It's perhaps unsurprising that many commentators are embedding yesterday's plane crash in a wider chain of tragic events in Polish history, particularly the Katyn massacre itself. For example, in the Guardian, Neil Ascherson imagines that the Poles are now asking themselves, 'have we truly escaped from the nightmares of Poland's past? Or have the demons returned to surround us once again, those giant bloodstained phantoms who came out of the forest to destroy every Polish generation for two centuries?' And in the New York Times, Liz Robbins notes that the death of Wojciech Seweyrn, a diaspora Pole and the son of an officer killed at Katyn, is seen by his friends as being part of a 'circle. It's terrible, after 70 years he survived, and then he died in that area close to his father'. I think it's important to recognize that the Poles have suffered a hell of a lot in their history, but I worry about too much emphasis on cycles of victimization and on determinism. My hope is that the Poles, and the world that's now watching them, will use this horrible event to press for internal political reconciliation as much as to raise awareness about their history.

Another theme is the hope that this tragedy will move Poland and Russia closer. In the New York Times piece mentioned above, Liz Robbins quotes Michael Kennedy, dean of Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, who finds it encouraging that both Polish and Russian reports on the crash have focused more on sympathy and grief than on politics. He claims that 'the great variable for me is how Russia will recognize this moment as an opportunity to move ahead. It's a great opportunity for Medvedev and Putin to go beyond the rapprochement that existed yesterday'. Paul Lavelle said something similar in Russia Today's coverage of the crash. But I don't completely understand the connection between this tragedy and potential historical reconciliation. If the Kremlin has motives for keeping some Katyn archives closed, I can't imagine that a plane crash would change that. Conversely, if calculations were already shifting, as Putin's joint commemoration with Tusk signaled, then the wheels were already in motion and this event will serve more as a catalyst than a turning point. And in the wider scheme of the Kremlin's historical policy, let's not forget that Katyn is one among many issues - internally, for example, there's still the problem of how to remember Stalin, while externally the Holodomor has been an ongoing thorn in the side of Russian-Ukrainian relations (which may improve now that Yanukovych is in office...). Thus, I think we need to place the role of the crash in bringing about a rapprochement between Poland and Russia in its wider context. I hope for the best, because I feel that Katyn needs more recognition and awareness, but we should be realistic about the fact that it is one dimension of a deeper issue.

I awoke to the shocking news that the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, along with several top officials, was killed in a plane crash in the forests outside Smolensk. The picture to the side highlights that Poland is understandably in national mourning, as the tributes pile up outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw. Kaczynski was a high-profile if controversial figure in Poland and internationally. He and his identical twin brother, Jaroslaw (who he appointed Prime Minister after his election to the Presidency in 2005) started out as child actors, were later involved with Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, and finally broke with the movement to form their social conservative party Law and Justice (which his brother currently chairs), which after taking power promised a 'moral revolution' in Poland.

It's very early on, but already some trends are evident in the press coverage of the crash. Everyone's commenting on the irony - Poland's intellectual elite has died in Russia, en route to commemorate the Katyn massacre in which Soviet secret police officers murdered 15,000 Polish officers (the cream of Polish society) on Stalin's orders. It's also worth noting that Kaczynski was heading to the site of the massacres independently from the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, who earlier this week jointly commemorated the dead with Russian Prime Minister Putin - see Anne Applebaum's interesting commentary on this historic event. Kaczynski's politics, particularly his embrace of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia and his championing of a US missile defense shield in Poland, were a thorn in the side of Polish-Russian relations, which is partly why the apparent 'rapprochement' over Katyn is so interesting... But to return to the subject of the crash, lots of people are also asking questions about what will happen to Poland now that there's such a huge gap in public life - its President, the head of the army, and the head of the central bank have all been killed. For my part, I can't help but wonder how this tragic accident will affect Poland's politics of memory, given that those individuals in charge of World War II memorials and the Institute of National Remembrance also perished.

I've just had a look at my 2010 Reading Resolutions, and I can't say I'm doing spectacularly. But a recent crisis of confidence has inspired some reading that could have been a resolution in its own right, and I think partly fulfills my intention to read something that I think couldn't possibly interest me. Someone recently asked me what would happen to the Prime Minister if there was a hung parliament - would he stay in office? I was also asked about why the new healthcare bill in the US might be considered fascist. I couldn't answer either of these questions, and I panicked. Now, I know that neither British politics nor domestic policy in the States is my 'area,' but since I have two degrees in political science and a third one in progress, I felt unbearably guilty for being so uneducated. Perhaps it comes down to insecurity, in the sense that political science is a wide field and I have a different set of interests within it. But I ran right out and bought some introductory texts on British politics and fascism - and one on Communism, for good measure. And to my surprise, what started as an attempt just to sound smarter became truly educational, in the sense that I find myself more genuinely interested in these topics than I thought I would be. For example, I'm less inclined to skip the nitty-gritty articles on the election campaign in Britain when I read The Guardian each morning, and I definitely understand more than I used to. I'm actually following the campaign now because I want to, because I find it increasingly fascinating, rather than just because I'm afraid someone might ask me something I won't be able to answer. This is a good feeling. So what's next? Well, since I've started with three books in Blackwells' Very Short Introduction series, I think I'll continue with it - I'm eyeing the Scotland volume, having just spent a long weekend there, and I know I could brush up on Northern Ireland and The American Presidency. But (almost) any topic is fair game...luckily they're 3 for 2!

Now as to the politics of memory, Russian and Polish leaders will for the first time mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre together...questions about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, are raised again...and memories of the Prague Spring are influencing Czech citizens' perceptions of the new arms control treaty between Russia and the US.

In the near future, look out for some musings on the press coverage of the recent Moscow metro bombings, and by extension, on views of the Chechen wars in general...