Dissertation national symbols and social change

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE NATIONAL SYMBOLS AND SOCIAL CHANGE: A CASE STUDY OF POLAND A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By MAGDALENA IGIEL Norman, Oklahoma 2014 NATIONAL SYMBOLS AND SOCIAL CHANGE: A CASE STUDY OF POLAND A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION BY ______________________________ Dr. Eric Kramer, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Ioana Cionea ______________________________ Dr. Lisa Foster ______________________________ Dr.

Patrick Meirick ______________________________ Dr. Ralph Beliveau © Copyright by MAGDALENA IGIEL 2014 All Rights Reserved. To my mother, Alicja Igiel ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In this long journey of mine, I had some good company. I would like to acknowledge and thank my committee members.

Special thanks go to my advisor, Dr. Eric Kramer, who has been accompanying me throughout my entire graduate school career. I am thankful for the many conversations we had over the years, some of which have inspired parts of this dissertation. Without family and friends none of this would have happened, so I want to thank everyone who helped along the way.

The love and support of my parents and my sister Agnieszka needs special mention. You mean the world to me. I am also thankful for rediscovering the practice of yoga during my time in Norman, which has been keeping me sane and has brought lasting friendships along the way. Now that this long chapter is over, I am excited to see what the next one will bring.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures…….1 Selecting Poland as a Case Study……………………………………………….2 Semiotics: An Overview.12 Dimensional Accrual and Dissociation Theory……………………………………….29 Nationalism: An Overview …………………………………………………………….33 Theories and Theorists of Nationalism…………………………………………37 Symbolic Representations of Nationalism and Communism………………….50 The Polish Revolution………………………………………………………………….55 National Symbols………………………………………………………………………57 Methodology……………………………………………………………………………61 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………65 The Catholic Church and the Nation under the Cross………………………….65 The Black Madonna of Częstochowa………………………………………….87 The Contested Landscape of the National Stadium…………………….112 v LIST OF FIGURES 1. Mass celebrated outside of gravel pit in September 1998. Photo: PAP/Roman Koszowski……………………………………………………………………. Papal cross in Auschwitz.

Memorial service after plane crash in Smolensk. Photo: Grzegorz Jakublowski/European Pressphoto Agency……………………………………………. Cross and memorabilia in front of Presidential Palace in Warsaw. Photo: Tomasz Gzell/European Pressphoto Agency………………………………………………….

Our Lady of Częstochowa, Jasna Góra, Poland. Icon dating from sixth-ninth century A. Our Lady of Częstochowa, Jasna Góra, Poland. Icon with crown and cover inside sanctuary.

Photo: EAST NEWS……………………………………………………. Procession for the Black Madonna of Częstochowa in the southern town of Poronin, Poland, 1991. Copies of sacred icons travel across the country visiting different locations. Photo: Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba………………………………….100 8: Aerial view of the 10th Anniversary Stadium in the panorama of Warsaw.

Photo: Marek Ostrowski/semper. Photo: Wojciech Traczyk…………………105 10. National Stadium in Warsaw. Photo: Krystian Trela…………………………….108 vi ABSTRACT This study focuses on national symbols and the communicative role they play in social change as it manifests itself in social movements and revolutions.

Symbols in social movements and revolutions play a crucial role in binding people and groups together, allowing them to focus and form a collective consciousness. In order to contextualize such symbols within a specific national community and provide examples, the author chose her native Poland as a case study. The Polish national symbols included in this study are the cross, the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, and the contested landscape of the National Stadium in Warsaw. The framework used in this study to analyze the selected national symbols is Kramer’s theory of dimensional accrual of disassociation and the method is a semiotic analysis.

Based on the discussion of national symbols in Poland, the study offers guidelines for how to recognize what national symbols are and to understand how they can affect social change. vii Introduction Symbols are ubiquitous in human communication since they are communication. Whether it is the utterance of words and usage of language, nonverbal communication, or the presence of artifacts, we witness the conveying of meaning through symbolic expressions all the time. Symbols fall into different categories and are studied by different disciplines, such as cultural anthropology, linguistics, literature, and media studies, to name a few, which have all informed and defined some of the more notable theories of symbols and the study thereof.

Symbols in social movements and revolutions play a crucial role in binding people and groups together, allowing them to focus and form a collective consciousness. Symbols bind people at an emotional level by evoking passion; they go to the roots of identity. Another attribute of symbols is their potential resilience, especially when they emerge from the underground, progressing to victorious and potentially monumental symbols over time. Some monumental symbols are associated with nations, thus becoming national symbols; some are remnants of ancient civilizations that have not necessarily morphed into nations.

The use of symbolism has played a part in mobilizing forces of social movements on an international scale, but this study will mainly focus on symbols that have a national character, providing examples of the communicative nature of national symbols. Although there is some literature that mentions national symbols, primarily nationalism literature, only a few studies have investigated the nature and influence of national symbols (Geisler, 2005; McCrone & McPherson, 2009; Mock, Elgenius, 2011; Mock, 2012). There are a variety of studies that revolve around different kinds of symbols and symbolism, but 1 “national symbolism is set apart from other types of symbolism by its reference to the nation, its claims to a specific history, sovereignty and distinctiveness” (Elgenius, 2011, p. Also, the studies referenced above had different goals than the one proposed here.

