Embodying ressentimentful victimhood: virtual reality re-enactment of the Warsaw uprising in the Second World War Museum in Gdansk

This article examines how the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, Poland, employs an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience ‘Postcard from the Uprising’ (Kartka z Powstania) in order to build an affective memory regime that prescribes an emotional repertoire for museum audiences. By engaging in a narrative inquiry of the VR experience, I demonstrate how it evokes the emotional dynamic of ressentiment, which has been identified as the affective driver of right-wing populism and which informs the historical policy of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. The ressentimentful emotional regime is predicated on (1) the repeated re-experiencing of perceived injustice and victimhood, which requires (2) an outlet of negative emotions directed at the enemy and (3) a reclaiming of self-worth and dignity along with an ennobled and morally superior victimhood position. The VR experience functions as an emotion training device through which ‘appropriate’ emotions towards the past are instilled in the audience. The VR narrative transforms collective historical victimhood from a powerless to a morally superior position and may help the PiS in harnessing feelings of injustice and victimhood present among the museum visitors, who yearn to overcome these feelings and reclaim their self-worth and dignity.