Silencing history and memory in the Christ of Europe

10/06/2024

Digging Up Ancient Aliens

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57:54

This time, we are going to do something a little bit different. We will do a case study of a country where the government has started to promote its preferred historical narrative. While some might not call that alternative history or pseudo-history, I would argue that this is overlapping. So we will look at Poland and its memory laws, how the government is policing museums, and trying to silence research on Polish complicity in the Holocaust. We will also look at Polish history to see how it came to be and what national memory they draw from.

We will look at how they create emotionally triggering museums while leaving out the parts of history that put Poland in a bad light. We will see how PiS, the ruling party, is trying to silence museum directors and professors who don't follow the party line. In the past, we have discussed how governments in Bosnia and Indonesia have used state funds to promote psuedoscience. This isn't too far off, just fewer aliens and lost civilizations. But it is still essential to keep our eyes on this pseudo-history in times like this.

Videos you hear in the episode:

The Unconquered:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q88AkN1hNYM

Dziewczyna z granatem:

https://youtu.be/6pTPMq4ZrGw?si=uYA_my0qMturS-vU

You will find sources on the episode page with a full transcript: https://diggingupancientaliens.com/episode-64-christ-of-europe