Landscapes of Polish memory: conflicting ways of dealing with the communist past in a Polish town (original) (raw)
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Shared representations of national history play a significant role in the construction of social memory and the development of a common cultural worldview. Representations of 20th-century history studied within a small Polish community in the UK with respect to their content, meaning and effect on identity produced themes of injustice, abandonment, betrayal by the West, trauma and victimization, which continue to evoke strong emotions. The simplified, subjective and selective nature of historical representations was evident in the way in which a legitimate and coherent narrative on key aspects of the past was accompanied by omissions, contradictions and a lack of clarity on other aspects of the same period. The past continues to weigh on the present for a new generation of Poles, which demonstrates that historical legacy remains a significant factor in the social psychological analysis of mind, identity, social action and international relations.
II. FOCUS ON US: FOREIGN ANTHROPOLOGISTS ON THEIR RESEARCH IN POLAND MUTUAL ENCOUNTERS
Lud, 2016
Western socio-cultural anthropologists ventured into European lands in different periods of time. This 'expansion' started in the Mediterranean and Alpine regions. Central and Eastern European socialist countries represent another 'time zone' in this kind of research interests. For political reasons fieldwork there was possible later, first in Yugoslavia, later on in Romania and then in Hungary and Poland. Anthropologists encountered local ethnologists and exchange of ideas between these two groups of scholars started practically after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Presently intensified collaborations generate various forms of research activities, which are presented with reference to Poland.
2015
The article focuses on (re)constructing the local memorial landscape in a post-Soviet military base in Poland and the process of forging the local identity of its new inhabitants in the years 1993–2015. These processes, which occurred after the withdrawal of Russian Federation forces from the base and the establishment of a civilian town, find their reflection in the urban space of Borne Sulinowo and are written into a broader context of state policies and national debates about the past. The aim of the article is to present how the initiative in these processes has gradually shifted from the national level to the local, causing fragmentation and pluralisation of the collective memory. In this context certain significance can be attributed to the need to comply with EU standards, and to the progress of com-mercialisation of the past related to the development of tourism. KEYWORDS: collective memory • memorial landscape • post-Soviet base • post-communist Poland • urban space I N T R O D U C T I O N A contemporary flâneur strolling about the town of Borne Sulinowo encounters signs and symbols which at almost every turn testify to the town's complicated past. The efforts undertaken by the Poles since the early 1990s to 'domesticate' the urban space, together with the development of new social and cultural practices and gradual transformation and reinterpretation of the cultural landscape of Borne Sulinowo, bear testimony to an attempt to put down roots and construct a local identity, 1 combined with the need for locals to create their own place within the world, as " no one lives in the world in general " (Geertz 1996: 262). People construct, cultivate and preserve both their personal and collective identities as they remember and forget (Connerton 1989; 2009; Wertsch 2004), commemorate and repress the past and present narratives. In the process of constructing a local identity, what matters greatly is the history of urban landscape and the configurations of the 'things' that fill places and change over time. The space of this post-Soviet base contains multiple material traces of the past presence of Soviets and Germans in the area. The presence of these traces is not indifferent to the shaping of the identity of the local community and its attitude to the past. The foreign material and symbolic legacy, to the same.
2022
This seminar will scrutinise anthropological perspectives on memory in Eastern Europe. Through a range of regional case studies, it will discuss ethnographic approaches to analysing individual, vernacular, family, social, and cultural memory. We will explore how people embody, perform, feel about, and struggle over different pasts, with a focus on how these practices and affects are instrumentalised by political actors and how such instrumentalisations are resisted. Thematically the seminar will concentrate on (post)socialist, (post)colonial, and (post)national pasts and presents, and geographically on Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Participants will discuss how people in these three-as well as a few other-Eastern European countries engage in 'past presencing' (Macdonald 2013), that is, making fragments of the past part of the present. At the centre of the discussion will be the role of various pasts in the current Russia-Ukraine war, which gives the seminar an acute urgency. Topics covered will include borderland identities, Holodomor, Joseph Stalin and the Gulag, World War Two, nostalgia for the Soviet Union, the 1990s, the Belarusian protests of 2020, as well as the 'Leninopad' (the demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in 2013-2014) and 'decommunisation' in Ukraine. Participants of the seminar will examine manifestations of these pasts and presents in people's everyday lives, artistic practices, and political resistance efforts. The seminar will comprise inputs by the instructors and as well as students, joint engagement with an artwork, a film or a literary work, guest speakers, and meaningful discussions in various formats. Sprache/Language: Beiträge in deutscher oder englischer Sprache sind willkommen. Contributions in English or German are welcome. Special needs: Please feel free to raise with us anything that can help your participation in the seminar. № Date Topics, Readings, Tasks 1 21.10. Introduction: All Things Memory Syllabus & organisational matters Expectations from the seminar Mind maps: types & concepts of memory; disciplinary perspectives on (group) memory; media of memory; memory cultures & memory regimes Questions for reflection What is 'collective'/group memory? What disciplines study memory? What are official memories & vernacular memories, marginalised & silenced memories? What is the role of forgetting? 2 28.10.
Anthropology at Jagiellonian University (Cracow, Poland) - past, present and future
Cahiers Du Centre De Recherches Anthropologiques, 2010
For nearly 150 years, aspects of biological anthropology have been taught at Jagiellonian University in Cracow. The first course was given in 1856 by J. Majer, who was professor of physiology in the Medical Faculty. The Department of Anthropology was established in 1908 and today it is one of the very few university departments in Poland that teaches and conducts research in biological anthropology. We offer a broad program for students of biology and social sciences. We offer an MSc and a PhD in Biology with a specialization in Physical Anthropology. Specialization in anthropology is very popular among biology students. Each year at least 20 students prepare graduate work (MSc degrees) in our department. In addition, at the present time 12 PhD students of Jagiellonian University are specializing in anthropology. Apart from the courses recommended for students of biology, we also offer a course for students of archeology, psychology, sociology and philosophy. Since the end of the Second World War, the Department of Anthropology of Jagiellonian University has been one of the major sources of professional anthropologists in Poland. Our students are especially well prepared for careers in a variety of biomedical fields, including public health, ergonomics, forensic studies and bioarcheology.
History and Memory: the Social Frames of Contemporary Polish Historiography / Joanna Wawrzyniak
Acta Poloniae Historica, 2011
Post-communist Ostalgie has recently become a widely discussed topic in international literature.1 Also in Poland, sociologists have already devoted a lot of attention to the collective memory of the period of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL). Their studies show that while few Poles display any sympathy for the political symbols of the era, a signifi cant part of society looks back with nostalgia to the daily life of those times.