiting the participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police, in the successor governments or even in civil service positions. Lustration, "cleansing", derives from Latin lustratio, a Roman purification ceremony. The first lustration bill was passed by the Polish Parliament already in 1992, but it was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland. Several other projects were then submitted and reviewed by a dedicated commission, resulting in a new lustration law passed in 1996.
Censorship in Communist Poland was primarily performed by the Polish Main Office of Control of Press, Publications and Shows, a governmental institution created in 1946 by the pro-Soviet Provisional Government of National Unity with Stalin's approval and backing, and renamed in 1981 as the Główny Urząd Kontroli Publikacji i Widowisk (GUKPiW). The bureau was liquidated after the fall of communism in Poland, in April 1990.
The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism was a declaration which was initiated by the Czech government and signed on 3 June 2008 by prominent European politicians, former political prisoners and historians, among them former Czech President Václav Havel and future German President Joachim Gauck, calling for "Europe-wide condemnation of, and education about, the crimes of communism." Much of the content of the declaration reproduced demands formulated by the European People's Party in 2004, and draws heavily on the theory or conception of totalitarianism.
A Polish passport is an international travel document issued to nationals of Poland, and may also serve as proof of Polish citizenship. Besides enabling the bearer to travel internationally and serving as indication of Polish citizenship, the passport facilitates the process of securing assistance from Polish consular officials abroad or other European Union member states in case a Polish consular is absent, if needed.
Kristen Rogheh Ghodsee is an American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is primarily known for her ethnographic work on post-Communist Bulgaria as well as being a contributor to the field of postsocialist gender studies.
The Platform of European Memory and Conscience is an educational project of the European Union bringing together government institutions and NGOs from EU countries active in research, documentation, awareness raising and education about the crimes of totalitarian regimes. Its membership includes 68 government agencies and NGOs from 15 EU member states and 8 non-EU countries including Ukraine, Albania, Georgia, Iceland, Moldova, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Its members include the Institute of National Remembrance, the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, the Stasi Records Agency and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. The platform has offices in Prague and Brussels (formerly). The President of the platform is Łukasz Kamiński, former President of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties, commonly known as Cominform, was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the Communist International. The Cominform was dissolved during de-Stalinization in 1956.
The social phenomenon of nostalgia for the era of the Soviet Union, can include its politics, its society, its culture and cultural artifacts, its superpower status, or simply its aesthetics.
Communist nostalgia, also called communism nostalgia or socialist nostalgia, is the nostalgia in various post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and Russia for the prior communist states.
The dissident movement in the Polish People's Republic was a political movement in the Polish People's Republic whose aim was to change the political system from unitary Marxist–Leninist government imposed by the USSR to democratic form of government.
