Historical awareness in social media. A case study of Polish historical policy

The following paper discusses the issue of the historical policy of Polish authorities in the area of social media. In the last few years, narratives about the past in the perspective of historical policy have been becoming an ever more important part of social lives, especially when they become a field of struggle between conflicted nations. The main hypothesis is whether historical policy narratives in Poland are built upon ahistorical thinking and its categories such myths and archetypes. The auxiliary questions concentrate on the context of those narratives as the authors propose three models for the historical policy roles – areas where historical policy adopted already existing narratives, those which are antagonised, and a “new” one that did not previously exist in social media. In the end, the authors conclude that ahistorical thinking is still dominant in Polish society and social media have become a new tool for political propaganda in the area of history