Pomiędzy pamięcią a historią. Polskie miasta wobec wielokulturowego dziedzictwa

Abstract

This article discusses the question of the reconstruction of social memory in Polish cities. To illustrate this process the author decided to employ a comparative approach and analyzed this process in two Polish cities: Krakow and Wroclaw. The case selection was directed by their comparable population size and their importance as cultural and scientific centres. As far as differences between the three are concerned, their demographic reproduction patterns are substantially distinct. Krakow has preserved and reproduced its traditional bourgeois character, whereas Wroclaw serves as a typical example of a post-migrant city with an entirely reconstructed identity because of the post-World War II population shifts. Despite their multiethnic composition and heritage, in the formative period for contemporary collective identities in the 19th century these cities built their identities solely with relation to symbolically homogenous contexts (Polish in Krakow and German in Wroclaw). These nationally homogeneous discourses were even strengthened during the postwar period and continued long after WWII. The breakthrough came with the collapse of communism. The inhabitants of the cities regained a possibility of social agency and by this token a chance for building new identities. However, these processes did not start from scratch. They were determined by existing social and cultural structures which imprinted their particular patterns on their new developments.