Pierzyna czy kołdra? Szycie mapy Mazur

Abstract

This essay analyzes a prewar, Polish guidebook of the Warmia and Mazury regions as it relates to the contemporary topography of the city Giżyck. The author suggests a reading of the city as a place “off the map,” a concept inspired by Alastair Bonnett’s book of the same title. In particular, Karpowicz considers the differences in nomenclature understood as a performative and causative act of textualizing this space. Pointing out the analogies between map and text, this essay proposes an alternate mapping of areas with fluid belonging, frequently transformed and expelled from collective memory, and then established once again, bereft of generational – and more broadly speaking ethnic – continuity, considered an inherent element of the identity of place.