Being Goral: Identity Politics and Globalization in Postsocialist Poland

The Góral ethnic identity has been at the center of political machinations in Poland for centuries. The late Pope John Paul II, for example, was a Góral. This is the first book-length study of the Góral identity and one of the few studies in English to discuss Górals. Through personal interviews, local manuscripts, and academic histories of the region, author Deborah Cahalen Schneider shows how important the Góral identity has been to Poland’s history. The conflict over the Góral identity in the community of Zùywiec, Poland serves as a lens through which Schneider views national identity issues and class conflict in Poland at large. The Góral 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 Góral 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.