Milieux de mémoire in Late Modernity

Abstract

This book is the product of a long period of cooperation fueled by our common desire to comprehend the crucial influence religious modes of commemoration exert on meaning attributed to the past, and in particular to twentieth-century history. We have repeatedly encountered such religious modes of commemoration over the course of field trips undertaken in Poland over many years. In fact, crosses, memorial stones engraved with religious symbols, churches, and sanctuaries containing epitaphs, commemorative plaques, sacred figures, or stained-glass windows form an integral part of the Polish cultural landscape. These memory markers became such a frequent topic of discussion during the regular meetings we organized to reflect on our research that we eventually decided it would be worth investigating the issue of religious commemoration systematically. We achieved this by developing a project titled Milieux de mémoire in Eastern Europe -the Polish Case Study, which the National Science Center generously agreed to fund 1 . The project was coordinated by Zuzanna Bogumił and administered by the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw. Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper and Marta Karkowska were the main investigators in this project. We would like here to offer our very warm gratitude to Marta Karkowska for the many years she devoted to the project, carrying out research in Kałków-Godów, Michniów, and Markowa, conducting analytical work, taking part in discussions and critically reading each chapter of the book, all of which enabled her to offer us very valuable comments that helped us put the finishing touches to the manuscript. Our analysis of articles that Marta Karkowska published about Michniów 2 and the manuscript she prepared for another article on Markowa were an important point of departure for us when we started writing the chapters of this book devoted to these places. 2 Marta Karkowska. "Międzypokoleniowe Transmisje pamięci. Na podstawie badań we wsiach świętokrzyskich. " [Intergenerational Memory Transmissions. Based on Research in Villages in the Holy Cross Region]

Becoming a Nationalist Activist: Exploring Biographical Paths of Polish Football Fans

“…Although the autobiographical data we obtained indicate mainly the influence of supporters' structure on their activism, research on collective memory shows that the emergence of new commemorative practices is related to wider social processes like shifting political discourses on memory, new technologies or cultural trends on identity (Bogumił and Głowacka-Grajper, 2019). In this vein, it can be argued that the turn from an active form of national-martyrological attitude to activism is linked with the appearance of pluralistic discourses on memory of the Second World War in Poland in the 2000s, which developed in response to 'the lack of open discourse during communism and the sheer number of un-worked-through historical issues that were ignored' (Langenbacher, 2008: 60).…”

Non-memory: Remembering beyond the discursive and the symbolic

“…Focusing on the not yet fully understood vernacular layer of the circulation of memory also has the potential advantage of supporting cognitive efforts in the face of memory processes within poorly recognized so-called traditional communities of memory ( milieux de mémoire ), which, according to the research of Zuzanna Bogumił and Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper (2019), still maintain a parallel existence alongside the national community and have not been completely marginalized or deactivated over the course of the processes of modernization. Focusing the attention of memory studies on the underinvested vernacular layer has this potential advantage, too: it supports the development of “situated knowledges,” that is, information made real, critical, and non-hegemonic, moving away from a model of vertical domination (e.g.…”

Sacralizing a Battlefield: The Religious Heritage of the Battle of Warsaw 1920

“…The presence of that denomination in heritage discourse and practice stems from the privileged status the Roman Catholic Church enjoys in the public sphere in Poland (see Pasieka 2015), as well as its prominent role in state politics and the processes of development of national identity (see Kubik 1994;Zubrzycki 2006). In these circumstances, the investments Roman Catholic institutions make in creating visions of the past (see Bogumił and Głowacka-Grajper 2019) also leave their mark on the shape of Polish heritage. The involvement of other religions in this process is less pronounced, which may result not from their different attitude to the past and managing its image as a part of religious practice, but rather from their limited access to the public sphere (see Baraniecka-Olszewska 2022).…”