„Duchowa współsukcesja”?
"Spiritual co-succession"?

"Post-German" by Karolina Kuszyk and Polish-German memory discourses

Author(s): Rafał Żytyniec
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Regained Lands; expellees; memory culture; regionalism; post-German
Summary/Abstract: The text discusses the myth of the “Regained Lands” in the Polish People's Republic and contemporary Poland, as well as the historical policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was shaped by the Federation of Expellees and subsequent German governments since 1949 until today. In the first part of the text the author describes the genesis, development and revision of the founding myth of the Polish People's Republic in historical context. He recalls the "Message of the Polish Bishops to their German Brothers in Christ" of 1965, Jan Józef Lipski’s thought referring to the critical tradition of Polish patriotism, formulated in 1981 in the essay Two Homelands, Two Patriotisms” and the idea of open regionalism and the Atlantis of the North developed by Olsztyn intellectuals centered around the Cultural Community “Borussia”. The second part of the text analyses historical policy and German memory culture in relation to the 1951 Card of the German Expellees, eastern policy of Willy Brand in the 1970s and the institutionalization of the memory of expulsions through the establishment of the Berlin Documentation Centre in 2021 and controversies surrounding it. The text is a preface to the interview conducted with Karolina Kuszyk, the author of the book "Poniemieckie" in 2021 during the conference “Identity as a Process”.

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