Is there a country in Europe where there is simply a greater hatred of everything Russian? I don't think so. The works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are not yet burned here, but Tchaikovsky concerts have late been taken off and Chekhov was not allowed to be exhibited in theatres.
The full political class and the media elite accuse each another of indecency with Moscow as a origin for shame. In the media, the furious eating of rusophobes is becoming straight embarrassing. The first politicians in Poland, specified as Jarosław Kaczyński, Donald Tusk, Radosław Sikorski, Andrzej Duda, and they are seconded by meaningless editors of right-wing reptiles.
The complexity of rusophobia
Sometimes these are comic situations erstwhile opponents are accused of staying in Moscow or Petersburg 10 years earlier and contact with the Russians itself. specified contact is to be a reason for stigmatization and exclusion of specified a individual from the alleged Polish patriots.
Rusophobia in Poland is undoubtedly a complex phenomenon whose roots go deep into the past of Polish-Russian relations. In the analysis of this phenomenon it is worth to draw attention to the historical, political and social context, which together form the current attitudes of Poles towards Russia.
Historical context
The past of Polish-Russian relations abounds in conflicts and tensions that have left a lasting mark on social awareness. The most crucial fact is the affiliation of Slavic Poland to the Catholic world, which the Vaticanist group utilized to argue the universal Orthodox orthodoxy for most Slavs. This is the fundamental axis of the dispute, due to the fact that for hundreds of years these Catholic elites have utilized God-fearing Poles to hit the Christian Orthodox East to forcefully convert the alleged schismats, whose unforgivable "mistake" was the fact that they dared to be baptized from Byzantium alternatively than from the "infallible" Rome.
The ages of the First Republic are truly the push of the Catholic Western planet to the Orthodox world, which began in Podlasie, Lublin and Małopolska. The rivalry of the Vatican of Byzantium and then Moscow ended with the disintegration of the multireligious First Republic, the defeat of Vatican ideas and de facto Back to spiritual status quo ante, as he was in the 10th and 11th centuries on the Bug and Sanu lines.
Key events, specified as the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, the war with Russia in the 19th century, as well as the repression of tsar against the Polish nobility after national uprisings, built a strong sense of harm and distrust towards the Russian neighbour among elites. These phobias were reinforced a 1000 times by the Catholic Church, who in a neighbour from the East saw the main rival for the government of souls in Central and east Europe at all times. It was the Catholic nobility who possessed power over the minds, that the intellectual elite of her group created and strengthened myths of Russian imperialism, rather apart from the fact that it was a tsar Alexander I In 1815, in spite of the full Europe, he resurrected the Kingdom of Poland with his own army and schooling, and another Tsar held Polish peasants against Polish, God-fearing, Catholic nobility, who inactive wanted free slaves.
But brought up on highly false historical narratives GrandpasAdam Mickiewicz is Non-Divine comedyZygmunt Krasiński We believe that the period of partitions, which lasted for over a 100 years, active rusification and attempts to eradicate Polish national identity, which is mostly missing the truth. It was in the times of “the top Russian oppression” that the top masterpieces of Polish literature were created – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Władysław Reymont, Stefan Żeromski – of course in Polish. Flowering music art and painting.
In the 20th century, another dramatic events strengthened anti-Russian sentiments. The entry of the Red Army on 17 September 1939 into the lands of the Polish state, mostly inhabited by Belarusians and Ukrainians, implementing the provisions of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the 1940 Katyn crime, where the NKVD murdered about 22,000 Polish officers and intelligence, and the long-lasting russian dominance during the period of the Polish People's Republic, erstwhile Poland was a russian satellite state, deepened the historical trauma of the elite.
