The article deals with the issue of the development of geopolitical imagination of Polish political elites following 1989. The source database of the text are the most important official documents regarding the foreign policy of the Third Polish Republic: the policy statements of subsequent prime ministers and the so-called small policy statements of the ministers of foreign affairs. Discourse analysis and system analysis were used to analyse them, treating them as a social construct. Geopolitical imagination placed Poland in Europe, in the dangerous zone between Germany and Russia and on the border of the two civilizations. The escape from this “fatalism of geography” was the main goal of the elites of the Third Polish Republic. Hence the orientation towards the West, to ensure the exit from peripherality, security and development. To justify such a remodelling of their representations, the elites put forward an idealized image of the West. It facilitated the acceptance of the geopolitical choice made by the society and the associated severe limitation of Poland’s geopolitical and economic autonomy. The vehicles on the way to the West were bandwagoning towards the USA and Germany, which justified clientelism towards them. In various combinations, the representations about Poland’s key role in the post-communist region re-emerged following 1989 to strengthen its position in relation to the West and the East. As for the eastern direction, Poland’s goal was to move the imaginary borders of the West towards our eastern neighbours, mainly Belarus and Ukraine. This must have led to the negative reaction from Russia, which considered this area its sphere of influence. Russia was imagined by us to be an alien and enemy, and the change of this state of affairs would be a consequence of the Westernisation of Russia so desired by the Polish elites. It seems that in the years 1989–2015, one could speak of a certain interpretative community, which the LaJ (Law and Justice/Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) governments broke down following 2015. The LaJ foreign policy has become a hostage of those undermining the liberal democracy of internal political system changes. Their criticism in the EU states isolates and pushes towards servility to Washington. In turn, the Three Seas Initiative is too divided and weak to leverage Poland’s position. It seems that re-approaching the EU’s core may give us some freedom and better protection in external policy.

Porządek społeczny tworzony przez duże grupy ludzkie opiera się na mitach i wyobrażeniach podzielanych przez członków danej zbiorowości. Te różnorodne mity i wyobrażenia wykorzystywane są do mobilizowania ludzi do współpracy z wielką liczbą ludzi. Elity polityczne bardzo często wykorzystują różnorodne idee aby mobilizować ludzi na rzecz podjęcia działań zmierzających do realizacji określonych celów. Realizacja celów politycznych wymaga zorganizowania odpowiednich środków i legitymizowania podjętych działań. Celem artykułu jest analiza w jaki sposób wykorzystuje się koncepcje polityczno-ideologiczne, aby uzasadnić swoje roszczenia do panowania na określonym terytorium. Na podstawie dwóch idei: rosyjskiego panslawizmu i niemieckiej koncepcji Mitteleuropy autor analizuje rolę tzw. wyobrażeń geopolitycznych w rywalizacji politycznej między państwami.

„Hatred feeds us with a goblet”: the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s in geopolitical imaginations of the Polish popular music

The article focuses on the interference of Polish popular music and geopolitics after 1989. Songs selected from various trends of the Polish popular music made the source material of the text. The basic study method involved critical discourse analysis of the lyrics. The hierarchical East-West axis, which was also applied to the Balkans and Yugoslavia, was fundamental to Polish geopolitical perceptions. The musical image of Yugoslavia from the 1990s seemed repulsive with its strangeness and “Easternness”, which were proven by bloody wars and crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo. In the name of superiority of the Western world and geopolitical interests, musicians appealed to Western countries for military interventions in the former Yugoslavia. At the same time, they strengthened the direction towards the occidentalization of Poland as a condition for its security and development at the price of submission to the dominance of the West in the world and in Europe.