Toppling Monuments, Constructing Museums: Political Repurposing of Wartime Memory in Post-Communist Poland

Abstract

This paper examines how museums have increasingly supplanted the function of monuments as dominant sites of memory (lieux de mémoire), using Poland as a case study. It argues that while monuments have historically played a central role in nation-building and shaping collective memory of a painful past, museums now offer a more flexible and sophisticated platform through which political actors can curate historical narratives that reinforce their present agendas. Through a comparative analysis of instructive Polish monuments and two museums— the Warsaw Rising Museum and the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk—this study explores how the development of memory institutions reflects the evolving historical onsciousness of post-Communist Poland. Particular attention is given to the role of Poland’s conservative party, Law and Justice (PiS), in using museums’ immersive and interactive elements to advance a patriotic and often revisionist account of Polish WWII memory. By contrasting these trends with international examples, such as Kyiv’s publicly praised National WWII Museum, the paper highlights how museums are uniquely powerful—and politically contested—tools of memory. The findings raise broader questions about how political actors across the spectrum utilize memory institutions to shape national identity and serve its present interests in the 21st century. It also calls for future research into the impact of museal narratives on public historical understanding, and the impact of conservatism in museum curation.