Mariusz Bechta

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Mariusz Bechta (born 1972) is a Polish historian and publisher, affiliated with the Institute of National Remembrance. Bechta has published various fascist literature and patronaged the growth of Nazi rock (Rock Against Communism) in Poland; his academic monographs — themed around rebuffing Pole complicity with the Nazis in the murder of Jews — have been severely criticized by historians and held as ideological tracts.

Education and career[edit]

Bechta was born in 1972 in Biała Podlaska.[1] He graduated from the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw in 1997.[2] He received his doctoral degree in 2011 from the same faculty on the Political and military conspiracy of the Polish national camp in Podlasie in the years 1939-1952, under Tomasz Wituch.[2] Two years earlier, he had joined the Institute of National Remembrance and has been affiliated with the institute ever since; as of 2022, Bechta holds the rank of a "specialist".[2][1]

Works and views[edit]

During his student days, Bechta organized a solidarity event for Janusz Waluś, a Polish neo-Nazi extremist convicted for assassinating the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party.[1][3] Around the same time, he founded the music label Narodowa Scena Rockowa (NSR) with his brother, which patronaged the development of Nazi rock in Poland; it sponsored Nazi records, sold racist t-shirts, and organized musical concerts.[1][4][5] Using their connections with conservative dailies, the brothers sought to mainstream Nazi bands.[1][6]

A few years later, they started two advertising-cum-publishing agencies — "Arte" and "Oficyna Wydawnicza Rekonkwista" — which primarily republished works by European fascists, including by Léon Degrelle, Julius Evola, Jan Mosdorf, Robert Brasillach, Ryszard Mozgol, and Krzysztof Kawęcki.[1][3] Since 2003, Bechta has been the Editor-in-Chief of Templum Novum, a fascist magazine.[1]

Reception[edit]

Cornelia Konczal, a professor of East European History at the University of Bielefeld, sees Bechta's interpretation of the Lublin pogrom of Jews — as an act of Polish "revenge" against pro-communist Jews — to downplay and ignore the historical evidence.[7] Similarly, Mariusz Zajączkowski, a historian specializing in Ukrainian-Polish relations, rejects Bechta's interpretation of the pogrom as unsupported by evidence and questions his ideological motivations; Bechta not only drew from very poor sources including those recorded decades after the event but also misrepresented archival sources and cherry-picked evidence.[8]

Mariusz Mazur [pl], a historian of communism in Poland, finds Bechta's works wholly unreliable, unethical, and ahistorical; he compares Bechta's methodology with that of David Irving, a Holocaust denier.[9][10] Mazur alleges that Bechta cherry-picks evidence to fit them into a preconceived worldview — for an example, in absolving Romuald Rajs and other members of his brigade from accusations of ethnocide, he did not even consider their testimony rife with anti-minority sentiments.[9][10] He critiques Bechta's defense of the National Armed Forces against charges of anti-semitism — by invoking the few Jew officials in their ranks — as unbecoming of a professional historian.[10]

August Grabski, an assistant professor at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, finds Bechta's works ideologically motivated and guided by antisemitism.[11][12]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Dr Bechta z IPN: gratulacje dla Walusia, nazistowskie zespoły i wybielanie żołnierzy "wyklętych"" [IPN's Dr. Bechta: congratulations to Walus, Nazi bands and whitewashing of "cursed" soldiers]. oko.press (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2023-02-19. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  2. ^ a b c "dr Mariusz Ryszard Bechta". nauka-polska.pl. Archived from the original on 2003-12-01. Retrieved 2023-03-31.
  3. ^ a b Grabowski, Jan; Klein, Shira (2023-02-09). "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust". The Journal of Holocaust Research. 37 (2): 133–190. doi:10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939. ISSN 2578-5648. S2CID 257188267.
  4. ^ Żuk, Piotr; Żuk, Paweł (2019-11-18). ""The national music scene": the analysis of the Nazi rock discourse and its relationship with the upsurge of nationalism in Poland". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 42 (15): 2715. doi:10.1080/01419870.2018.1554224. ISSN 0141-9870. S2CID 149931231. Archived from the original on 2023-03-31. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  5. ^ Pankowski, Rafal; Kornak, Marcin (2005). "Poland". In Mudde, Cas (ed.). Racist extremism in central and eastern Europe. Routledge. pp. 156–157. ISBN 0-415-35593-1.
  6. ^ Pankowski, Rafal (2010). The Populist Radical Right in Poland: The Patriots. Routledge. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-415-47353-8.
  7. ^ Kończal, Kornelia (February 2020). "The Invention of the "Cursed Soldiers" and Its Opponents: Post-war Partisan Struggle in Contemporary Poland". East European Politics and Societies: And Cultures. 34 (1): 67–95. doi:10.1177/0888325419865332. ISSN 0888-3254. S2CID 202419791. Archived from the original on 2022-10-17. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  8. ^ Zajączkowski, Mariusz (2019-04-01). "Wierzchowiny i NSZ. Uwagi krytyczne na marginesie książki Mariusza Bechty i Wojciecha J. Muszyńskiego Przeciwko Pax Sovietica. Narodowe Zjednoczenie Wojskowe i struktury polityczne ruchu narodowego wobec reżimu komunistycznego 1944–1956" [Wierzchowiny and the NSZ. Critical remarks on the margins of the book by Mariusz Bechta and Wojciech J. Muszyński "Against Pax Sovietica. The National Military Union and the political structures of the national movement against the communist regime 1944-1956"]. Dzieje Najnowsze. 50 (4): 281. doi:10.12775/DN.2018.4.14. ISSN 0419-8824. S2CID 187175000. Archived from the original on 2023-03-31. Retrieved 2023-02-20.
  9. ^ a b Mazur, Mariusz (2021). "Ety czne aspekty badań nad powojennym podziemiem niepodległościowym" [Ethical aspects of research on the post-war independence underground]. Przegląd Historyczny (in Polish). CXII (1): 105–106. ISSN 0033-2186.
  10. ^ a b c Mazur, Mariusz (2018). "Gramatyka emocji i uczuć we współczesnej prawicowej publicysty cena temat powojennego polskiego podziemia niepodległościowego" [The grammar of emotions and feelings in contemporary right-wing publicists on the subject of the post-war Polish independence underground]. Historyka Studia Metodologiczne (in Polish). 48: 294–295. doi:10.24425/hsm.2018.124621. ISSN 0073-277X. Archived from the original on 2023-02-20. Retrieved 2023-02-20.
  11. ^ Woroncow, Jakub (2017-06-19). "Historyk z przeszłością" [Historian with a past]. Przegląd (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2023-02-19. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  12. ^ Flieger, Estera (27 June 2018). "Historyk IPN publikuje nazistowski plakat zachęcający do kolaboracji. "Rocznicowo!"" [IPN historian publishes Nazi poster encouraging collaboration. "Anniversary!"]. wyborcza.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 19 February 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
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