Wojciech Roszkowski | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| In office 20 July 2004 – 13 July 2009 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1947-06-20)20 June 1947 (age 78) |
| Spouse | Anna Dąbrowska |
| Children | Marcin Roszkowski |
Wojciech Stefan RoszkowskiOOB (born 20 June 1947), sometimes known by the pseudonymAndrzej Albert, is aPolish historian andpolitician. From 1990 to 1993, he served asvice-rector ofWarsaw School of Economics and from 1994 to 2000, he was the Kościuszko Chair ofPolish Studies at theUniversity of Virginia, USA. In 2004, Roszkowski won election to theEuropean Parliament from theLaw and Justice Party for a five year term.
Mariusz Turowski, a philosopher of historiography atUniversity of Wrocław finds Roszkowski to be an influential exponent of the "patriotic school of Polish historiography" that gained status in post-Communist Poland; his works posited a "clash of civilization" between conservative Christian ethics and multicultural democracies.[1] For him, the downfall of Western Civilization originated in theAge of Enlightenment, once it negated the existence of God.[2]
Daniel Blatman, writing in 1997, noted Roszkowski to be among a new generation of post-Communist historians who tried to portray Poles as the ideal victim of Nazism as well as communism, and exonerate them of all misdeeds — his monograph on post-War history of Poland portrayed theKielce pogrom as a handiwork of Communist agents, rather than Poles, despite lack of supportive evidence.[3]
In December 2023, Roszkowski was given the "Patriot of the Year" (Polish: Patriota Roku) award during the Patriot Day IX (Polish: IX Dzień Patrioty) event. Both the event and the award are organised in part by the sameBiały Kruk [pl] publishers that have published several of Roszkowski's books.[4][5]
In August 2022, the Polish Ministry of Education and Science authorised Roszkowski's1945–1979. Historia i teraźniejszość (1945–1979. History and the Present) textbook for use byliceum andtechnikum schools when teaching a newly introduced subject of thesame name [pl]; scholars and commentators criticised the book as essentially being a far-right tract that, in addition to other claims, stigmatisedIVF-conceived children, equated feminism, liberalism, and other popular ideologies with Nazism, depicted neo-Marxist influence as being a reason for the prominence of women's rights and gay rights movements, and was critical of theBlack Lives Matter movement and of negative assessments of theCrusades.[6][7][8] The book also referred to the controversial writings ofDaniel Cohn-Bendit on paedophilic acts and contained graphic images of human corpses.[9] The issue was compounded by an alternative textbook being slow to receive official authorisation[6][8] and by Roszkowski's book being available for sale instate-run post offices which, under theLaw and Justice government, were often criticised for selling publications seen to be aligned with that party's beliefs.[10] The book's supposed depiction of IVF-conceived children drew negative commentary fromCivic Platform leaderDonald Tusk,[11] whilePolish OmbudsmanMarcin Wiącek [pl] wrote a letter to education ministerPrzemysław Czarnek in which he reported the wider concerns of teachers and parents about the book's suitability for use in schools.[10] Roszkowski branded criticism of his book as being "a certain offensive, manipulation of public opinion, a kind of preventive censorship" and said that the passage purportedly referring to IVF did not in fact address this subject. Roszkowski's publisher also stated that it was not in agreement with the "criticism and incorrect interpretation" of the book and invited people to sign a petition denouncing the "numerous attacks falsely accusing [Roszkowski] of belittling children conceived through IVF"; nevertheless, it announced that the relevant passage would not be included in new printings of the book.[10] The Free Schools Initiative (Polish:Inicjatywa Wolne Szkoły) reported that, out of 2336 schools it had surveyed, only fifty-three planned to use the book; meanwhile, Roszkowski claimed that "probably" fifty thousand copies of the book had been sold by the second week of September 2022.[12] A father of a child conceived through IVF announced his intention to sue Roszkowski;[11] when the civil trial began in November 2023, Roszkowski failed to attend.[13][14] In the meantime, Roszkowski had written a follow-up textbook covering the period between 1980 and 2015, with this newer book also receiving approval from the Ministry of Education and Science.[15][9] Just like the first book, there was considerable controversy over the new book's content and sociopolitical slant, including its comparison of what it called "LGBT ideology" to the ideology ofMarx andEngels, its claim that criticism ofJohn Paul II mainly took the form of aggressive attacks by left-wingers, and its sympathy toglobal warming denial and to conspiracy theories about the2010 Smolensk crash being a deliberate assassination.[16][17][18] The 2023 civil trial was concluded in Roszkowski's favor in December 2025.[19][20]
