Review

As the twenty-first century progresses in the second half of its third decade, debates over matters of identity do not seem to subside, in turn growing ever more fervent. Long gone seem to be the days of the “end of history” (globally), of building a “Rainbow Nation” (in regard to South Africa but as a potential template for other multicultural societies), of creating a borderless community of nations (in regard to the European Union but, again, as a potential template for other regions around the world), and of a generally unmitigated progress of democracy and liberalism that characterized the 1990s. The cracks in the international system had already started showing during the War on Terror in the early 2000s, and following the 2008 financial crisis have led to identity becoming increasingly important in politics during the so-called decade of illiberalism of the 2010s, fully taking center stage following the summer of 2020, with Black Lives Matter protests in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, as the United States have just celebrated their 250 years of independence, recent studies have shown how closely the matters of identity have become linked to political issues on the most profound level: Only 27% of Democratic voters were reported to have chosen to display the American flag on the Fourth of July, compared to 64% of Republicans.Footnote ¹ In a similar vein, flying a particular flag in different contexts has become a potentially contested issue in the United Kingdom,Footnote ² with the Oxfordshire Council recently attempting to ban flying the Union Jack on its streetsFootnote ³ – two contentious examples only from June and July 2026.

This return of identity politics, together with the triumphant return of the idea of nation states more broadly, has caught many by surprise, including researchers, with academia, in particular its legal area, taking time to formulate an analytical response. Amongst these, Bartosz Wojciechowski’s Narrative Identity as a Condition for Authentic Legal Subjectivity stands as one of the more intriguing additions to the debate. He proposes a particular, in his own words Heideggerian, understanding of identity as “something that is revealed and manifested in the biography of each unique subject, something that ensures the continuity of the ‘I’ in changing contexts of life, both within the framework of the narrated life history and the life stories,” with the dynamic process of identity construction ongoing throughout the course of one’s life.Footnote ⁴ He later applies this past–present–future perspective on identity throughout the monograph.

Wojciechowski’s book is composed of an introduction, four chapters, and conclusions (summary). The introduction delineates the methodological approach to be used throughout the work, acknowledging a debt to Roland Barthes’s concepts of narrativity and Charles Taylor’s perspectives on the relationship between identity and moral ontology. Setting the stage for later deliberations, Wojciechowski links them to the aforementioned particular idea of identity in proposing that “the development of genuine legal subjectivity is unattainable without the creation of a dialectical narrative identity – one that reflects both the manifestations of the individual’s unique life and the collectively shared culture, tradition, and moral and legal values.”Footnote ⁵ He also posits that “a good life can take various forms,” which in a contemporary society means that diverse identities and lifestyles need to be embraced in the legal sphere to create an inclusive socio-legal space.Footnote ⁶

This approach is next applied in the following chapters, with the first one, “Contemporary Interpretations of Identity and the Right to Identity,” proposing a thought-provoking engagement with the eponymous question, as Wojciechowski’s argument, heavily infused with Polish philosophical and literary thought (Zygmunt Bauman, Leszek Kołakowski, Olga Tokarczuk) permanently oscillates between the individual and the collective identities. In this first chapter, the author also takes on a particularly vexing question of the identity crisis, positing it as a key element of modernity, as the contemporary human permanently searches for meaning in an increasingly post-human reality. Next, the second chapter, “Narrative and Narrative Identity,” places the concept of narrativity introduced earlier firmly within the frames of discussions over human identity. In his ruminations, Wojciechowski casts the net very wide, deeply engaging with the aptly chosen works of Alasdair MacIntyre, Taylor, Paul Ricœur, and Anthony Giddens to produce a coherent argument that once again returns to the literary perspectives on identity, comparing, for example, the very different experiences of engaging with first- and third-person narratives.

Perhaps the most interesting element of the book is Chapter 3, “Case Studies of the Story of One’s Own Life,” which, venturing to confirm “that identity is diverse, multifaced, and complex,”Footnote ⁷ engages with Tokarczuk’s allegory by also employing the Greek god of the moment of opportunity, Kairos. This metaphor is later applied in the analysis of several legal cases involving the LGBTQ+ communities, as the author attempts to show those instances whereby one’s identity clashes with the law particularly strongly. These are supplemented further in the chapter with perspectives involving other marginalized groups, specifically ethnic and religious minorities. Ultimately, the final chapter, “Authentic Human Legal Subjectivity According to the Narrative Approach,” attempts – and to a certain degree succeeds in – linking the different threads of the book’s chapters together, as the author puts forward his own understanding of the relationship between identity and law, the crux of the monograph, that is, that one’s “authentic legal subjectivity is not possible without grasping the relationships connecting the subject with their personal identity – understood as that which makes us the same person at any time, place, and context, albeit certainly not with an unchanging identity.”Footnote ⁸ Wojciechowski also re-stresses here his concept of the right to identity as key for leading a fulfilling, complete life in a modern society,Footnote ⁹ proposing law as the way of preserving one’s personal narrative – one’s identity – in the ever-shifting world. These ruminations are further carried into the conclusions (summary), whereby some of the author’s final points are made.

