On the road to Czestochowa: Rhetoric and experience on a Polish pilgrimage

Scholarship on pilgrimage tends to fall between two poles of emphasis: earl ier works focus on collective experience and cohesion among participants, w hile more recent studies stress the multitude of experiences and power stru ggles that lead to contestation of meaning. I examine young Poles' experien ces on a walking pilgrimage to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, and show t hat communitas can itself function as an instrument of contestation. Thus, I view pilgrimage as a realm for both constituting and contesting religious communities. In postcommunist Poland, despite the strong historical link b etween the Catholic Church and the nation, participants remain unconvinced by political rhetoric they hear on the pilgrimage. Rather, they experience a deep sense of connection with other participants that they interpret the pilgrimage in a variety of personally and historically shaped ways. Thus, t he sense of unity produced by the pilgrimage is not successfully co-opted b y the institutions that organize the event.