Two of the four studies referenced above discuss the role national symbols have in the construction of national identity (Geisler, 2005; Mock, 2012), one discusses national symbols as constructing and mobilizing national identity (McCrone & McPherson, 2009), and another one focuses on nation building qualities of national symbols (Elgenius, 2011). Studies of national symbols usually focus on national flags, national days, and national anthems. This study focuses on symbols that are not directly tied to the nation as a state, but more to the nation as an ethno-cultural community. In order to contextualize such symbols within a specific national community and provide examples of their communicative role, the author chose her native Poland as a case study.

The reason for choosing ethno-cultural aspects of nationhood in this case study is justified by Poland’s continuous existence as a nation even when its geopolitical existence as nation-state was disrupted several times. Selecting Poland as a Case Study The rationale for choosing Poland as a case study is its culture of resistance throughout history, a mechanism that seems to have been holding this European country together in a long string of events that aimed for the opposite. Poland has been subjected to three partitions, with the longest one taking it off the political map for 123 years, as well as attacks and occupation during the two World Wars which culminated in an oppressive rule by the communist regime. That is not to say that Poland has always been in the victim’s role, characterized as a “crucified nation” (Davies, 2008, p.

2 11), an image that is also used at times by some Poles who do not accept Poland’s role in the massacres in Jedwabne during World War II, for instance (Polonsky & Michlic, 2004). However, Poland lends itself as a case study to this particular research on national symbols and social change since it is a country and a culture that despite its differences at times, seems to have a curious sense of patriotic solidarity that allowed it to fight its oppressors and recover from its wounds. That sense of patriotism, national consciousness, pride, and solidarity is at the core of Poland’s culture and identity. Poland’s triple disappearance and return to the political map is speaking to its cultural resistance and memory as a nation without a state throughout history, as does the peaceful Solidarity movement to the nature of revolutions.

Zubrzycki (2006) notes the lack of studies of Polish nationalism in sociology, which is of importance here as the author of this study focuses on social processes and consequences as well. Polish nationalism, despite its richness and complexity, has received relatively little attention in the field [of sociology]. Few studies are devoted to the Polish case, and even fewer focus on the post-Communist period, despite the massive geopolitical import of this transition…the great majority of works on Polish nationalism focus on political philosophy and Polish nationalism’s ideological roots…To date, there exists no book-length study of nationalism and religion in Poland, or of nationalism in post-Communist Poland. 28-29) Furthermore, what makes Poland interesting as a case study for nationalism has been aptly observed by Ash (2002), when referring to the “Partitions” in 1772, 1793 and 1795: “Poland disappeared from the map of Europe as an independent state for the next one hundred and twenty-three years.

But it refused to disappear as a nation” (p. Poland’s continuous fight for independence throughout history is quite remarkable, leading to “one of the basic components of Polish culture and helped to create a national mythology that glorified struggle, self-sacrifice, and death in the cause of the 3 homeland” (Paczkowski, 2003, p. The national sentiment that did not erupt in violence during the last social movement was significant in leading up to the demise of communism. Poland has been often times described as an anomaly among the former Soviet satellite states.

The Polish situation had its own peculiar features. In the 1970s the Polish opposition shared with other Eastern European oppositional movements a common disability—it could not express itself through open political channels (political parties, clubs, or trade unions). Yet the intensity of social activism in Poland, including underground political debates, clandestine publications, and independent ceremonies and demonstrations far surpassed anything created in other Eastern European countries. Having been unable to practice politics, Polish oppositionists often chose to express themselves through the “cultural” medium of symbolic public actions.

6) In addition to the historical and socio-political factors that demonstrate the unique nature of this case study, the author of this study is a native of Poland who speaks the language, thus having access to materials that have not been translated from Polish. The author has also been living in Poland during the latter part of Solidarity’s activism (1980-1989) as well as visited her native country following the events of 1989. Based on this case study, the author discusses directions and implications for the study of national symbols and social change that can be applied to other contexts. To understand the significance of national symbols in any given nation, the identity of that nation has to be examined.

The identity of a collective, such as that of a nation, is shaped by symbols, sometimes referred to as cultural artifacts, which fundamentally contribute to the narratives of a nation’s memory. The word monument has its origin in the Latin form of monere, which means “to remind” or “to warn.” Hence the resilience of monumental symbols, amongst others, the meaning of which is stored in the memory of a collective. This idea of a symbol system, and the meaning of 4 those symbols being stored in memory have been interpreted in various ways. The interpretive lens used in this study to discern some of the logic behind the patterns of national symbolism and to unveil the structures that contribute to the occurrence and meaning thereof is the field of semiotics, which is discussed in more detail in the next section as well as in the methodology section.

Semiotics: An Overview This study is a semiotic analysis conjoined with a hermeneutics of national symbols in Poland. This section serves as an overview of why semiotics is a fitting methodology for the present study, and to introduce several semiotic concepts that are pertinent to this study. Although semiotics has been described as mostly theoretical, semioticians have tried to establish and designate codes and conventions that would classify and organize signs in a more systematic manner.