I 86 Perspectives from Poland The concept of identity is key to any study of ethnonationalist views. Barbara Szacka describes it as the idea of the permanence of a subject or object over time. On a collective level, remembering the past plays a central role in defining what identity means.7 For Werner Gephart, belief in a common ancestry is a core component of ethnically defined identity – he also talks of a “sense of ‘us’” fostered by actors who attribute their actions to a commonality whose structure is of a spatial, temporal or social nature.8 In so doing, he draws on Max Weber and his concept of belief in commonality, which is underpinned by the aspects of ethnicity and nationality. According to Weber, a subjective belief in a common ancestry is based on collective similarities in one’s habitus, customs or beliefs and historical events. The community, he says, shapes our morals and promotes internal harmonisation amongst us but also sets us apart from the world outside. Commonalities or contrasts between different communities act as a repellent force or – where there is great similarity – an attractive one.9 Socially constructed communities are essentialised and sacralised, and collective identity is seen as immanent, uncontestable and a “given”. The stranger is not only a political but also a religious “other” who stands outside the identity-forming community order that draws its legitimacy from deities and ancestral spirits.10 According to Simon Coleman, identity – be it individual, collective, cultural, ethnic, national or transnational – is always defined in and through relationships with other people. The only meaningful way to foster self-identification as a community is by drawing a line between it and a counterpart. Thus ethnic, national and religious identity constructs lead to a demarcation between “us” and “them”.11 The Slavic Neopagan activists in Poland believe that Christianity should become a religious “other” from which they want to set themselves apart. Fig. 2 Rafał Merski, Żerca (“priest”) of Fundacja na rzecz Kultury Słowiańskiej “Watra” during the Slavic Native Faith Stado festival in Sulistrowic, Poland, in 2019
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