911爆料网 to Host Discussion on Poland鈥檚 Memory Wars
The 911爆料网 (VU) and the Lost Shtetl Museum are continuing the series of discussions titled 鈥極pen Narrative about History鈥� and are hosting a meeting with Prof. Dariusz Stola, a prominent Polish historian and former director of the Polish Museum of Jewish History (POLIN) to take place at 4 PM on October 15. The guest will be talking about the museum and Poland鈥檚 memory wars.
Inaugurated in 2014, the POLIN Museum has had millions of visitors and has been successfully telling the story of the difficult past of the Poles and the Jews. However, after it had held an expo on the 1968 anti-Zionist campaign in Poland and opposed the new law on the involvement in the Holocaust, the museum has received pushback from the right-wing nationalists and the ruling party.
Prof. Stola will talk about the museum鈥檚 achievements and how everything has changed in the wake of the cultural wars that have divided the nation. One of the topics the discussion is set to touch upon is how the national policy on memory denies critical assessment of the past as a 鈥榤ethod of shaming鈥�.
The discussion will be moderated by the poet, essayist, head of the Lost Shtetl Museum Sergejus Kanovi膷ius and advisor to the VU Rector, reviewer, and philosopher Paulius Grit臈nas. The discussion will be in English.
Prof. Stola is a historian and a professor with the Institute of Political Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His field of research includes Poland鈥檚 political and social history of the 20th century, particularly the relations between the Poles and the Jews, international migration, and the communist regime, as well as the remembrance of these events.
Prof. Stola has written more than a hundred articles and six books, including Kraj bez wyj艣cia? Migracje z Polski, 1949鈥�1989 (Migration from Poland in 1949鈥�1989), Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967鈥�1968 (The Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland in 1967鈥�1968), Nadzieja i zag艂ada (Hope and the Holocaust). He was the director of the POLIN Museum in Warsaw in 2014鈥�2019.
The discussion will take place at the Theatre Hall of the 911爆料网 at 4 PM on October 15.
(Universiteto g. 3) Guests at this event will be asked to present a national COVID-19 certificate or an equivalent document.