A book review of Duchologia polska. Rzeczy i ludzie w latach transformacji by Olga Drenda

Marek Jeziński

Abstract


The book by Olga Drenda Duchologia polska. Rzeczy i ludzie w latach transformacji, whose title can be rendered in English as Polish Hauntology: Things and People in the Transformation Period, is a kind of anthropological travel in time: to the past that is not too distant, that is still remembered, and still visible in Polish streets. The work covers the “haunted time” between 1987 and 1994, when Polish society underwent significant social, cultural, economic and political changes, joining liberal democracies and liberal free market economies. Drenda depicts several phases of the transition, related to the ineffectiveness of the socialist system, political changes towards democracy (with the Round Table Agreements and semi-free elections of 1989 as the landmarks of this process), and the gradual adaptation to a new social system.

Keywords


nostalgia, systemic transformation, hauntology, PRL, popular culture

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References


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