Border-crossings as memory sites? The case study of the Czech-Polish border in Cieszyn Silesia

Ondřej Elbel

University of Ostrava
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6704-5500

Abstract

This project evaluates the state borders between Czechia and Poland in the region of Cieszyn Silesia from the perspective of memory studies. Emphasizing the fact that the borders and especially border crossings are sites rich in symbolics, a field observation was conducted to explore whether the border-crossings (can) play a role in memory work. These sites, apart from their apparent function, represent bridges between two states and are usually two national communities. If these groups were in antagonistic relationships in the past (tensions, violence), the border could also become a site of rivalry (e.g., contested border demarcations). In this project, all the border-crossings between Czechia and Poland in Cieszyn Silesia are considered, and the imprints of the past are identified. According to the approach of the SANE framework (Björkdahl et al., 2017), some of these border crossings can be also considered memory sites which means they are (can become) a platform for reconciliation or construction of new and better cross-border relationships. That goal is also valid for Cieszyn Silesia which was divided into two parts after the First World War (Czechoslovak and Polish). Such demarcation did not respect the national and linguistic distribution of populations and left many Poles in Czechoslovakia. The demarcation of the new border was accompanied by events that turned sensitive from a longer perspective (Czechoslovak military campaign in 1919 on Polish territory, Polish occupation of Cieszyn Silesia in 1938). This paper, therefore, explores the reconciling and conflicting narratives the memory sites may have.

Keywords:

memory site, borders, border-crossing, SANE framework, Cieszyn Silesia

Alderman, D. H., Inwood, J. F. (2013). Landscapes of memory and socially just futures. The Wiley-Blackwell companion to cultural geography, 186-197.
  Google Scholar

Andersen, D. J., Prokkola, E. K. (2018). Heritage as bordering: Heritage making, ontological struggles and the politics of memory in the Croatian and Finnish borderlands. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 1-20.
  Google Scholar

Ashplant, T. G., Dawson, G., Roper, M. (2004). The politics of memory: Commemorating war. Memory and Narrative Series. London.
  Google Scholar

Assmann, J. (2011). Communicative and cultural memory. In Cultural memories (pp. 15-27). Springer, Dordrecht.
  Google Scholar

Assmann, J., & Czaplicka, J. (1995). Collective memory and cultural identity. New german critique, (65), 125-133.
  Google Scholar

Baran, I. (2009). Polská menšina v československo-polských vztazích mezi světovými válkami. Poláci na Těšínsku, 36-41.
  Google Scholar

Barwiński, M. (2017). Borderland of nations, religions, and cultures–the case of Podlasie. European Spatial Research and Policy, 24(2), 111-125.
  Google Scholar

Berdahl, D. (1999). Where the world ended: Re-unification and identity in the German borderland. Univ of California Press.
  Google Scholar

Bílek, J. (2018). Kyselá těšínská jablíčka-2. vyd.: Československo-polské konflikty o Těšínsko 1919, 1938, 1945. Epocha.
  Google Scholar

Björkdahl, A., Buckley-Zistel, S., Kappler, S., Selimovic, J. M., Williams, T. (2017). Memory politics, cultural heritage and peace: Introducing an analytical framework to study mnemonic formations. Cultural Heritage and Peace: Introducing an Analytical Framework to Study Mnemonic Formations (October 2017). Research Cluster on Peace, Memory & Cultural Heritage Working Paper Series, (1).
  Google Scholar

Böhm, H. (2018). Polish minority in the Czech part of Těšín Silesia in 2017: can accent on schools prevent the entire assimilation?. In Proceedings of 25th Central European Conference Useful Geography: Transfer from Research to Practice 12th–13th October 2017. Masarykova univerzita.
  Google Scholar

Böhm, H. (2022). Challenges of Pandemic-Related Border Closures for Everyday Lives of Poles and Czechs in the Divided Town of Cieszyn/Český Těšín: Integrated Functional Space or Reemergence of Animosities? Nationalities Papers, 50(1), 130-144.
  Google Scholar

Böhm, H., Drápela, E. (2017). Cross-border cooperation as a reconciliation tool: Example from the East Czech-Polish borders. Regional & Federal Studies, 27(3), 305-319.
  Google Scholar

Böhm, H., Opioła, W. (2019). Czech–Polish Cross-Border (Non) Cooperation in the Field of the Labor Market: Why Does It Seem to Be Un-De-Bordered?. Sustainability, 11(10), 2855.
  Google Scholar

Borák, M. (1997). Zábor Těšínska v říjnu 1938 a první fáze delimitace hranic mezi Československem a Polskem (výběr dokumentů). Časopis Slezského zemského muzea, série B, roč. 46, 1997, č, 3, 206-247.
  Google Scholar

Borák, M. (2009). Německá okupace Těšínského Slezska. Poláci na Těšínsku, 42-59.
  Google Scholar

Brierley, G. J. (2010). Landscape memory: the imprint of the past on contemporary landscape forms and processes. Area, 42(1), 76-85.
  Google Scholar

