Warsaw: Performing Memory of the Non-Existent City

• In Event: Legacies of Diversity in a Post-Multi-Ethnic Space II: Between Memory and Practice

Abstract

Prewar Warsaw was considered the Jewish capital of Europe, with roughly one third of Yiddish-speaking population. In my paper, I will consider various strategies employed by different actors that relate to this past. I will consider official communication stategies policies and programs of the Warsaw’s Bureau of Culture that aim at promoting the city’s multicultural past and present, look at different govermental and non-govermental institutions as well as grass-root initiatives. Finally, I will try to understand the place of Jewish institutions in this context.
I will analyze the dynamics of the developement of those various initiatives, and look if and how they were influenced by the change in the city’s cultural and social landscape following Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine and the influx of Ukrainian refugees.

Author

• Karolina Szymaniak, Sorbonne U (France)