Tożsamość narodowa a konflikty w małżeństwach polsko-rosyjskich
National identity and conflicts in Polish-Russian marriages

Summary/Abstract: Conflicts concerning the shared Polish-Russian historical background and attitude towards it with the politics involved in it are a frequent issue in Polish-Russian marriages. These are the reasons these conflicts can frequently lapse into family quarrels. The conflicts are closely examined in their progress and analyzed from different perspectives, referring both to national identity and the historical memory agendas. In this paper we also present some examples of the most typical misunderstandings that may take place. The main factor is the difference in identity models, and as a consequence, the failure to understand the logic of one’s opponent’s arguments. Information asymmetry as well as the well-known habitual ways of historical conceptualization of events and figures interfere in the successful cognition and enclose the spouses in a rigid frame of their own native models. In this context the biggest problems appear at the level of interpretation and categorization of the object of the discussion. Both Poles and Russians refer to different fundamentals while talking about independence, war and homeland, and this can lead to complete misunderstandings. Each couple has their own way of lessening the ideological conflicts. The first strategy the spouses will consider is to avoid talking about conflicting subjects up to an absolute taboo on the subject. The other strategy is related to auto-education, self-reflection, conscientious reappraisal of judgments and, eventually, open-mindedness. The effort put into this leads to the creation of a new, mutual way of looking at the above mentioned difficult themes.

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