Performing Slavicness on the Global Stage: "My Słowianie" as a Case of Self- Exoticization and Self-Colonization
Izabela Andrzejak
i.andrzejak@uw.edu.plUniwersytet Warszawski (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3881-9671
Abstract
This article examines the Polish Eurovision Song Contest entry My Słowianie—We Are Slavic (2014) as a cultural performance through which Slavic identity is constructed, negotiated, and transformed within contemporary global popular culture. Drawing on the concepts of cultural identity (Stuart Hall), stereotype and ambivalence (Homi K. Bhabha) cultural hybridity (Marwan Kraidy), and self-colonization (Alexander Kiossev), the article analyses the complex relationships between folklore, popular culture, and cultural stereotypes. The performance combines selected elements of Polish folk tradition with the aesthetic codes of global pop culture, creating an ambivalent representation that simultaneously celebrates and reproduces stereotypical images of Slavicness. The article argues that My Słowianie operates between the mechanisms of self-exoticization and self-colonization, revealing broader tensions characteristic of semi-peripheral cultures seeking international recognition while articulating their own cultural distinctiveness
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Keywords:
Eurovision Song Contest, Slavic identity, self-exotization, self-colonization, cultural performance, cultural hybridityReferences
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Authors
Izabela Andrzejaki.andrzejak@uw.edu.pl
Uniwersytet Warszawski Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3881-9671
Izabela Andrzejak - She represents the Institute of Musicology at the University of Warsaw and is a PhD candidate at the University of Warsaw’s Interdisciplinary Doctoral School. She holds an MA in Cultural Studies from the University of Łódź and an MA in Choreography and Dance Theory from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. She is a member of the Polish Forum of Choreology. Since 2016, she has been a balet artist with the Tadeusz Sygietyński State Mazowsze Folk Song and Dance Ensemble and also works as a dance educator at the Karolin Centre for Polish Folklore. She appeared as a dancer with the fictional Mazurek ensemble in Paweł Pawlikowski’s Academy Award-nominated film Cold War. Her research focuses on urban stylized post-industrial and academic folk song and dance ensembles, examined through questions posed by contemporary humanities.
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