A Study Of Change Of Polish Attitude Towards Russia Over The Katyn Issue: Analyzing The Role Of Securitization In The Context Of Poland's EU Integration

The issue of Katyn massacre in Polish-Russian relations can be understood as a long-standing discussion about the responsibility of the former USSR for the series of executions of Polish citizens made by the Soviet Special Forces in April-March,1940.The Katyn issue during period of 2005-2007,which is also known as the “Politics of Memory”,got special focus in Polish foreign policy decision making process with context to its relations with Russia.This issue became an important aspect of Poland's foreign policy towards Russia during this period.Because,domestically applied Politics of Memory,became an important part of Polish-Russian bilateral relations that made the foreign policy of contemporary Poland an interesting field of study for scholars who exam processes of using memory about past as a foreign policy tool.In 2005,in response to public demands,Polish parliament adopted a resolution demanding that Russia must recognize the Katyn massacre as the genocide of Polish citizens.The Polish parliament's resolution can be considered as an act to break political ‘taboos' on awaking memory about past within the EU's system of the Common European Remembrance.The nature of official demands was reflection of the public debates among Polish society existing from 1943,but the demand proclaimed by Polish parliament was very radical in its core,because it consisted of the idea of reclassification of the Katyn crime as a genocide,which defined as a form of the large-scale state crime with the objective of total extermination of selected group of civilians According to the political discourse Polish side expected the international community will treat the Katyn crime,which is commonly defined as an massacre-organized violence against of the non-combatants,as an event with equal importance same as Holocaust.It was important to note,Polish officials even in their public speeches asked Russia and EU to reconsider their historical perceptions about the USSR's image and demanded that they must recognize Poland was victim of Stalinist totalitarian regime during and after WWII.As a result of discourse analysis in the context of Polish domestic Politics of Memory,the author found,the Polish demands to Russia about the Katyn massacre,became a way for Poland to show that all ties with Soviet past are gone.According Polish government's stand,Poland is a sovereign state with unique history and values which are different from the Soviet ones.Therefore,Poland's complete integration into the EU will be possible if European communitywill change its values with respect to the Polish self-perception about its role in WWII.This research is designed to find the answer to the actual question: Why did Poland change its official attitude towards Russia over the Katyn issue? And how this process connected to the Poland's the EU accession?The analysis of literature provides clues suggesting that there are multi-causal mechanism memory factors at play on the international and domestic levels.Scholars of social science starting from Maurice Halbwachs have emphasized that demographic change is one of the factors that impacts memory construction and activation.This tendency is also explained by Richard Ned Lebow,who argues that wartime generations appear to have a very different set of political and psychological needs than the generations that follow.The domestic factor of using activation memories of the past as a policy tool also depends on national decision-making logic.Political elites can reactivate the group's chosen traumas and glories,which become fuel for stirring nationalism and further exacerbating the existing conflicts between the group and other nations.Gerrit Gong suggested that memory of past can also be activated by external factors,such as the hostile behaviour of foreign countries.Factors such as globalization and the acceleration of technological changes which facilitate the distribution information have been shown to increase misperception among nations.Nowadays,scholars have come to some understanding of functions of memory about past in contemporary societies but still face the problem of clearly defining the mechanisms involved in the awakening of historical memories and the politics of memory.That problem has a theoretical root because existing theories still lack a proper causal and measuring mechanism for national identities.During examination of political context it was found that changing of Polish public attitude appeared in spring of 2004,before Russia closed the Katyn crime investigation.But,interestingly,an attention-grabbing fact was discovered,that,there was just one significant change which impacted the whole Polish nation without exception.The author found,it was actually the question of Poland's accession to EU,which impacted the public attitude towards the Katyn issue and their understanding of their history of WWII.Thus,the given dissertation organized its main assumptions which linked the Katyn issue and process of Poland's integration into the EU are based on the Conceptof Securitization and its analytical framework,particularly the societal portion,which is proposed by the Copenhagen School of non traditional Security Study.Barry Buzan,Ole Waever and J.De Wilde defined societal security as one of levels of security which refers to collective's identities and actions taken to defend it.The thesis uses nontraditional security framework to explain why Poland changed its behavior towards Russia over historical issue.According to perspective constructed by Barry Buzan and Ole Weaver,Polish nation became a very perceptive audience of a securitization move,because a threat of vanishing of nation's history through a process of cultural integration was supported by a feeling of injustice towards the victims of Stalinist repressions and particularly towards the fate of missing Polish officers.The author assumed that in the case of Poland the integration process became a main factor of the awaking of the historical issues in bilateral relations.The integration process causes the creation of audience prone to accept the historical issues as an existential threat to Polish identity.In the Polish official discourse the three major points,which indicated threat to the Polish societal security,were also reflected.The first point presented the Russian Federation as a source promoting the victories image of the Red Army,which was used as the tool of Stalinist regime and committed several crimes against polish nation and sovereignty of Poland.The second point was the fact that the Katyn crime was unknown on regional level within the EU's system of common historical values.The third aspect linked to the process of preserving the truth about the Katyn crime as matter of state sovereignty defending.The major actors,who presented