AUTOBIOGRAPHIC MEMORY OF POLISH 'VICTIMS' AND 'OPPRESSORS' FROM THE COMMUNIST TIMES IN THE CONTEXT OF HISTORICAL POLITICS OF THE LAW AND JUSTICE PARTY (Polish title below)

(Polish title: Pamiec autobiograficzna polskich 'ofiar' i 'oprawcow' z okresu komunizmu w kontekscie polityki historycznej partii Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc). The article is based on field research using the multi-sited ethnography method, conducted during the rule of the Law and Justice party, which promoted the policy of historical squaring. The studies comprised two main categories of informants: the former political prisoners of the communist times and the former functionaries of the security police, who live in a certain medium sized town in Poland. The author posed a question about the impact that the changing policy of remembrance and in particular its distinctive character during the rule of the Law and Justice party had on these two groups of people politically involved during communist times on two different sides. She was interested in finding out how the 'bureaucratic culture of remembrance', i.e. creation of official narration about the past through institutionalised channels impacts on the identity of the individual, and in this way on the experience of individual memory and on the process of rationalization of past behaviours. Furthermore, the author puts forward a proposition of the adequate methodology to study the processes of memory in the shaping of which state institutions are involved.