Bruntálský A Krnovský Deník (2020). Hrčava se opět stane dějištěm Poutě tří národů. Bruntálský a Krnovský deník [online]. 2017, (198), 2 [cit. 2021-11-23]. ISSN 1213-5577. http://www.bruntalsky.denik.cz/
  Google Scholar

Buttin, F. (2005). The Polish-Czechoslovak conflict over Teschen Silesia (1918–1920): a case study. Perspectives: review of Central European affairs, (25), 63-78.
  Google Scholar

Cienciala, A. M. (2017). Poland and the Western Powers 1938-1938. University of Toronto Press.
  Google Scholar

Crang, M. (1998). Cultural geography. Psychology Press.
  Google Scholar

ČTK (2020). Za otevření česko-polské hranice dnes demonstrovalo 400 lidí z Českého Těšína. https://novojicinsky.denik.cz/z-regionu/za-otevreni-cesko-polske-hranice-dnes-demonstrovalo-400-lidi-z-ceskeho-tesina-20200503.html
  Google Scholar

Dołzbłasz, S. (2015). Symmetry or asymmetry? Cross-border openness of service providers in Polish-Czech and Polish-German border towns. Moravian Geographical Reports, 23(1), 2-12.
  Google Scholar

Ferguson, N., Halliday, D. (2020). Collective Memory and the Legacy of the Troubles. The social psychology of collective victimhood, 56.
  Google Scholar

Fikfak, J. (2009). Cultural and social representations on the border: From disagreement to coexistence. Human affairs, (4), 350-362.
  Google Scholar

Forest, B., Johnson, J. (2002). Unraveling the threads of history: Soviet–Era monuments and Post–Soviet national identity in Moscow. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92(3), 524-547.
  Google Scholar

Friedl, J. (2009). Polská menšina v letech 1945 – 1956. Poláci na Těšínsku, 60-67.
  Google Scholar

Gąsior, G. (2009). Rozdělení Těšínského Slezska v letech 1918–1920. Poláci na Těšínsku, 22-29.
  Google Scholar

Gibson, C. (2016). Borderlands between history and memory: Latgale’s Palimpsestuous past in contemporary Latvia (p. 192). University of Tartu Press.
  Google Scholar

Głos Ziemi Cieszynskiej (2020). Burza po odslonieciu pomnika slupa granicznego w Czeskim Cieszynie. [online]. 2020, [cit. 2021-11-24]. https://beskidzka24.pl/burza-po-odslonieciu-pomnika-slupa-granicznego-w-czeskim-cieszynie/
  Google Scholar

Grygar, J. (2004). Paměť identity-identita paměti: Politiky vzpomínání ve Stonavě na Těšínsku (Doctoral dissertation, Praha: FSV UK).
  Google Scholar

Hannan, K. (2006). Borders of identity and language in Silesia. The Polish Review, 51(2), 131-145.
  Google Scholar

Haselsberger, B. (2014). Decoding borders. Appreciating border impacts on space and people. Planning Theory & Practice, 15(4), 505-526.
  Google Scholar

Havlíková, D. (2020). Dům těšínských kněžen se promění na muzeum. Frýdecko-Místecký a Třinecký deník [online]. 2020, (269), 2 [cit. 2021-11-23]. ISSN 1213-5577. http://www.frydeckomistecky.denik.cz/
  Google Scholar

Jemelka, M. (2014). The Ostrava Industrial Agglomeration in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: Where the Urban Countryside met the Rural Town. In: Mastery and host illusions: Space and Time in the Modernisation of Eastern and Central Europe, ed. Wiodzimierz Borodziej, Stanislav Holubec, and Joachim von Puttkamer (Europas Osten im 20. Jahrhundert 5)(Munich: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2014), 71-98.
  Google Scholar

Johnson, J., Larsen, S. C. (2013). A deeper sense of place. OSU Press, Ohio.
  Google Scholar

Johnson, N. C. (2002). Mapping monuments: the shaping of public space and cultural identities. Visual communication, 1(3), 293-298.
  Google Scholar

Kaim, D., Taczanowski, J., Szwagrzyk, M., Ostafin, K. (2020). Railway network of Galicia and Austrian Silesia (1847-1914). Journal of Maps, 16(1), 132-137.
  Google Scholar

Kajta, J., Opiłowska, E. (2021). The Impact of Covid-19 on Structure and Agency in a Borderland. The Case of Two Twin Towns in Central Europe. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 1-23.
  Google Scholar

Kamiński, M. K. (2004). Konflikt polsko-czeski: 1918-1921. Wydawn. Neriton.
  Google Scholar

Kappler, S. (2017). Sarajevo’s ambivalent memoryscape: Spatial stories of peace and conflict. Memory Studies, 10(2), 130-143.
  Google Scholar

Kapralski, S. (2001). Battlefields of memory: Landscape and identity in Polish—Jewish relations. History & Memory, 13(2), 35-58.
  Google Scholar

Kirmayer, L. (1996). Landscapes of memory. Tense past: Cultural essays in trauma and memory, 172-198.
  Google Scholar

