The article deals with the issue of the internal historical politics of Law and Justice party (PiS) during their years of power in 2005–2007. From the very beginning, the party put an extreme importance to the issue of patriotism and national memory, making them one of their main objectives. With the inception of power in 2005, the leaders of this group clearly declared that the important goal of their actions would be to restore historical memory, which was to be initiated by the “new historical politics”. When analyzing the historical policy pursued by Law and Justice in the internal dimension, it should be noted that it focused on several key elements. The first of them was building patriotic attitudes among the Polish society. The historical settlement of the communist times became the second goal of the party’s historical politics. The past has begun to be used by the leaders of this formation also to stigmatize political opponents. Moreover, it served as an effective tool to both Kaczyński brothers for mobilizing their own supporters.

Creating a state’s symbolic space is one of the most important competencies of the authorities. It manifests itself in, inter alia, establishing topographies of memory (organizing sites of memory), erecting monuments, appropriate naming of streets, squares, public institutions and organization of the calendar of holidays. Holidays and celebrations are a great tool for communication between the authorities and the citizens, and one of the basic elements of the historical politics system of a state. The aim of the present study is to show – on the case study of the Polish calendar of public holidays in the 20th and 21st centuries – the mechanisms and tools used by the government to build a proper historical narrative.

Russian “historical policy” towards Poland. The “Anti-Katyń” issue

The Russian Federation ruled by Putin seeks to rebuild the superpower position of the USSR, formerly the Russian Empire. A certain difficulty for her is Poland’s attitude and its eastern policy. Hence the use of information warfare means to combat it, including a specific “historical policy” whose origins date back centuries. Due to the need to admit to committing the Katyn massacre, in order to weaken its meaning, the “Anti-Katyń” issue was promoted, based on the alleged genocide of Poles on Russian prisoners of war in 1919–1920. This is a propaganda invention not confirmed by historical facts.