Die Feldzüge des Bolesław Schiefmund nach Belgard und Kolberg und die Anfänge der Symbolischen Inbesitznahme Pommerns Durch Polen
The Expeditions of Bolesław III Wrymouth to Belgard (Polish: Białogard) and Kolberg (Polish: Kołobrzeg) and the Beginning of the Polish Symbolic Appropriation of Pomerania

Summary/Abstract: For 150 years Kołobrzeg was an important place of remembrance in Germany. In 1945 Pomerania together with that town was captured by the Polish state after bloody fights of the Polish army. With the reference to the 1945 battle the Polish created several historical myths, which also refer to a Medieval narrative. The article is an attempt to investigate – on the basis of chronicles – whether already in the Middle Ages the narrative about Kołobrzeg and nearby Białogard played a similar role in the symbolic policy among the Polish elites. The first part of the article describes the records of chroniclers about the expeditions of Bolesław III Wrymouth to Białogard and Kołobrzeg. The second part depicts their significance against the background of the contemporary political situation. It seems that at the beginning of the 12th century Gallus Anonymus (Anonymous) tried to invest those towns with symbolic significance, but with time chroniclers changed the original meaning of the records and entwined their elements in the current political discourse. Those plots came back only when the idea of the union between Poland and Pomerania re-emerged.

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