Lieux de mémoire of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Places, Texts, and People

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

In our papers we focused on the ways in which the inhabitants of Poland and Lithuania in the 16th to early 19th centuries forged their images of the past. We found Pierre Nora's notion of le lieu de mémoire (the place of memory) particularly useful in describing different practices of remembering and making the past. We chose representatives of social elites who were particularly efficient in constructing and controlling collective memory: noblemen (the Sapiehas, Radziwiłł, Paszkiewicz) and scholars (Brożek and Radziwiłł). They left material traces of their memory-making activities, which could take different forms: residences in the case of the Sapiehas, a museum-like object in the case of Paszkiewicz, and annotated texts in which

Radziwiłł and Brożek described their journeys. We will try to analyse from different angles the nature of the places of memory created by these actors. Were they successful in their memory practices? How did personal experience trigger their need to participate in the construction of cultural memory? How did the processes of national identity formation (both early modern and modern) and general history intersect? What was the distant effect of activities of Radziwiłł, Brożek, the Sapiehas, and Paszkiewicz? This last question leads us to the final, and probably open, question: How have these practices of memory management influenced our contemporary understanding of the past of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic Studies

Chair

• Tom Grusiecki, Boise State U

Papers

• Framing the Journey: Paratexts as Lieux de Mémoire in Early Modern Pilgrimage Narratives - Eleonora Terleckienė, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

• In the Footsteps of Copernicus: Jan Brożek and His Journey in 1618 - Jakub Niedzwiedz, Jagiellonian U (Poland)

• 'Is Baublis Still Alive? It Was so Huge…': Early 19th-Century Lithuanian Issues with Polish Memory (and Vice Versa) - Pawel Bukowiec, Jagiellonian U (Poland)

• Memory and Majesty: The Sapieha Architectural Legacy in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Aleksandra Ziober, U of Wroclaw (Poland)

Discussant

• Maria Grazia Bartolini, U of Milan (Italy)