National mourning in Poland. Not only to celebrate Poles

In connection with the death of Pope Francis On Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, President Andrzej Duda decided to introduce – on the day of his funeral, i.e. on Saturday, April 26 – national mourning in Poland. On this day, state flags will be abandoned to half the mast, and mass events will be canceled or limited.

The president's decision, supported by the countersignate of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, evoked various emotions among Internet users. Some of them thought about the legitimacy of the announced mourning. On the same day, when the prime minister signed the Duda regulation on its establishment, he appeared on the website X post With the graphics, on which we read: “The last time in Poland was introduced in Poland after the death of a foreigner in 1953. Józef Stalin died then. Curtain.”

This entry generated over 68,000 Views, and in the comments of many Internet users attacked Andrzej Duda and Donald Tusk for their decision. However, this is not the only entry disseminating the narrative that recently the national mourning related to the death of a foreigner was announced after the death of the leader of the USSR over 70 years ago.

Many of such posts and comments are direct quotes from filmwhich was published on April 23, 2025 on the YouTube Video Presentation channel. Its author is internet creator Krzysztof Woźniak, who functions on the web as an ator. The beginning of the recording title is: “The last time Stalin was died!” The video ator begins with the words: “National mourning in Poland after leaving this world of Pope Francis, i.e. a foreigner and head of a foreign state.” Then the man says that such practice is rare and adds: “The last time in Poland was introduced after the death of a foreigner in 1953. Then Józef Stalin died.” His author repeated this statement in the film several times.

However, what YouTuber claims and repeats many Internet users behind it is not true. In Poland, national mourning was introduced many times and was often associated with the death of foreigners.

The fact that information from the X website contained false information was already admitted by the posting himself. After the discussion, which fulfilled in the comments, he explained that when he was writing about the “foreigner”, he meant the head of state, not the anonymous victims of attacks or tragedy. However, he did not contain his entry. It was similar in the case of other posts that were posted on the network. We calculate, so how many times in Poland after 1945 a national mourning was announced and how many of these situations were associated with the death of people from abroad.

In the times of the Polish People's Republic, national mourning was introduced five times. One of them was associated with the death of a foreigner – Józef Stalin. The communist dictator died on March 5, 1953, and the mourning was announced on March 9 that year, on the day of his funeral in Moscow.

However, during the Third Polish Republic, the national mourning was announced 19 times (including the one after the death of Pope Francis). Five of them aimed to commemorate the victims, among which were primarily foreigners. They were: 1) mourning established in days September 12-14, 2001, which commemorated Victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington (among almost 3,000 fatalities, several people were Poles); 2) National mourning established March 12 and 13, 2004 After a series of terrorist attacks on trains in Madrid of March 11, 2004 (Poles were also among the fatalities); 3) National mourning established on January 5, 2005 After the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean of December 26, 2005, which was one of the most deadly natural disasters; 4) National mourning established on July 14, 2005 After the assassination in London, which occurred on July 7, 2005, when Islamic terrorists made a series of bombing in London public transport (three Polish women were killed in the attacks); 5) National mourning established on April 26, 2025 commemorating Pope Francis.

However, three more of these 19 commemorated the lives of tragically deceased groups of people, in whom there were also foreigners. I am talking about national mourning July 18, 1997 commemorating the victims of the Millennium flood, which in addition to Poland affected the inhabitants of the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia and Austria. Whereas from January 29 to February 1, 2006 National mourning was established after a construction disaster in Silesia. On January 28, 2006, 65 people were killed as a result of the roof of the Hall of the International Katowice Fair in Chorzów. Among them, 10 are foreigners. On December 20, 2012, there was a mining disaster in Stonawa in the Czech Republic. There was a leakage of methane in the mine, which caused explosions. At that time, 13 miners were killed – 12 of them were Poles, one was Czech. National mourning after this tragedy was established on December 23, 2012.

However, when it comes to commemorating the heads of the state and public figures (except for Pope Francis), among these 19, this character was five of them. These were national mourning announced after: the death of John Paul II, the Smolensk catastrophe, the death of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the murder of Paweł Adamowicz, the death of Jan Olszewski.

It is not true that Polish national mourning was used only for worshiping Poles, and the only exception to date was the death of Józef Stalin.