Elbing vs. Elbląg. From contested land to decolonial representations

Autor: Elisa-Maria Hiemer
Jazyk: English<br />Polish
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Czytanie Literatury, Iss 12, Pp 95-113 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2299-7458
2449-8386
DOI: 10.18778/2299-7458.12.07
Popis: Territorial shifts after World War II entailed critical demographic changes: Germans were expelled from Elbing; Poles from the eastern territories were supposed to take their place in Elbląg. Personal and national narratives had to be created from scratch. The article explores different forms of texts and maps – memoirs, tourist guides, literature, and an exhibition – to scrutinise different city and neighbourhood narratives from German and Polish standpoints. Besides analysing the central motifs and narrative strategies that rely on an urban visualisation of memory, it rejects the popular notion of a palimpsest in favour of a decolonial perspective on urban space. Proposing a way to imagine a city beyond nation-based concepts can stimulate reconsidering hierarchic city structures.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals