Values, Substantiality, and Passage of Time: Representations and Reinterpretations of Military Heritage
Values, Substantiality, and Passage of Time: Representations and Reinterpretations of Military Heritage

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the subject of post-Soviet military bases in Poland, and deals with two main issues: 1) presenting such sites as entanglements of place, materiality, military and symbolic elements in the process of creating commonality, and 2) regarding them as products of local “imaginings” and external touristic expectations. I look at how ways of constructing heritage are shaped and constructed through locals’ encounters with tourism. Following this, I claim that the defining criteria of what can be regarded as heritage relevant to accompanying transformations of original functions of military sites or post-Soviet military bases involve value, substantiality, and the passage of time. To elaborate on these research questions, I draw on data from two places where the Soviet Army was deployed: Borne Sulinowo, along with Kłomino, and Międzyrzecz, with Kęszyca Leśna. The differences in size, function, and proximity to bigger cities are factors that helped to determine the distinct ways in which the local people dealt with the Soviet military presence, and how the foreign military past can be used in the process of handling different types of tourists, those interested in nature, often well-preserved near the former military space, those interested in history and those following the trail of military issues (e.g. fortresses, bunkers, and fortifications). The sites for local inhabitants are where they live, for tourists they are places to see, and for some people they can be interesting spaces to set up military camps or fortresses.

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