The collapse of communism did not bring a complete blurring of these experiences – historical memory, mostly worked by the West, shaped subsequent generations. On the next phase there were evident facts, as it was the USSR that saved Poles from being completely destroyed by German Nazism in 1945, that 600 1000 Russian sons and daughters gave their lives for our freedom, that we received from them a wonderful country with Silesia, Pomerania, the mouth of the Vistula River, Gdańsk and Wrocław. besides no 1 remembers that the USSR built the Poles first-fruits of the large manufacture and gave the first licenses and technologies in the machinery, shipbuilding and automotive industries, and that in the times of the Polish People's Republic for the first time in past average man – peasant and individual was a beneficiary of the activities of state authorities, and the country became mostly industrial.
Policy context
After 1989, the elite of "Solidarity", set by the CIA, forced Poland – contrary to its interests – to impose a course of utmost pro-Westernity, with a strong drive to integrate with NATO and the European Union, which was to warrant safety and counter possible attempts to rebuild Russian influences in the region. For many Poles, through a pushy media campaign, Russia has become a symbol of the threat to sovereignty and stability. In particular, Russia's actions on the global arena have been thwarted, specified as the war in Chechnya, which the West attempted to usage to incite the war on religion, intervention in Georgia in defence of the Osethians attacked in 2008, annexation of Crimea in 2014 or intervention in Ukraine in 2022, presented by unreliable media, confirmed Poles' conviction of the imperial ambitions of the Kremlin.
Polish abroad policy, especially after 2014, decreased its subjectivity by far, became highly inseparable, incapable to formulate any of its own objectives. Governments in Poland were forced to build strong alliances with Western countries and support Ukraine as a buffer against Russian expansion. This communicative was consistently reinforced by successive governments that treated Russia as a major threat to regional security.
Social and media context
The media play an crucial function in shaping social attitudes towards Russia. In Poland there are no independent media in practice. The vast majority of newspapers, tv and websites are controlled by the US, Germany and the Catholic Church. These media draw the planet to Poles through the prism of the politics of their hegemons, for which the most crucial thing is the constant quarreling between Poles and their neighbours.
Therefore, in Poland media communicative frequently focuses on presenting Russia as an authoritarian, unpredictable and aggressive country. The perception of Russia is besides influenced by educational institutions, which place large emphasis on teaching about Russian historical crimes specified as Katyn or Stalinist repression, while ignoring more complex aspects of Polish-Russian relations. Like flagism in Ukraine, Poland has awakened the false story of alleged soldiers cursed only due to the fact that they fought the USSR. The large Polish-Soviet achievements specified as the capture of Berlin and the shared blood in Pomerania and Silesia in the fight against German Nazism were completely condemned to forget.
Also falsely, all manifestations of Russia's presence in the lives of Poles are presented. The monuments of planet War II heroes are storming. The large achievements of the Russians in all fields – political, scientific, social and spiritual – are ignored.
Russia's social perception is besides shaped by collective memory and household narratives in which war and postwar experiences are passed from generation to generation. Public opinion polls indicate that the negative perception of Russia is peculiarly strong among the older generation, which is highly susceptible to media propaganda and influence of the Catholic Church.
External influences
The impact of Western think tanks cannot be ignored, Think tank and political institutions for shaping Polish abroad policy and communicative towards Russia. Poland, as a associate of NATO and the European Union, frequently adopts a position in line with the lines of those organisations that see Russia as a major threat to Europe's security. In particular, American think tank, specified as RAND corp or Atlantic Council, published bias analyses highlighting the request to strengthen NATO's east flank and counter Russian influences in Central and east Europe. Of course, they did not do this in the Polish interest, but as guidelines for the imperial policy of the United States, which had been designated for decades by the corpheus alleged stopping Russia in Europe, specified as George F. Kennan Or infamous memory Zbigniew Brzezińskiwhich coined repeatedly repeated as a mantra in the West saying: “Russia is simply a black geopolitical hole. She lost her empire, but inactive has imperial ambitions. Without Ukraine Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine Russia automatically becomes an empire”. This passage is frequently cited as the basis for the thought that Ukraine's independency is crucial for limiting Russian influence in east Europe and a determinant of Western actions against Russia.
