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This book explores the consequences of the latest political shifts in Central Eastern Europe: the rise of right-wing parties and, among other things, politics becoming more invested in history. These phenomena coincide and overlap with the democratisation of history by turning the past into a hot topic, persistently present in the public sphere and often evoking strong emotions. Ethnographic research (conducted in 2012-2016) focusing on how World War II reenactors experience the past serves as the basis to analyse the ways in which the group uses the widespread, often institutionalised interest in history to – on the one hand – become involved in debates on World War II and the remembrance thereof, and – on the other – to authentically experience this past. The volume therefore analyses how physical the process of creating and experiencing grassroots visions of the past is, and how these visions interact with the public discourse about the past. Reenactors’ ability to marry the often-contradictory orders of historical truth, authenticity, and representation is explored. Moreover, Baraniecka-Olszewska analyses how the reenactors overcome various obstacles on their way towards authentic experiences, performing history through their bodies.
The story of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk epitomizes one of the most important and dramatic clashes in the European culture of memory and public history in last decades. The museum became the arch-enemy for the nationalist right-wing as “cosmopolitan”, “pseudo-universalistic”, “pacifistic” and “not Polish enough”. Paweł Machcewicz, historian and museum`s founding director, was removed from his position by the Law and Justice government immediately after opening the museum to the public. In his book he presents this story as a part of cultural wars that tear apart not only Poland but also many countries in Europe and on other continents.
This volume presents various aspects of public history practices in Poland, alongside their historical development and theoretical reflections on public history. Despite a long tradition and variety of forms of public history, the very term "public history", or literally speaking "history in the public sphere", has been in use in Poland only since the 2010s. This edited collection contains chapters that focus on numerous practices and media forms in public history including historical memory, heritage tourism, historical re-enactments, memes and graphic novels, films, archives, archaeology and oral history. As such, the volume brings together the Polish experiences to wider international audiences and shares Polish controversies related to public history within the academic discourse, beyond media news and politically engaged commentaries. Furthermore, it sheds crucial light on the developments of collective memory, historical and political debates, the history of Poland and East-Central Europe, and the politics of post-World War Two and post-communist societies. Authored by a team of academic historians and practitioners from the field, Public History in Poland is the perfect resource for students from a variety of disciplines including Public History, Heritage, Museum Studies, Anthropology, and Archaeology.
The Polish Experience through World War II explores Polish history through the lives of people touched by the war. The touching and terrible experiences of these people are laid bare by straightforward, first-hand accounts, including not only the hardships of deportation and concentration and refugee camps, but also the price paid by the officers killed or taken as prisoners during WWII and the families they left behind. Ziolkowska-Boehm reveals the difficulties of these women and children when, having lost their husbands and fathers, their travails take them through Siberia, Persia, India, and then Africa, New Zealand, or Mexico. Ziolkowska-Boehm recounts the experiences of individuals who lived through this tumultuous period in history through personal interviews, letters, and other surviving documents. The stories include Krasicki, a military pilot who was on of around 22 thousand Polish killed in Katyn; the saga of the Wartanowicz family, a wealthy and influential family whose story begins well before the war; and Wanda Ossowska, a Polish nurse in Auschwitz and other German prison camps. Placed squarely in historical context, these incredible stories reveal the experiences of the Polish people up through the second World War.
This book explores contemporary debates surrounding Poland’s 'war children', that is the young victims, participants and survivors of the Second World War. It focuses on the period after 2001, which saw the emergence of the two main political parties that were to dictate the tone of the politics of memory for more than a decade. The book shows that 2001 marked a caesura in Poland’s post-Communist history, as this was when the past took center stage in Polish political life. It argues that during this period a distinct culture of commemoration emerged in Poland – one that was not only governed by what the electorate wanted to hear and see, but also fueled by emotions.
World War II gripped Poland as it did no other country. Invaded by Germany and the USSR, it was occupied from the first day of war to the last, and then endured 44 years behind the Iron Curtain while its wartime partners celebrated their freedom. The Eagle Unbowed tells, for the first time, the story of Poland’s war in its entirety and complexity.
Even seventy-five years after the end of World War II, the commemorative cultures surrounding the War and the Holocaust in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe are anything but fixed. The fierce debates on how to deal with the past among the newly constituted nation states in these regions have already received much attention by scholars in cultural and memory studies. The present volume posits that literature as a medium can help us understand the shifting attitudes towards World War II and the Holocaust in post-Communist Europe in recent years. These shifts point to new commemorative cultures shaping up ‘after memory’. Contemporary literary representations of World War II and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe do not merely extend or replace older practices of remembrance and testimony, but reflect on these now defunct or superseded narratives. New narratives of remembrance are conditioned by a fundamentally new social and political context, one that emerged from the devaluation of socialist commemorative rituals and as a response to the loss of private and family memory narratives. The volume offers insights into the diverse literatures of Eastern Europe and their ways of depicting the area’s contested heritage.