Putting the relationship between law and identity front and center, Wojciechowski’s Narrative Identity has placed itself firmly as a major addition to the current debates on that matter. Elegantly and concisely written, the book’s relatively short length (only 154 pages), however, is both a blessing and a curse. Whereas such a compact format allows for a structured presentation of the argument, it also means that the practical applications of his theory in the case studies are necessarily limited. Furthermore, this leads to there being no space for any other potential avenues of his concept’s further development, for example, along the lines of collective memory and law’s relationship (the former term appears only twice, and in relation to other thinkers, one of whom is Jan Assmann, whose ideas have come under great scrutiny in recent years and are not the best fit in regard to the questions of identity in my perspectiveFootnote ¹⁰). The matters of constitutional law and memory in relation to identity and marginalization have particularly seen a number of thought-provoking developments recently, most notably through the work of Martin Belov.Footnote ¹¹ I would encourage the author to consider perusing this avenue of research to further develop his ideas; another potential one relates to, naturally, the questions of cultural heritage, uniquely linked with the matters of identity.

Where Wojciechowski’s and similar works take on the matters of identity directly and theoretically, recent years have seen a number of publications that engage with them indirectly and practically. Among these, the ever-growing body of research related to the matters of cultural heritage specifically stands as a particularly firm addition to debates on the place of the local, regional, and national identity in the modern world, as today the matters of heritage protection need to be reconciled not only with the issue of progress but also with the oftentimes difficult past as the question whether all heritage is today contentiousFootnote ¹² has come to be asked time and time again. To help find the way among a veritable overabundance of heritage studies comes a real-life treasure map: the new edition of the Dictionnaire comparé du droit du patrimoine culturel (The Comparative Dictionary of the Cultural Heritage Law), co-edited by Marie Cornu, Jérôme Fromageau, Manlio Frigo, Vincent Négri, Marc-André Renold, Clea Hance, and Catherine Wallaert.

This massive (1,640 pages), single-volume work brings together a wide-ranging group of European experts who, under the auspices of a select editorial team, put forward 12 perspectives on the matters of cultural heritage, respectively German (Antoinette Maget Dominicé), English (Sophie Vigenron and Rob Pickard), Belgian (Marie-Sophie de Clippele), Spanish (Maria Teresa Carrancho), French (Marie Cornu and Jérôme Fromageau), Greek (Marina Markellou), Italian (Manlio Frigo and Vittorio Mainetti), Latvian (Anita Vaivade), Polish (Andrzej Jakubowski), Swiss (Marc-André Renold), European (Tamás Szabados), and international (Manlio Frigo and Vincent Négri).

Following a brief introduction that explains the circumstances and context out of which the dictionary was borne, each of the 12 legal systems within which the dictionary will operate is introduced. Next follows the main body of the book: the dictionary proper, which brings together over 80 terms ranging from “listed building,” “export authorisation,” and “catalogue” to “furniture,” “theft,” and “site.” Each of these entries is analyzed from the perspective of at least one and oftentimes all of the abovementioned legal systems. These are further supplemented by translations of the equivalent terms, a list of abbreviations, and a substantial bibliography, each presented separately with respect to the 12 legal contexts of the dictionary.

There is no doubt that the dictionary is a singular work, one that significantly builds up on the first edition by expanding the catalogue of analyzed countries to add Belgium, Greece, Latvia, and Poland into the fold. In the midst of a myriad of different publications in the matters of cultural heritage, it is not only a most welcome but also a clearly vital addition to the field. I expect it will provide much-needed grounding and clarity to many a current heritage debate, which oftentimes find themselves flailing due to the sometimes imperceptible, but nonetheless always crucial from the legal viewpoint, differences in the meaning of the seemingly same terms in different jurisdictions. With its clear structure, plain language, and success in molding a significant number of experts in the same way, the dictionary is an exercise in comparative law par excellence .

At the same time, as with any oeuvre of its stature, the dictionary is not free from certain drawbacks. My main criticism concerns the format, which, given the book’s very innovative approach, is painfully classic: The dictionary is simply massive and rather heavy when printed (in need of what one family friend, Prof. Magdalena Jonca, famously said about E. H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art, that “it should come with a medieval lectern”), and even in the e-book format, rather difficult to navigate. I would urge the editors and authors to consider publishing the dictionary in the format of an online platform, one to which it would be possible to subscribe; this could also allow for an easier step-by-step translation of the entries to different languages,Footnote ¹³ among which English, as well as all the other eight languages of the analyzed jurisdictions, appear to be a natural first choice.Footnote ¹⁴ Even if this, given the associated costs, does not come to fruition, I would suggest that in the future the dictionary is published in several volumes, akin to the encyclopedias of yesteryear, rather than in a single book format. In regard to the content, my only concern is a certain haphazardness in the introduction within which the selection of countries studied in the dictionary is explained: the veritably singular focus on Europe, and specifically Western Europe, requires further clarification. Furthermore, if the authors continue with the project, including perspectives from the Americas, Africa, and Asia would only make the dictionary even richer. In a similar vein, one wishes for a sort of critical word or calls for action from the editors at the end of the book, one that would do justice to the sheer enormity of the work – but perhaps such things are sometimes best left unsaid in publications of this magnitude.

Having ended up reading the two books at the same time by pure coincidence, I did not envisage reviewing them together. As time went by, however, it became quite clear to me that they do speak to one another, even if indirectly. As Wojciechowski’s monograph decidedly demonstrates, we cannot analyze matters of law and identity in a vacuum, without tangible case studies; while his focus on the marginalized communities provides ample evidence, it is only when his concepts are put into dialogue with the matters of cultural heritage discussed in the dictionary that it becomes clear – among a veritable thicket of legal concepts – how important the latter is for identity. Ultimately, the two works remind us that both law and cultural heritage are vessels for identity, moreover ones that need to function in the increasingly politicized reality. Studies such as the two reviewed here make our understanding of these processes much more profound, but further research and interdisciplinary dialogue are needed if we are to reconcile the ever-growing issues with the identity/identities of the present day.