Le crime de Katyn dans la conscience nationale des Polonais

The crime of Katyn in the Poles' national conscience, Aleksander Achmatowicz. The massacre of 15,000 Polish officers by the Soviets in the Spring of 1940 long remained a taboo subject for the Polish government, which accepted the Soviet official version. According to Moscow, the crime had been commited by the Nazi military. From the date of the crime to the beginning of perestroïka, in spite of hesitant attempts in Poland to establish the truth, only a few Western works dealt with the issue, vigorously censored by the Polish and Russian authorities from the 1940s to the end of the 1970s. The size of Solidarnosc brought about the beginning of the failure of the 35-year attempts to falsify history to protect the communist regime. The reesta-blishing of the truth about Katyn played an important role in the awakening of the Polish conscience. Demands for the erection of a monument to the memory of the victimes bearing the origin of the assassins helped the assertion of the Polish opposition in its quest for identity.Achmatowicz Aleksander. Le crime de Katyn dans la conscience nationale des Polonais. In: Vingtième Siècle, revue d'histoire, n°31, juillet-septembre 1991. pp. 3-24