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.

This paper focuses on the issue of geopolitics in the pop culture interpretation as illustrated by the Polish pop music after the year 1989. Songs selected from various trends of the Polish popular music made the source material of the text. The primary study method involved the analysis of the lyrics discourse. The Polish geopolitical imaginations used to revolve around the basis axis of better West and worse East, symbolized mainly by Russia, but its image was transferred over entire Asia. Asia, including China, was scarcely present in the geopolitical imaginations contained in the pop music, which, at the same time, reflected the irrelevant interest of Polish elites in global problems. The discourses in the musical texts about China frequently adopted the West’s perspective, where Poland made part of as seen by our elites. The rhetoric strategy concerning China in popular music featured two essential views, which references Orientalism as specified by E. Said. It explains the frequent use of the postcolonial discourse by the Polish elites, also the music ones, which promoted the supremacy of the West over the rest of the world and the universal nature of the Western world values which were meant to be implemented into other civilizations and nations for their own sake. China was presented as a growing threat for the dominance of the West, the USA in the first place, as an alternative model of globalization and international deal putting offthe world by its cultural and geopolitical alienation, as well as indicating negative effects for Poland.

„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.

Ideas space – „The cultural turn” in geopolitical analyses

The expansion of frontier scientific fields, such as geopolitics and political geography, put in front of contemporary geographical researches the task of new methods development and methodological base growth. Nothing has generated more controversy in social science than the turn toward culture variously known as the linguistic turn, culturalism or postmodernism. The main purpose of this article is to examine the impact of the “cultural” or “postmodern” turn in political geography and geopolitics. The purpose of this article is to introduce to the main concepts and research themes in contemporary geopolitics.