Wojciech Stefan Roszkowski OOB (born 20 June 1947), sometimes known by the pseudonym Andrzej Albert, is a Polish historian and
politician
A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...
Warsaw School of Economics
SGH Warsaw School of Economics (, ''SGH''Polish Studies
Polish studies, Polish philology or Polonistics (, or ''polonistyka'') is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates the Polish language and Polish literature in both historic and present-day forms.
The history of Polish ...
at the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
, USA. In 2004, Roszkowski won election to the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
Mariusz Turowski, a philosopher of historiography at
University of Wrocław
The University of Wrocław (, UWr; ) is a public research university in Wrocław, Poland. It is the largest institution of higher learning in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, with over 100,000 graduates since 1945, including some 1,900 researcher ...
finds Roszkowski to be an influential exponent of the "patriotic school of Polish historiography" that gained status in post-Communist Poland; his works posited a "clash of civilization" between conservative Christian ethics and multicultural democracies. For him, the downfall of Western Civilization originated in the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...
, once it negated the existence of God.
Daniel Blatman, writing in 1997, noted Roszkowski to be among a new generation of post-Communist historians who tried to portray Poles as the ideal victim of Nazism as well as communism, and exonerate them of all misdeeds — his monograph on post-War history of Poland portrayed the
Kielce pogrom
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence toward the Jewish community centre's gathering of refugees in the city of Kielce, Poland, on 4 July 1946 by Polish soldiers, police officers, and civilians
liceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Basic science and some introduction to ...
and technikum schools when teaching a newly introduced subject of the ; scholars and commentators criticised the book as essentially being a far-right tract that, in addition to other claims, stigmatised IVF-conceived children, equated feminism, liberalism, and other popular ideologies with Nazism, depicted neo-Marxist influence as being a reason for the prominence of women's rights and gay rights movements, and was critical of the
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a Decentralization, decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and Racial inequality in the United States, racial inequality experienced by black people, and to pro ...
movement and of negative assessments of the
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...
. The book also referred to the controversial writings of
Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit (; ; born 4 April 1945) is a French-German politician. Born stateless to a German-Polish Ashkenazi Jewish family, Daniel Cohn-Bendit obtained German citizenship in 1959 and French citizenship in 2015.
Cohn-Bendit was a ...
on paedophilic acts and contained graphic images of human corpses. The issue was compounded by an alternative textbook being slow to receive official authorisation and by Roszkowski's book being available for sale in state-run post offices which, under the
Law and Justice
Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...
government, have often been criticised for selling publications that are seen to be aligned with that party's beliefs. The book's supposed depiction of IVF-conceived children drew negative commentary from
Civic Platform
The Civic Platform (, PO)The party is officially the Civic Platform of the Republic of Poland (''Platforma Obywatelska Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''). is a Centre-right politics, centre-right liberal conservative political party in Poland. Since ...
leader
Donald Tusk
Donald Franciszek Tusk (born 22 April 1957) is a Polish politician and historian who has served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023, previously holding the office from 2007 to 2014. Tusk served as the president of the European Council (20 ...
, while
Polish Ombudsman
The Commissioner for Human Rights (, RPO) is a Polish ombudsman, an official appointed for a five year term by the Sejm with an approval of the Senate of Poland, Senate (respectively lower and upper houses of Parliament of Poland, Polish legisla ...
wrote a letter to education minister
Przemysław Czarnek
Przemysław Czarnek (born 11 June 1977) is a Polish politician and academic, who was voivode of the Lubelskie Voivodeship from 2015–2019. He was elected in 2019 as a member of the 9th Sejm as a member of Law and Justice. Czarnek is notable f ...
in which he reported the wider concerns of teachers and parents about the book's suitability for use in schools. Roszkowski branded criticism of his book as being "a certain offensive, manipulation of public opinion, a kind of preventive censorship" and said that the passage purportedly referring to IVF did not in fact address this subject. Roszkowski's publisher also stated that it was not in agreement with the "criticism and incorrect interpretation" of the book and invited people to sign a petition denouncing the "numerous attacks falsely accusing oszkowskiof belittling children conceived through IVF"; nevertheless, it announced that the relevant passage would not be included in new printings of the book. The Free Schools Initiative () reported that, out of 2336 schools it had surveyed, only fifty-three planned to use the book; meanwhile, Roszkowski claimed that "probably" fifty thousand copies of the book had been sold by the second week of September 2022. A father of a child conceived through IVF announced his intention to sue Roszkowski; when the civil trial began in November 2023, Roszkowski failed to attend. In the meantime, Roszkowski had written a follow-up textbook covering the period between 1980 and 2015, with this newer book also receiving approval from the Ministry of Education and Science. Just like the first book, there was considerable controversy over the new book's content and sociopolitical slant, including its comparison of what it called " LGBT ideology" to the ideology of
Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
John Paul II
Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005.
In his you ...
mainly took the form of aggressive attacks by left-wingers, and its sympathy to
global warming denial
Climate change denial (also global warming denial) is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetor ...
and to conspiracy theories about the 2010 Smolensk crash being a deliberate assassination.
Bibliography
* ''Najnowsza historia Polski 1914–2002'' (''Newest History of Poland 1914–2002)'', 2003, .
* ''Historia Polski 1945–2005 (History of Poland 1945–2005)'', Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2006, .
* ''Droga przez mgłę (Walking through the fog)'', Instytut Jagielloński, 2006, .
* ''Świat Chrystusa (The world of Christ)'', , 2016, .
* ''Mistrzowska gra Józefa Piłsudskiego (Józef Piłsudski's Mastergame),'' Wydawnictwo Biały Kruk, 2018, .
* ''Roztrzaskane Lustro – Upadek cywilizacji zachodniej (The Shattered Mirror – The Downfall of the Western Civilization)'', Wydawnictwo Biały Kruk, 2019, .
* ''Orlęta Lwowskie (Lwów Eaglets)'', Wydawnictwo Biały Kruk, 2019.
* ''Kierunek Targowica. Polska 2005–2015 (Heading to Targowica. Poland 2005–2015)'', Wydawnictwo Biały Kruk, 2019.
* '' (1945–1979. History and the Present)'', Wydawnictwo Biały Kruk, 2022. Ministry of Education and Science ref. no 1145/1/2022 * ''1980-2015. Historia i teraźniejszość (1980-2015. History and the Present)'', Wydawnictwo Biały Kruk, 2023. Ministry of Education and Science ref. no 1145/2/2023
See also
*
2004 European Parliament election in Poland
Elections to the European Parliament were held in Poland on 13 June 2004 as part of the wider 2004 European Parliament election. They were the first European Parliament elections held in Poland after the country's accession to the European U ...