Somebody Else’s Past – Our Memory: About Practicing Memory in the Bieszczady Region Cover Image

Cudza przeszłość – nasza pamięć. Praktykowanie pamięci w Bieszczadach
Somebody Else’s Past – Our Memory: About Practicing Memory in the Bieszczady Region

Author(s): Patrycja Trzeszczyńska
Subject(s): Cultural history, Customs / Folklore, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: practicing memory; the Bieszczady region; not-your past; cultural memory;

Summary/Abstract: The article concerns the problem of cultural memory in this particular case when the memory relates to the past, “belonging” to another person rather than the community of those who remember. It is in the Bieszczady Mountains, settled again after the Second World War and the displacements of the Boyko (Ukrainian) population, where one can now observe cultural practices used to reach for someone else’s past, a kind of “development” and adjustment of this past with contemporary needs of residents and tourists. The postwar and post-displacement Bieszczady region also has its new mytho-history, their own pioneering and hoodlum-like narratives of memory, which coexist with the memory of not-your past, still a little bit uncomfortable, but already recognized as a characteristic of the place. The author tries to show both the idea of the past as well as activities focused on memory, creating memory that is defined as practicing memory. What is significant here is the transition from the ideas of the past to practicing memory, which stems from the belief of the author that the ideas of the past of the Bieszczady have the potential to activate people.

  • Issue Year: 44/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 1-23
  • Page Count: 23
  • Language: Polish