Nostalgia as Vehicle for Legimitization and Critique of Post-socialist Transformation

In this paper we seek to address the meaning of the recurrent stories of pre-WWII owner of a famous chocolate factory in Warsaw, Poland, that occur in biographic narratives of the company's contemporary employees. Our point of departure is the question concerning the functions and meanings of these nostalgic narratives of the business leader that most of today's employees never had a chance to meet. Taking into account a broader perspective of the history of the company E. Wedel - which was first a family business, then in the 2nd half of 20th century has been a state-owned enterprise under socialist regime and finally an icon of the privatization program - we propose an understanding of nostalgia as (1) means of legitimizing capitalist "rules of the game" (cast as "returning to the golden era of Polish interwar capitalism") by the subsequent MNCs that took over Wedel, and (2) a reflexive tool for the employees who express their criticism towards the foreign owners by pointing out to differences between their practices and the repeated stories of the company's "radiant past".