Adamowicz was stabbed on stage at a charity concert on Sunday evening, and died on Monday afternoon. He leaves behind him a country in mourning — but for his supporters, the sadness is tinged with anger. No evidence has emerged that the murder was overtly political in nature, in the sense that his assailant was ideologically motivated. For some liberal Poles, the most obvious historical parallel is that with the assassination in the s of Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president of the new republic of Poland that was established in the aftermath of the First World War.
In contrast to the relative homogeneity of contemporary Poland, the interwar republic was strikingly multi-cultural, with large minorities of Germans, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Jews. A man of the left, Narutowicz was elected by the Polish parliament with the support of left-wing parties and representatives of Polish minorities, making him a hate figure for many on the nationalist right, who saw him as a traitor and puppet of the enemies of the Polish nation.
He was shot dead just five days into his term by Eligiusz Niewiadomski, a nationalist painter and art critic. Speaking to mourners in Gdansk, more than one brought Narutowicz up in conversation. It is a dangerous business standing up for minorities in this country, they say. One can make the case that there were strong similarities between the two victims. Both held high office, representing a multicultural vision of Polishness that made them hate figures on the nationalist right.
But things get complicated once you start trying to draw parallels between the two assassins. Niewiadomski had a long history of right-wing activism, and his motives were overtly ideological. Complicating things still further, it has been reported that the assailant has a history of paranoid schizophrenia.
Adamowicz had long been a victim of hate, but was it really the hate that killed him? The government and its supporters stand accused of feeding and normalising hate speech, the result of which is an atmosphere of tension and hatred that makes such attacks as that on Adamowicz more likely, whether they are politically motivated or not. Government supporters, on the other hand, accuse opponents of politicising a crime committed by someone who was self-evidently a criminal with severe mental health problems.
