The article presents a theoretical conceptualization of the metaphor of “reliving the past” for ethnographic fieldwork use. The following three issues are elaborated: (1) how the metaphor of “reliving the past” is present in the academic literature; (2) what anthropological theories inspire the proposed use of the notion of “reliving the past”; and (3) how the use of this kind of “theory” and “method” might affect the practice of ethnographic fieldwork. The article is based on the author’s experience gathered during the realization of research on the memory of the Second World War and the post-war period in the Podhale region.

* The present article is the result of the project Józef Kuraś „Ogień” i jego podkomendni w wyobraźni społecznej. Antropologiczne studium przeżywania przeszłości (National Science Centre, grant no. 2016/21/B/HS3/02921 completed at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Ethnography of the Jagiellonian University, under the supervision of Monika Golonka-Czajkowska PhD, professor of the Jagiellonian University (2017–2022).

In this article, I will discuss two levels of memory conflicts in family genealogies: internal – intimate and private, involving mainly taboos in genealogical practices, and external, which come from broader realms of memory, such as national myths and other collective patterns of imagining the past. The leading story in this article is a multidimensional genealogical narrative provided by an amateur genealogist Iwona Sudnik from Pęgowo near Wroclaw. Her genealogical imagination as a form of living “over [family] time” (Jackson 2021) is considered here as an area of accumulated memories that intermingle, complement, or compete with one another, providing background against which conflicts of memory can be studied in the course of in-depth ethnographic research.

Practising Spisz Regionality: On the Discourse of Cultural Heritage, Part I

The text is the first part of an article on mechanisms of creating the regional cultural heritage of Polish Spisz. The area under discussion is a small part of a historical region whose main territory is part of today’s Slovakia. For hundreds of years, it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, hence its specific character and cultural distinctiveness. The first part of the article discusses the processes of aestheticization, reconstructionism and patrimonization of cultural heritage, while the second part discusses the processes of fossilization and articulation. As a result, contemporary regional cultural heritage becomes a kind of metacultural practice and commentary on the regional cultural legacy.

* Projekt został sfinansowany ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki przyznanych na podstawie decyzji nr UMO-2017/25/B/HS3/00043.

After the Second World War the Polish-Slovak borderland became a zone of serious tensions. Particularly controversial is the activity of the Polish partisan group “Błyskawica”, led by Józef Kuraś “Ogień”. The soldiers are responsible for takings of private property and acts of violence carried out in villages in South Poland that were inhabited mostly by Slovaks. This paper – based mainly on the query at the Archives of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance – aims to present the scale and circumstances of those activities. The work takes wider historical context into account and uses selected anthropological and sociological theories. In this perspective, it seems justified to explain the analyzed events through the mechanism of revenge, widespread in the post-war period of anomie and crisis. Sources indicate that the Polish partisans’ actions from the years 1946–1947 were not attempts to pacify the Slovak separatists (although some authors claim so) but rather repressions for the earlier actions of members of that nation.

*The paper presents a part of the results of the research project “Józef Kuraś «Ogień» and his subordinates in social imagination: An anthropological study of experiencing the past”. The grant no. 2016/21/B/HS3/02921 was financed by the Polish National Science Center (Narodowe Centrum Nauki). The team consisted of the researchers from the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the Jagiellonian University: Monika Golonka-Czajkowska (coordinator), Vojtech Bagin, Kaja Kajder, Łukasz Łoziński, Dariusz Nikiel.

The aim of the paper is to analyse a specific case of transformation of communicative memories into cultural memories under the influence of state institutions in Teschen Silesia [Cieszyn Silesia; Těšín Silesia]. In 1920, the multi-ethnic territory of the former Duchy of Teschen was divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia. The author focuses on the state of local social memories after one hundred years since the division and raises the question, what kind of social memories are supported by the Polish and Czech local administrations and what kind of social memories are ignored or suppressed by them. Both sides of the Polish-Czech state border have at least one common feature today, namely the colonization of the past by the national states present here, in that the history of the Polish part of Teschen Silesia is commonly seen here as the history of Poland, and the history of the Czech part of this area as the history of the Czech Republic. It is an unconscious – and thus unreflective – conceptual structure that affects local national identities. The author calls this cognitive structure “demarcation logic”.

“Is Our Eagle White or Golden?” Some Thoughts on Disputes over Commemoration and Promotion of the Duchy of Cieszyn

The article is focused on the discussion accompanying the reconstruction of the flag of the Duchy of Cieszyn. According to the plan of the initiators of the mentioned project, this act should help to create a touristic brand called “Duchy of Cieszyn”. The flag was supposed to help in the process of promoting the Cieszyn Silesia as an attractive touristic region. A couple of days after the flag was presented, the authors of the idea had to face the accusation that they supported the Silesian separatist tendencies which are associated with the Silesian Autonomy Movement [Ruch Autonomii Śląska – RAŚ]. The article presents the arguments of both sides: the critics and initiators of the reconstructed flag. It tries to show the sources of the disputes and narrations of each of the opponents. In the middle of these arguments there are different points of view on the region and its past. They are linked with the different identity and experience of the regional past. The article also focuses e.g., on tensions between identities built around the categories of Cieszyn Silesia and Podbeskidzie which is the unofficial name of the area on the borderland between the historical regions of Lesser Poland [Małopolska] and Cieszyn Silesia. Essentially, the identity of the inhabitants of Podbeskidzie has started to develop after World War II. On the one hand it is linked with the process of cultural forgetting, on the other hand the inhabitants have various experiences of the past. The article also tries to present the opinions of a couple of representants of the Polish minority in Zaolzie [Trans-Olza] in the Czech Republic regarding the reconstruction of the Duchy of Cieszyn flag. In general, the article focuses on conflicts of memory as well as tensions between local / regional and national perspectives.

The article addresses the topic of intimate relationships between colonial officials and indigenous women in German Togo (1884–1914), which occurred in the ideological context stimulated by Cultural Darwinism, and the issue of socio-political consequences of such relations, both in the colony and in the homeland. In its analytical part, I draw on the conceptual distinction between “whiteness” and “blackness” – understood as biological phenotypes – as well as between “whiteness” and “Whiteness” – the latter term denoting a sociocultural system in which people of white complexion are more likely to experience privilege and preferential treatment in comparison with their darkskinned counterparts. The fact that “Whiteness” has been historically “porous” and Western imageries about Africans “flexible” – ranging from brutal racism to romanticization – presented numerous possibilities for certain individuals to “become white” by “acting White”, including the sphere of intimate relationships. In the context of the dominant Darwinian discourse – namely, the perceived threat of racial “degeneration” – the mixed marriages and their offspring became politicized in Germany, and a series of – largely ineffective – legal measures were taken to impose a stricter metropolitan control over the conduct of German colonial officials.

* Research for this article received funding from the National Science Centre, Poland, project No. 2020/38/E/HS3/00241.