Spacerowniki – chodzona historia miasta

Abstract

The author of this articleeditor and author or co-author of ten walking guides to Łódź and the Łódź regionpresents the process of creating these publications between 2007 and 2013 and reflects on the distinctive features of a genre whose essence lies in the “walked” history of the city and its interaction with urban space. She considers how far (or perhaps how close) this form is to the traditional Baedeker or guidebook, and whether participants in mass walks resemble the modernist flâneur. The article also examines the sociological phenomenon accompanying these events and the promotional and commercial machinery integrated into the process. Walking guides emerged in the first decade of the twenty-first century as part of the Gazeta Wyborcza Library series. Following the success of the Warsaw editions, similar publications began to appear in regional versions of the newspaper. The first Łódź guides, published as supplements to Gazeta Wyborcza in spring and autumn 2007, were accompanied by city walks that attracted hundreds of residents fascinated by local history. A year later, the book edition of the Łódź Walking Guide was released. The next guide, Jewish Łódź, appeared in 2009 to mark an important anniversary related to the history of the Łódź ghetto; it offered a narrative about places and people of the Mosaic faith who co-created the city, as well as a practical guide to the Jewish cemetery and the former ghetto area. Other guides were developed differently, such as Russian Traces in the Łódź Region or Walking in the Footsteps of Julian Tuwim (for the Year of Tuwim).