The presentation discusses the process of establishing a symbolic definition of contemporary Polish statehood in the post-1989 official memory. Based on the analysis of the memory struggle over the National Independence Day – one that occurred in the Polish parliament in the late 1990s – the presentation shows how the post-Solidarity camp, which promoted the anti-communist definition of statehood based on the the symbolization of the nation over the state and full criminalization of post-war state socialism, dismantled and symbolically annulled the alternative definition that was developed by the post-communist camp and based on the symbolization of the state over the nation and the partial approval of state socialism. The article demonstrates how the post-Solidarity camp reframed the nation-state in such a way as to establish their own vision as the only legitimate definition of the statehood in Polish official memory.
