CERC Public Seminar: 'Polish Lustration: Reinterpreting the Truth'

Tuesday 30th Oct, 1:00-2:00pm
at Room 212, Level 2, 234 Queensberry Street, The University of Melbourne

presented by

Dr Matt Killingsworth

(CERC/Politics, Monash University)

Abstract

Following the fall of Communism in 1989, a number of states instituted lustration legislation, each of them with varying degrees of intensity. Of the post-Communist states that have acceded to the European Union, Poland’s attempts at lustration legislation have been the most fraught. Working with the interpretation of totalitarianism that I developed in my doctoral dissertation, this project is seeking to develop a link between the totalitarian states’ ability to control the ‘truth’ and current attempts by the Polish Government to establish ‘new truths’.