Solidarity: Poland's Peaceful Revolution and Its Place in Poland’s Geography of Memory

The history of Poland in the past 250 years has been a rollercoaster. In 1772-1795, Poland was erased from the political map of Europe for 123 years. In 1918, Poland regained independence, only to fall again in 1939 and be divided between Germany and the USSR. After the end of World War II, Poland became a state subordinated to the USSR. Then, for the second time in the 20th century, Poland regained independence in 1989 thanks to the ‘Solidarity’ peaceful revolution.

 

‘Solidarity’ was a phenomenon on a global scale, which gathered almost 10 million workers. It was very strongly linked to religion but appealed to many who valued truth and freedom, including atheists and leftists. It remains a symbol of the Polish "open history", which inspired the greatest geopolitical changes in the 20th century. For this reason, it is worth paying particular attention to the Polish version of the idea of "brotherhood" or "fraternity", which, as the "missing element" of modern liberal society, is beginning to be noticed again over the world.

 

The turbulent history of Poland is reflected in the public space of its capital Warsaw. Each occupier, regime and ruling authority tried to shape the downtown of the Polish capital in such a way as to show its power over the political heart of Poland, and therefore over the entire country. This presentation traces changes in the political language of public space in downtown Warsaw on 8 maps. Different narratives are shown in different colours, imposed on public spaces, leading to the shaping of the contemporary political landscape of Warsaw.

 

The Solidarity Memorial in Warsaw was not erected until the 32nd anniversary of Poland regaining its independence in 1989. For over 30 years after 1989, Warsaw failed to erect a visible symbol of the Polish peaceful revolution of the 1980s. Nevertheless, it managed to create one of the best monuments built in Warsaw after 1989. Noteworthy is not only its central section, which physically connects the symbol of Solidarity with the Berlin Wall, but also the entire surroundings of the monument, which create a context expressing both the dynamics of the Polish revolution of 1980 and the international situation at the time, revealing the forces that contributed to changing history less than 10 years after the forcible suppression of the Solidarity revolution in 1981.

 

Prof. Marcin Wojciech Solarz, PhD (dr habil.) — a geographer, political scientist and the IR researcher at the Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies of the University of Warsaw, Poland. Head of the Department of Political and Historical Geography, FGRS UW. Head of the project “Deaf/Forest Germans (Walddeutsche): the past and present of forgotten local communities in the Carpathian Foothills”, 2020-2025, and “Forest Germans (Głuchoniemcy, Walddeutsche, Taubdeutsche) in the Little Ice Age: mobility structures and natural environment”, 2025-2029. Author of i.a. “The Language of Global Development. A Misleading Geography” (2014, Routledge), “The Global North-South Atlas: Mapping Global Change” (2020, Routledge), “Geography and the world’s development divides” in “Elgar Encyclopedia of Development” (2023, Edward Elgar Publishing) and “The 1914–2024 War Atlas: Modernity Deciphered Anew” (2025, Routledge), and other works; as well as scientific editor and co-author of “Atlas of Poland’s political geography. Poland in the modern world” (2018; 3rd place in the “Atlases” category at the International Cartographic Exhibition in Japan in 2019), “New Geographies of the Globalized World” (2018, Routledge) and “Atlas of Poland’s political geography. Poland in the modern world: 2022 Perspective” (2022).

 

Dr Anna M. Solarz is a researcher at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw. In 2017, she was a visiting scholar at the Mershon Centre for International Security Studies at Ohio State University. Since 2010, she has co-organised the annual Multidisciplinary Conferences of the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw, and the Divine Word Missionaries: The Sacred and the Profane in the Contemporary World. She has lectured at universities in Columbus, Izmir, Konya, and Haifa, among others. She has participated in research grants, including Forest Germans (Walddeutsche): the past and present of forgotten local communities in the Carpathian Foothills. Anna Solarz is the author of numerous publications on the integration of religion into the study of international relations, co-editor (with J. Kulska) of the volume entitled Fraternity as an Overlooked Element in Global Politics (Routledge 2025) and author of a chapter entitled The “Solidarity” movement: Polish-style brotherhood – an attempt to explain the phenomenon through the prism of its religious component. She is an activist in the "Solidarity" trade union and, since 2023, has been the vice-chair of the NSZZ "Solidarity" Trade Union Commission at the University of Warsaw. For years, she has been conducting research on: religion in international relations, international relations in the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe, the Holy See in international relations, and Israel's foreign policy.