The forgotten Eastern Front: dealing with the social and archaeological legacies of the Battle of the Rawka and Bzura Rivers (1914–1915), central Poland

Abstract

While the Western Front of the Great (or First World) War is deeply engrained in the European historical consciousness, memories of the Eastern Front are less prominent. Here, events have been repressed, obscured by the subsequent experience of the Second World War and by heritage policy in the region. The authors present the results of archaeological investigations of a battlefield in central Poland, where static trench warfare was fought between December 1914 and July 1915. A unique landscape palimpsest was formed, the present neglected state of which is a material expression of contemporary attitudes to the legacy of the forgotten Eastern Front. The study illustrates the wider intersection of warfare, identity and memory.

Finding the Wrong People. Challenges of contemporary archaeology in Poland

“…Such research requires a landscape approach using a wide spectrum of remote sensing data. A best-practice example has recently been published in relation to the battlefield of 1914-1915 on the Rawka and Bzura Rivers (Zalewska et al 2019). Their results, as well as invasive fieldwork (Zalewska 2019) indicate, as never before, the problem of defining an archaeological site and its boundaries (for more on this subject see Zalewska 2018, 45-48).…”

“…A best-practice example has recently been published in relation to the battlefield of 1914-1915 on the Rawka and Bzura Rivers (Zalewska et al 2019). Their results, as well as invasive fieldwork (Zalewska 2019) indicate, as never before, the problem of defining an archaeological site and its boundaries (for more on this subject see Zalewska 2018, 45-48). Heritage-related activities with regard to investments require precise delimitation of protected areas where material remains of human activity are worthy of in situ preservation or preventive archaeological research.…”

“…More and more archaeologists, inclucing those in Poland, find therein interesting research topics and may focus exclusively on them. It should be noted, however, that except for development-led archaeology, contemporary archaeological sites are very rarely studied as part of purely scientific projects (for example, see Kiarszys 2019;Zalewska 2019;2022;Zalewska et al 2019).…”

The Formation of the Units of the Polish People’s Army (1944-1945) in Eastern Poland. The LiDAR Evidence

“…Archaeologia Polona, vol. 61: 2023, 269 -287 PL ISSN 0066 -5924 DOI: 10.238558/APa61.2023 installations (Zalewska and Kiarszys 2015;Kobiałka 2017;Zalewska et al, 2019;Niebylski 2020;Niebylski et al, 2021;Zalewska and Kiarszys 2021;Niebylski and Czarnowicz 2022;Szubski et al, 2022). This study is based on the high-resolution data from the IT Country Protection System (in Polish: Informatyczny System Osłony Kraju, abbrev.…”