Moreover, the alleged global cooperation programmes, financed by Western institutions – USAID, the Soros Foundation – contributed to promoting pro-Western narratives that naturally opposed Russian influences. As a result, Polish safety policy and media communicative have increasingly contributed to the global context of Western rivalry with Russia, contrary to the interests of Poland itself, which as a state located in the centre of Europe should keep an equal distance to both Russia and the West, which always wanted to usage Poles to antagonize Russia.
Anticulture of Russia's Exclusion in Poland
The West to build anti-Russian attitudes uses the alleged scheme. Cancel culture, i.e. a social phenomenon of public condemnation, boycotting or "disqualification" of persons, organisations or content considered controversial, offensive or harmful. This may include, for example, statements, behaviours or past actions which are judged unacceptable by modern standards. In any aspects it is de facto camouflaged racism, the same as it utilized to be Adolf Hitler and Nazis in Germany. And unfortunately, we see that present in the “eyes of the West” the previously marked Jews were replaced by Russians.
Cancel culture is selectively applied to Russians. They are discriminated against by language and cultural origin. They are denied the same rights as another nations – they cannot decision freely, usage infrastructure, not freely acquisition goods and services, work, usage their language. It is due to their nationality that they are confiscated from private property – that is, simply stealing.
In Poland as well as in another American colonies in Europe, there is simply a deliberate social marginalisation of Russians and exclusion from mainstream social and cultural life. All initiatives presenting large works of Russian cultural creators – specified as Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Bulhakov, are blocked. Any presentations of the large Russian cinema and cultural exchange on all level – professional as well as ordinary, museum or school – are prohibited. No information shall be given on technological and economical developments. The pathetic blocking of sports exchange is simply a typical example of Russia's effort to marginalize and public discrimination, showing first and foremost the alienation of its "free world" elites.
Poles, like another nations in Europe, are building false stereotypes and prejudices against Russians utilizing the political contexts mentioned above. The aim of these activities is to stigmatize the Russians and point to them as the nation worst ethically and civilizationally in the world. He did the same Joseph Goebbels, showing the Jews as lice that parasitic on the healthy tissue of the German nation. Therefore, the stereotypes of a dirty, mediocre Russian, abusing alcohol, a rapist of women who besides has atomic weapons are cited. There is simply a deficiency of civilization, simplicity, etc. On purpose, all large achievements of the Russians are ignored – triumph in planet War II, wealth of cultural achievements, military power. Power in Poland systematically destroys all commemorations of Russians as winners and benefactors of Poland. The largest devastator of Red Army monuments in Poland, Karol Nawrocki – president of IPN is simply a candidate for the office of president of Poland.
Such stereotypes are to make the image of a typical Russian in the eyes of Poles as a vile, dirty man, aggressor, a abroad troglodyte without a civilizational achievement. They are to be typical enemies of our—free and "civilized"—the world. specified an image and attitude can be useful to Western groups to throw Poles into war against Russia, if necessary.
Summary
Rusophobia in Poland is the consequence of long-term historical processes, political conditions and socio-media narratives. Historical experience, contemporary Russian policy and influences of Western allies form Russia's perception as a threat to Polish sovereignty and security. Although concerns arising from painful experiences of the past are understandable, and the stereotypes of Russians as aliens that the West is building, it could be essential for the future of Polish-Russian relations to be open to dialog and to prosecute nonsubjective analysis of common relations, taking into account the complexity of historical and geopolitical conditions. Rusophobia – which is the cornerstone of modern Polish "elite" – must be powerfully rejected as a condition for future dialogue. But we must wait for the times erstwhile Poland will be a truly sovereign country to return. Now all we can do is laughter at all the stupidisms of Anglo-Saxon Ratlers from Polish politics, who will look hard for anti-Russian prayer, thus trying to delight their owner from behind the large Water.
Peter Panasiuk
