„Szli krzycząc: Polska, Polska!”
They Marched Crying: Poland, Poland!

Summary/Abstract: The article expands a thesis formulated by the author of the book Teatra polskie. Historie, published in 2010 and maintaining that Poland, comprehended as an ideological-cultural construct, exists as, and continues to be a drama-spectacle. This thesis has been transferred and used for analysing two contemporary forms of experiencing and depicting the national community: a series of socio-political rites and ceremonies, comprising a reaction to, and a consequence of the crash of the airplane carrying the President of Republic of Poland Lech Kaczyński in April 2010, and the behaviour of fans of national sports teams. The first group is shown as a series of activities reviving the traditional national Romantic symbolic associating Polishness with sacrifice and death, with its simultaneous application as a tool for distinguishing “genuine” Polishness, loyal to traditional paradigms, and its radical separation from social groups rejecting that model. Consequently, collective experiences of mourning became an instrument of permanent division. The second group, discussed predominantly upon the example of the activity of fans of national netball and ski jumping teams, is a contradiction of the former and presents an inclusive and joyful experiencing of Poland not as a victim but as a power. The activities in question possess the features of fun, close to carnival festivities that reverse the order dominating in political-ceremonious solemnity. Thanks to the employment of the mechanisms of popular culture and mass communication they appear to exert a much larger impact on moulding stances and attitudes towards the national community than the centralised spectacles of the first variety.

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