Rev. Études Sud-Est Europ., LVII, 1–4, p. 51–61, Bucarest, 2019 ON THE PERFORMATIVE POWER OF STEREOTYPES: WWII HISTORICAL REENACTMENT AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES KAMILA BARANIECKA-OLSZEWSKA (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences) The article discusses how the WWII historical reenactments in Poland contribute to the construction of national identities. The current political situation, where Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party supports specific interpretations of the past and intensively promotes these in the public space, the activities of historical reenactors are often read through the prism of the party’s political activity. In a similar way, collective identity projects performed in historical reenactments are understood. In contemporary Polish social life WWII history constitutes a very strong political and symbolical capital. Representing war events, reenactments and reenactors place themselves in the very centre of debates on contemporary visions of the past and identities related to them. This article focuses primarily on describing how the stereotype attributed to the WWII historical reenactments influences the perception of this phenomenon by the audience and shapes their sense of national identity. Keywords: historical reenactment, historical policy, national identity, performativity. THE CONTEXT OF RESEARCH ON WWII HISTORICAL REENACTMENT IN CONTEMPORARY POLAND Historical reenactment is an exceedingly popular phenomenon in Poland, clearly visible in the public sphere. Reenactments of WWII events play a particular role within this phenomenon. 1 As the memory of the war is still alive – it can be described in terms of communicative memory as Jan Assmann 2 puts it – and politicians and the media use WWII symbols in their discourse, reenactment of this period serves a significant function in the debate on the wartime past. Historical reenactment interacts with other forms of representing and interpreting history in the public sphere. It draws from them, falls under their influence, but also modifies them and makes its mark. The reenactment of the past is not a purely receptive phenomenon, which would only reflect the attitude towards the past found in 1 Research on the reception of historical reenactments is carried out under the National Science Center grant, Poland No. 2017/27/B/HS3/00990. 2 J. Assman, « Communicative and Cultural Memory », in A. Erll and A. Nünning (eds), Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, Berlin – New York, 2008, p. 109–118.