EP59: Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński

The Hated and the Dead

The Kaczyński Brothers, Lech and Jarosław, have exerted considerable influence over the politics of Poland for more than twenty years. Lech served as President from 2005 until his death in a plane crash in 2010, and Jarosław served as prime minister in 2006 and still leads the Law and Justice party (PiS in Polish) to this day.
As my guest today explains, the plane crash of 2010 which claimed Lech's life was much more than a personal tragedy, precipitating a polarisation of Polish politics and the election of a new Law and Justice government in 2015. But this government was a much more conservative iteration of the Kaczyńskis’ government that had taken power ten years earlier. Since 2015, Law and Justice has co-opted the Polish media, attempted to restrict abortion rights, and used increasingly hardline rhetoric on LGBT issues.
Other countries that have experienced similar political phenomena in recent years have often languished in economic stagnation high unemployment in the years prior. But the interesting thing about Poland is it hasn’t stagnated since the Fall of Communism; on the contrary, it has flourished, even seeing handsome economic growth in 2008. Poland, then, is a case study of cultural, rather than economic dislocation.
My guest today is Stanley Bill, who is the Director of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. He also founded the news site Notes from Poland, which examines issues within contemporary Polish politics and society. Notes from Poland also has its own podcast, and this interview will be going out on that platform, too.