‘New History—the New Ways of Knowing and Remembering the Caucasus in Poland’

Abstract

This paper aims to reconstruct the knowledge claims and memory politics in Polish public discourse about the Caucasus. As it highlights the importance of history and a production of a ‘New History’ for political use, it illuminates the role of the visual dimension in the symbolic politics of memory in Poland. The special example of the Caucasus, particularly the places of Georgia and Russia, serves to show how peripheral regions can gain prominence in the knowledge struggles and strategies of self-representation and othering of particular nations, regions and states on the geopolitical plane.