radical discourse in connection to the distorted image of WWII,were the right-wing Polish parties.The populist measures against threats and functional actors nominated by speech-act were supported by the actual state's activity with the aim to reach established goals ? to defend the national interests and values.Discourse analysis shows that the EU became a system that supports Polish nation's willing to preserve its self-perception.With assistance of methodological tools provided by the Copenhagen School,there are two situations were defined as significant components of the causation mechanism in the explored case.Vertical competition is the situations when people understand that they will change their identity because of participation in integration projects.When a group of people expected the changes in their lives under culturalinfluence from neighbouring culture horizontal competition possibly can appear.The situations recognized as a threat can be combined and lead to the growth of a complex of interconnected links which will impact foreign policy behaviour.The process of European integration can be seen as the main causal factor leading to a complex of vertical and horizontal competition between Poland,the EU,and Russia over the construction of their historical identities.The thesis studies problem of historical issue in international relations through the prism of non-traditional security concept.It is contribution to the existing literature on the security study.This thesis applied the concept of securitization to problem of awaking memory about rivalry past in bilateral relations,particularly changing of state's attitude over historical issue and impact of such process towards foreign policy behaviour.Design of given paper also determined its significance,because chosen theoretical construct led to understanding of causal process within of triangle outlined by links between Poland,EU and Russian Federation over history image constructing process.This dissertation consists of seven chapters.The first chapter of the thesis contains the general introduction and review of the literature.The second chapter includes description of main structure of chosen theoretical concept of societal securitization.The chapter starts from the brief introduction of non-tradition security concept defined by scholars of the Copenhagen School.The main body of chapter schematically explains the major mechanism of societal security concept as one of sectors of analysis within security analytical concept.Limits and critics of chosen analytical structure lies in its non-positivist character and inter-subjective nature observe in the final section of the chapter.The third chapter outlines the background of the Katyn massacre as a historical issue in Russian-Polish relations.The first and second sections focus on the main factors that lead to the origin of Katyn massacre as a central historical issue in contemporary Russian-Polish relations.These parts provide the chronology of the historical developments international relations on the threshold and during WWII with focus on geopolitical situation in prewar Europe,activity of the Allied Powers during WWII and main trends in Polish-Soviet relation in period from 1921 till 1991.The third section analyzes the Polish attitude towards Russia on period 1991 till 2004 and bilateral relations of these states around the Katyn issue.It includes two main points which led to the changing of Polish foreign policy towards Russia: Poland's NATOaccession 1994-1999 and it involving in the “Orange Revolution” of 2004 in Ukraine,those shows contradiction of objectives in Poland's foreign policy towards it Western allies and Russia.The main suggestion about character of the Polish attitude towards Russian,since moment when Poland gained it independency,considers that Poland's cold relations with Russia were caused by its “zero sums” doctrine.Polish leaders chose to defend its interests in Europe through the prism of doctrine of Western world:promotion of democracy,without consideration the Russians interests.In the forth chapter the first section presents the process of securitization over Katyn issue as a symbol of Polish nation fate during WWII ? as a dependent variable of process explored in given paper.The second section provides analysis of process in Russian internal and external policy as response to the securitization of bilateral historical issue.The third section contains analysis of factors that lead to desecuritization the Katyn issue in official level between Russia and Poland in 2010.The fifth chapter includes the analysis of dynamic and development of independent variable ? the process of regional integration.Particularly,Poland's accession to the EU within system of the EU institutions and values.This chapter demonstrates the impact of the Polish accession to EU on its economic,political and societal developments.The sixth chapters analyses the domestic factor ? dynamics in Polish policy system ? as intervening variable.It focuses on the role of economic,political and ideological tendencies in Poland during the transition from post-Communist to democratic society.The third section tests the hypothesis which link process of Poland integration into the EU and dynamics of Katyn issue in bilateral relations.The final chapter concludes the main findings from the process tracing linked dependent variables securitization memory about past in Polish foreign policy towards Russian Federation and independent variable – process of regional integration.The chapter concludes by regarding some implications for policy-making and future research.The author further notes that,in the middle of 2000 s,some differences in the understanding of various nations' roles in WWII between,the EU,Russia and Poland have led to the securitization of the Polish historical image of WWII.The Polish audience considered it's important to accept the historical truth.The official attitude towards Russia over the Katyn issue was changing in course defined by the politicalmajority on official level.It was constructed according high ranking official domestic needs and foreign policy goals which were concentrated around one vitally important objective – willing to complete Polish transition to the status of the Western state by demonstration of its negative attitude towards its Soviet past in front of the Western partners.The Katy? issue in Polish-Russian relations has become a case that reflects the process which leads to securitization of disputes between historical victims and victimizers on a state-to-state level.Securitization and de-securitization of the Katyn issue displayed double-sides effects: negative side ? to damage of international image of both participants and crash of public relations between Poland and Russia;and positive side shows that in case of sides involved in historical dispute want to reduce negative attitude towards each other the issue can be resolved.