Book Review: Patryk Wawrzyński, Prezydent Lech Kaczyński. Narracje niedokończone [President Lech Kaczyński. The Unfinished Narratives], Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2012

With these words of Mark Antony – as a motto – Patryk Wawrzyński could start his book. Published in 2012, the work is titled, President Lech Kaczynski. The unfinished narratives (Prezydent Lech Kaczyński. Narracje niedokończone), and it is just such an attempt of doing justice to the tragically deceased president of the Republic of Poland. The author has undertaken the task of presenting the views of Lech Kaczynski as they actually were – separating them from incorrect interpretations and opinions attributed by other actors of the Polish political scene: his opponents as well as allies. The book presents what the president actually said and wrote, and not his image created in the minds of contemporaries. This also means that it is concerned not with the president’s actions, but his own narratives. The author points out, however – in accordance with the approach of social constructivism – that these narratives affect political reality. Wawrzyński suggests considering Kaczynski’s own words as part of a transmission belt “between national culture and the international community.” This allows the author to illustrate “how cultural narratives, unique to given countries, are transferred – through the political behaviour of its leaders – to the international level and universalized in order to be understood independently from the particular heritage”.