Poland Identity with Eurovision 2025
The performance of Justyna Steczkowska in Eurovision in Basel May 2025 was stunning and showing the sense of powerfulness of womanhood to the world’s audience. She offered to the audience a version of Polish identity that goes way back beyond the time of Catholicism, historical partitions, and Soviet influence, giving the audience with a look over Poland with feminine strength in her song, "GAJA." The song is inspired by Slavic and Greek mythology, which shows more of the little details of Poland that was not being seen by the world.
A Look on the Performance
“GAJA” is a song that blends electronic pop production and folk-melodic elements together at the same time allowing Steczkowska to fully showcased her vocal. The song starts with Polish then briefly goes into English for the chorus with the song. This bilingual approach highlights cultural heritage while allowing the performer to demonstrate to the audience of the whole world with the context of the Poland that Steczkowska is trying to present; this strategy is widely used by a lot of the performer trying to represent their own country while keeping the authentic localness and internationalism at the same time (Baker, 2015).
The lyrics traced a journey of emotional transformation, beginning with vulnerability and transitioning into empowerment. The initial lines express raw pain with recognizable human vulnerability: "You, who's been hurting me/ And who has had my love for nothing/You marked me with your sins/and woke up the scream of loneliness." But the chorus transforms this into something cosmic: "They call me Gaia/I'm the Goddess/I'm the strength/Love is my mother/The world is drowning in my tears/When I cry/Nestling in my arms the missing time." Gaia, the ancient Greek Goddess of Earth, becomes the metaphor for feminine power endurance as both a testament to resilience and a source of creative strength. The progression from wounds to transcendence resonates deeply within Poland's historical narrative, a story of suffering transformed into moral fortitude that continues to define its national identity (Hejwosz-Gromkowska & Hildebrandt-Wypych, 2024). This part of the song reflects onto the Poland that we know from its national identity.
The most stunning part of the music performance is during the climax when Steczkowska chants a sequence of ancient Slavic words, "Zargo, Raga, Urra, Gara, Jarga, Jarun, Era, Dzarodoro," which are known as magical chants from Slavic tradition. They each carries specific symbolic power that is for health, success, protection, wisdom, and creativity. These chants go far beyond just decorative folklore; they form the foundation of a ritual for the goodness. With ending in these lines, Steczkowska showed us something that goes far beyond the Poland that is tied with Catholicism, something far more ancient into the river of time of the land that Polish people are residing on.
As the performance progressed, the stage changed from a black and white ceremonial atmosphere into a bright color with flames, with its color of red an bright brown, and shinning lights that feelings like lightning and thunder, giving the audience a feeling of earthy sacred field from the ancient time. Steczkowska's costume is elaborate and ceremonial yet giving her the best flexibility to move in large scale movements, which still giving her the high-prestige appearance. From the stillness at the beginning to the large movements at the end of the performance, Steczkowska showed the rooted feminine power in Poland from still to big scale presentation of strength with wildness that the womanhood can do. The entire scene with dramatic lighting works together to present Steczkowska as a strong powerful woman and also showing the many forms that femininity can be in for the people.
National Identity and (Mis)Alignment
From my previous analysis of Poland's national identity, four key pillars have been identified as the central ideas in Poland’s national identity: the foundational role of Catholicism, shared national memory about suffering and resistance, reverence for heroic moral figures and symbols, and an emphasis on linguistic and cultural homogeneity (Hejwosz-Gromkowska & Hildebrandt-Wypych, 2024; Muś et al., 2023). These pillars formed from the comparison between the external other countries and the internal others' conflict over the past centuries; creating an image of Poland that we know nowadays, a country that is united with unwavering moral faith.
The song, "GAJA," plays in a way that resonates the pillars. It starts with the suffering memories, then into strength and call for better fortune and better wishes. This way of presentation matches with the way the country forms its national identity, from suffering histories going into self-empowerment with the memories. With the song falling into this aspect of the identity, it doesn't just entertain, but it shows the traits that resides deeply in every individual of Poland, the power of getting strength from suffering events is something that is in the country's core cultural DNA.
However, the spiritual framework Steczkowska employed goes the opposite with the national identity with Poland being deeply bonded with Catholicism, giving a look that is shocking and unbelievable from what we have already know. The figure of Gaia originates from Greek mythology and the ritualized chanting belongs to the pre-Christian Slavic tradition that is from Poland. From the last analysis, we know that Catholicism is defined as a religion that is not just individual faith, but also a religion that is fundamental in the history and life of the people, the guidance and the empowerment of strength all comes from things that is related with the religion (Hejwosz-Gromkowska & Hildebrandt-Wypych, 2024; Muś et al., 2023). Now, Steczkowska presented Poland's heritage through another religion or mythology that is other than Catholicism, as a religion that is being mainstreamed, which is a sign of showing to the audience that Poland's heritage is more than just what we see, it also includes the pre-Christian Slavic tradition.
By drawing on imagery that feel ancient and earthy, the performance offers another version of Polish femininity, one that is less rooted in Catholic tradition and more in a mythic connection to nature. In this perspective, Steczkowska is trying to present something that is far older than the Catholic Poland. It is the kind of figure that shows the diverse spiritual identities into the figure of Earth Goddess, trying to revive the spiritual traditions that existed long before Christianity arrived.
At the same time, this song is trying its best to avoid feeling insular with the use of mythology drawn on Greek archetypes, than Polish folklore, giving the content that is easily translated across the borders. The decision to include an English-language chorus also reinforces that accessibility, allowing the song's emotional weight to land with listeners who may not understand a word of Polish. That balace explains how it could connect with a global audience and allowing Poland to earn its place at the contest, while still distinctly rooted in Polish spiritual and cultural identity.
On top of this, it adds more depth to the performance's cultural weight once we know more about Justyna Steczkowska. Justyna Steczkowska has been one of Poland's most celebrated singers since the 1990s, and 2025 marked her return to Eurovision exactly 30 years after representing Poland in Dublin in 1995. As an established figure within the Polish culture, this gives the performance a lot more credibility. Her portrayal of mythic feminity expands symbolic models of Polish womanhood beyond the confines of Catholicism. With doing this, it reframes the part of womanhood within the Polish national identity without openly confronting what we already knew.
Conclusion
"GAJA" is a performance that honors the structural logic of Polish national identity: suffering being redeemed through strength, vulnerability eventually transformed into transcendence, while turning away from the Catholicism that was tightly tied with the country. Instead of showing the Catholic imagery that we see every day, it reaches for something older and more elemental. It is not a complete rejection of the Polish identity but allowing the people to unveil a layer of Slavic spiritualism that was there. Whether that image sits alongside the dominant national identity or challenges it depends on who is watching, for Polish viewers, it might feel like reclamation; for other audience of the world, it offered a different kind of Poland, a place that is more mythic than we know. Reference:
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Steczkowska, J. (2025). GAJA [Song]. On Witch Tarohoro. TVP / Polskie Radio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXHHDjiclxA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXHHDjiclxA
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