The article presents outcomes of the transformation of ethnographic shows into circus acts at the example of Sarrasani Circus performances in Opole (German: Oppeln) in the beginning of the 20 th century. The author examines how circus performances created experience of the extraordinary on stage by presenting faraway, distant, exotic cultures. Thus ethnographic shows in the Sarrasani Circus were an element of magic world of wonders performed at arena. The circus visited Opole thrice: in 1913, 1928 and 1933 becoming one of the main attractions in the city. Each time the shows were preceded by a huge advertising campaign in the local German-and Polish-language press. Press articles, notes and advertisements along with scarce archival data constitute the main source for the analysis, though they offer a very specific image of the past. Taking this into account, the author focuses on the manner of conceptualizing exotic cultures to make them attractive to the city audience. Such an approach enables research on the process of presenting exotic ethnic groups within a framework of city entertainment in the first decades of the 20 th century. Therefore what the author describes is a way in which distant cultures become a stage attraction, a circus trick and an element co-creating a fantastic reality on arena.
The article aims to show how ethnographic data concerning religious rites, both Catholic and pagan, circulate in culture and thus become a kind of historical source for re-enacting other, invented religious rites. In the example of the Rękawka fair in Cracow, it is demonstrated how religious content present in nineteenth-century ethnographic descriptions, originally ascribed to pre-Christian paganism but incorporated into a Catholic fair, was separated from it and used in recreating and performing a neopagan rite. Investigating an Early Middle Ages re-enactment movement, the author focuses on the process of transforming ethnographic data into historical ones. Analysing the problem of authenticity of such sources, she points out the particularities of achieving authenticity in a re-enactment movement: to some, the contemporary Rękawka fair remains only a kind of historical re-enactment, while according to others it is a true neopagan rite.
studied ethnology and Latin American studies. Since 2007 she has worked in the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her main subject of interest was anthropology of religion and performance studies, and especially forms of religious expression. In 2011 she defended her Ph.D. thesis on Polish Passion plays at Warsaw University. Now she is finishing another project on historical reenactments in Poland. She is an author of over twenty articles dealing with contemporary religiosity and with perceiving and representing history. She also wrote a book on Passion plays, The Crucified: Contemporary Passion Plays in Poland (de Gruyter, 2017). Photos 1 and 2 credit: Paweł Baraniecki 28 | Nature in Religious Discourses and Imageries in Poland's Kalwaria Pacławska Sanctuary JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM however, I focus on a different aspect of Kalwaria Pacławska's location, namely the natural environment surrounding the sanctuary, since it constitutes yet another important factor that shapes the religious experiences of the faithful 3 who come to Kalwaria, just as it directs the practices of the local Franciscan monks, which are designed to deepen the pilgrims' involvement in the local cult. The sanctuary in Kalwaria Pacławska is a monastic complex with forty-one eighteenth-century chapels scattered across the two hills on opposing sides of the Wiar River-the Kidron of Kalwaria Pacławska. [Photo 3] As a calvary, this place of worship is intended to resemble, reflect, and symbolize Jerusalem. Calvaries, a kind of Roman Catholic sanctuary, are quite common in Poland, although with the exception of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska near Kraków, they remain mostly only locally popular cult sites. All are built as a set of chapels that are the stations of the Way of 3 Although in the introductory part of the article I do not quote particular respondents and I generalize and synthetize pilgrims' opinions, feelings, and experiences, I do so based on the three years of research I have conducted in Kalwaria Pacławska during the project. Thus, when I write that pilgrims feel or perceive something in a particular way, I do it based on my fieldwork.
The article juxtaposes two perspectives guiding the perception of ethnographic shows, namely, a contemporary and an earlier one. The article uses the example of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows, staged in 1906 in the Polish territories under Austrian rule. Deriving from present criticisms of ethnographic shows and their interpretation through the prism of colonial studies, the author examines the types of reception of such performances met in places in which the inhabitants did not identify with colonialism. Analyzing reactions to the Wild West shows published in the Polish-language dailies, the author offers an interpretation of these performances as foreign, distant from the local social context, and evoking antipatriotic acts. While presently, criticism of ethnographic shows inspires reflection on human rights and equality, the article looks at how the philippics directed against Buffalo Bill’s performances contributed to the promotion of patriotic attitudes by the intellectual elites of the time.
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