Två sidor om korset
En studie om olika nationalismer i Polen
In the 10th of April 2010 the Polish Presidential plane crashed outside of Smolensk in today?s Russia. 88 passengers and 6 crewmen died a tragic death, among them the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczy?ski. A national week of sorrow was proclaimed and citizens all over Poland went out on streets and markets to honor the newly deceased President. A few days after the air disaster, different fractions of scout groups placed a three meters high wooden cross outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, to indicate a symbolism between the nation Poland and the Catholic Church. The wooden cross lead to a six months long conflict, also named as the ?cross incident? between the defenders of the cross and the demonstrators against the cross, who did not wish that the state should be identified with the Catholic Church. This essay seeks in a qualitative and theoretical way, through a review of the historical, political, cultural and religious development from 1772 and forward with help of two theories of nationalism, to understand and explain why the ?cross incident? occurred. The analysis shows that dependent on which theory of nationalism is used, there are different explanations to why the demonstrators acted in two different ways during the ?cross incident?. Finally, the discussion concludes that deeper theoretical knowledge and explanation can be picked out and inasmuch the two theories differ so distinctly from each other one cannot get a higher value of explanation then the other.