Despite the postsecular and posthumanistic turns in the humanities, the classic issue of postcolonialism, namely the cultural and psychological implications of the colonial encounter, remains valid. Its timeliness is especially resonant in East-Central Europe, where postcolonial studies has gained a considerable momentum over the past few years. This level of activity is a response to the reconfiguration of political relations and to the dynamics of cross-cultural relations in the contemporary world, as well as to globalizing, neo-imperial, and neo-colonial tendencies and the nationalisms that they have revived. The postcolonial reflection in post-Communist European countries is developing in a specific sociopolitical context where disputes are waged over the economic, psychological, and symbolic residue of twentieth-century totalitarianisms (for example, the monuments and cemeteries of Soviet soldiers in countries of the former Eastern Bloc), the directions of post-Communist transformations and forms of democratic society, and, last but not least, the possibility and the limits of sovereignty—of the society and of the nation—in the era of globalization. Postcolonialism in its specific, East-Central European development thus provides the humanities with an entryway into the public debate that has been taking place across this region ever since the retreat of the last Soviet tanks, if not beforehand.

The postcolonial condition of the East-Central European space has a cultural and mental specificity that stems from its peoples’ distinct long-term historical experience. In Poland's case, this experience can be charted as a sine wave, with phases of sovereignty and its loss coming one after another, starting in the seventeenth century up to the twentieth, at the hands of neighboring empires (Ottoman Turkey, Russia, Prussia/Germany, Austria). Despite these fluctuations, this sine wave is characterized by a constant parameter: a keen sense of the distinct nature of the East-Central Europeans nations and ethnic groups. To obtain a fuller picture, the sine wave representing phases of political dependence can be superimposed on a curve displaying national sense of self-worth wavering in proportion to the degree of the nation's political agency.