After eight years of culture wars in Poland, 2024 has begun with more of the same

Poland’s new prime minister Donald Tusk launched an ambitious spring clean of public institutions some 10 days before Christmas, a purge that continues in the new year amid growing criticism.

In his New Year’s address Tusk, head of a three-party pro-EU centrist government, hailed his October election victory as a “civic awakening”, and vowed “not to stop” until he had repaired deep divisions in Polish society.

After eight years of vicious culture wars under the previous national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, 2024 has begun with more of the same. The latest twist came on Tuesday when the new Warsaw administration cancelled Poland’s official entry for the Venice Biennale, chosen by the outgoing PiS administration.

The original choice featured 35 nationalistic works by artist Ignacy Czwartos, including a portrait linking Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin with swastikas. Critics said his work supported a nationalist victim narrative pushed by the old government.

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On Tuesday Czwartos attacked the decision to drop his work as “censorship”, saying he signed a contract with Poland’s Zachęta national gallery.

But the national gallery’s director Janusz Janowski, a close ally of the PiS administration with a taste for Catholic art, is now out of a job. He was dismissed by Polish culture minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, who decided to change the Biennale submission Jankowski had chosen, “after becoming acquainted with the opinions and voices” of the art communities.

This was a nod to widespread unease by leading Polish artists at the Czwartos submission – and relief at the decision. The new work – created by a Ukrainian art collective and including footage filmed at a Lviv refugee camp – is a better fit, they say, with this year’s Venice Biennale theme: “Foreigners Everywhere.”

As culture minister, Sienkiewicz has been particularly busy since taking office mid-December, pushing ahead with a clear-out of people perceived as loyalists of the old PiS government from public institutions.

Particularly controversial has been his approach to public television and radio, largely reshaped as pro-PiS propaganda institutions during the last government’s two terms.

But efforts to reduce public media’s perceived pro-PiS bias has seen the Tusk administration use its parliamentary majority to bypass existing laws and oversight by state institutions such as the constitutional court and the media regulator. Many here have years left to run in their posts, are seen as PiS loyalists and have offered vocal opposition to the reforms.

The loudest critic by far is President Andrzej Duda, who ran as a PiS candidate, and has described the new reforms as an “unprecedented attack” on the constitution.

“On my part, there will never be permission to violate the constitution, which is currently the situation we are dealing with,” said Duda in his New Year address. “If we agree to such practices, in the future every new parliamentary majority will be able to do so.”

Last month Duda, who still has 18 months left in his term, clashed with the Tusk administration over its initial media reform efforts.

But when the president vetoed a new public media spending bill in protest at the installation of new management, the Tusk administration responded by putting public television and radio – which employ around 4,000 people – into insolvency.

While no jobs are under threat and salaries continue to be paid, the move ramps up tensions in a wider battle between parliament and the president over the 2024 budget, which both must approve by the end of January

Amid growing disquiet, PiS politicians have accused the Tusk administration of using the same kind of tactics it denounced from the opposition benches.

PiS politician Joanna Lichocka accused the Tusk government of “destroying Polish media ... an act which damages the state”.