Cross Purposes
Catholicism and the Political Imagination in Poland

Traces the controversial history of how the symbol of the cross in modern Poland has been appropriated by different secular projects.

Magdalena Waligórska (Author)

9781009230957, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 December 2022

370 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.71 kg

No other symbol is as omnipresent in Poland as the cross. This multilayered and contradictory icon features prominently in public spaces and state institutions. It is anchored in the country's visual history, inspires protest culture, and dominates urban and rural landscapes. The cross recalls Poland's historic struggles for independence and anti-Communist dissent, but it also encapsulates the country's current position in Europe as a self-avowed bulwark of Christianity and a champion of conservative values. It is both a national symbol – defining the boundaries of Polishness in opposition to a changing constellation of the country's Others – and a key object of contestation in the creative arts and political culture. Despite its long history, the cross has never been systematically studied as a political symbol in its capacity to mobilize for action and solidify power structures. Cross Purposes is the first cultural history of the cross in modern Poland, deconstructing this key symbol and exploring how it has been deployed in different political battles.

Introduction
1. The ascendance of the cross
2. Colonization in the shadow of the cross
3. Female and furious: the invention of the 'defense of the cross'
4. Solidarity's sacred politics
5. The transformation crusades
6. Religious populism and its opponents
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political control & freedoms [JPV], Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church [HRCC7], European history [HBJD]