Being Goral : Identity Politics and Globalization in Postsocialist Poland

The Goral ethnic identity has been at the center of political machinations in Poland for centuries. The late Pope John Paul II, for example, was a Goral. This is the first book-length study of the Goral identity and one of the few studies in English to discuss Gorals. Through personal interviews, local manuscripts, and academic histories of the region, author Deborah Cahalen Schneider shows how important the Goral identity has been to Poland's history. The conflict over the Goral identity in the community of Zuywiec, Poland serves as a lens through which Schneider views national identity issues and class conflict in Poland at large. The Goral identity not only gave this community a sense of togetherness under the Habsburg Empire, but also was a symbol of Polish identity for Polish nationalists during that time. Schneider shows how the Goral identity has spanned the rise and, arguably, the fall of nationalism as the primary discourse of political identity in the post-Cold War, European Union-dominated Eastern Europe. Book jacket.

Deborah Cahalen Schneider is an independent scholar living in Virginia