’National Belonging’ in Legal and Diplomatic Formulas: The Pole’s Card as a Legacy of Poland’s Colonial History

Abstract

The article explores the sources of the idea of nation as it is encoded in the legislative framework of the Pole’s Card and its implications for the processes of identity-making taking place beyond the eastern borders of the Polish state. Given the problems with defining the role of the historical Polish diaspora in the East, the question of the conceptualization of national belonging is significant and has practical consequences at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels. The argument of the paper is twofold: (1) On the one hand, the document of the Pole’s Card reflects a specific inclusive—”cultural”— conception of the nation. In this conception, which is forged by the Polish policymakers, the conditions whereby the national belonging can be achieved are widely conceived. (2) On the other hand, the administrative decision-making process and the diplomatic practice of granting the Card prioritizes and executes the exclusive conception of the nation with its limited ethnic, religious (Roman Catholic) and linguistic background. This way, the document of the Pole’s Card becomes a legal device for establishing new social distinctions in societies of Poland’s eastern neighbours. By discussing this case on the ground, this paper hopes to demonstrate the ways in which the new creative notions of the nationhood are forged in Poland.

Keywords

• historicity
• identity-making
• legal discourses
• nationhood
• postcolonial critique