Ethnic Minority Protection and Anti-discrimination in Central Europe Before and After EU Accession: the Case of Poland
Publisher: ECMI Volume: 21 pages, pdf Description: Ethnic and nationalist politics in contemporary Poland—regardless of whether it concerns attempts to protect ethnic minority citizens or efforts to invoke the Polish nation as a homogenous ethnic community—takes place against the background of a complex and often traumatic history. The brutal ethnic homogenization campaigns that were carried out during World War II, the border shifts and population movements in the immediate post-war period and the frequent use of nationalist rhetoric in the propaganda of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR) during the communist period are some of the important legacies from the twentieth century that have profoundly influenced the ways in which issues of ethnic diversity are being interpreted, experienced and politically expressed in Poland today.