Koter, M. (2003). Multicultural border regions of Europe–forms of ethnic composition and process of their differentiation. The University of Lodź.
  Google Scholar

Kozłowski, L. (2011). The persistence and interaction of multi-ethnic settlement remnants in the cultural landscape. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic series, (16), 35-55.
  Google Scholar

Křižáková, K. (2020). Český Těšín si připomněl sto let od svého vzniku. WWW - cz [online]. 2020 [cit. 2021-11-24]. https://ostrava.rozhlas.cz/cesky-tesin-si-pripomnel-sto-let-od-sveho-vzniku-8262051
  Google Scholar

Mácha, P., Lassak, H., Krtička, L. (2018). City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands.
  Google Scholar

Marcucci, D. J. (2000). Landscape history as a planning tool. Landscape and urban planning, 49(1-2), 67-81.
  Google Scholar

Marschall, S. (2012). ‘Personal memory tourism’ and a wider exploration of the tourism− memory nexus. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 10(4), 321-335.
  Google Scholar

Marvell, A., Simm, D. (2016). Unravelling the geographical palimpsest through fieldwork: discovering a sense of place. Geography, 101(3), 125-136.
  Google Scholar

Mašková, J. (2015). Zavádění dvojjazyčných místních názvů jako veřejně politický proces (případová studie). Univerzita Karlova – depozitář závěrečných prací.
  Google Scholar

Mitchell, D. (2001). The lure of the local: landscape studies at the end of a troubled century. Progress in human geography, 25(2), 269-281.
  Google Scholar

Morys-Twarowski, M. (2018). The Relationship Between Religion, Language and Nationality on the Example of Village Mayors in Cieszyn Silesia in 1864–1918.
  Google Scholar

Murzyn-Kupisz, M., Gwosdz, K. (2011). The changing identity of the Central European city: the case of Katowice. Journal of Historical Geography, 37(1), 113-126.
  Google Scholar

Narvselius, E. (2015). Spicing up memories and serving nostalgias: thematic restaurants and transnational memories in east-central European borderland cities. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 23(3), 417-432.
  Google Scholar

Newman, D. (2006). The lines that continue to separate us: borders in our borderless world. Progress in Human geography, 30(2), 143-161.
  Google Scholar

Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. representations, 26, 7-24.
  Google Scholar

Nowak, K. (2009). Polská menšina v letech 1956–1989. Poláci na Těšínsku, 68-81.
  Google Scholar

Pászto, V., Macků, K., Burian, J., Pánek, J., & Tuček, P. (2019). Capturing cross-border continuity: The case of the Czech-Polish borderland. Moravian Geographical Reports, 27(2), 122-138.
  Google Scholar

Paul, E. L. (1999). Conflict and Coexistence: Poles and Czechs in Czech Teschen Silesia, 1920–1925. University of Kansas.
  Google Scholar

Pfoser, A. (2014). Between Russia and Estonia: narratives of place in a new borderland. Nationalities Papers, 42(2), 269-285.
  Google Scholar

Praisová, J. (2020). Pouť ke cti sv. Melichara Grodeckého. Katolický týdeník [online]. 2019, (36), 5 [cit. 2021-11-24].
  Google Scholar

Ptáčník, T. (2020). Tragédie na Čantoryji byla odvetou za navrácení Těšínska. Noviny Region Karvinsko [online]. 2020, (47), 4 [cit. 2021-11-24]. ISSN 1212-2084. http://www.vlp.cz
  Google Scholar

Rousselet, K. (2007). Butovo. Politix, (1), 55-78.
  Google Scholar

Rychlík, J. (2006). Cestovní styk mezi Československem a Polskem v letech 1980–1989. In: Kapitolami najnovších slovenských dejín. K sedemdesiatym narodeninám Michala Barnovského (pp. 300-310). Historický ústav SAV.
  Google Scholar

Scott, J. W. (2012). European politics of borders, border symbolism and cross-border cooperation. A companion to border studies, 83-99.
  Google Scholar

Siwek, T. (2018). Silesian Identity across the Internal Border of the EU. In: Borders in Central Europe After the Schengen Agreement (pp. 167-177). Springer, Cham.
  Google Scholar

Siwek, T., Kaszper, R. (2009). Role of divided and multicultural cities in historical regions. Historical Regions Divided by the Borders: Cultural heritage and multicultural cities, 2, 203.
  Google Scholar

Smith, L., Wetherell, M., Campbell, G. (Eds.). (2018). Emotion, affective practices, and the past in the present. Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Stašová, G. (2019). OBRAZEM: Svátek Tří Bratří zahájil slavnostní průvod. Moravskoslezsky.denik.cz [online]. 2019 [cit. 2021-11-24]. https://moravskoslezsky.denik.cz/z-regionu/obrazem-svatek-tri-bratri-zahajil-slavnostni-pruvod-20190616.html
  Google Scholar

Stobbelaar, D. J., Pedroli, B. (2011). Perspectives on landscape identity: A conceptual challenge. Landscape Research, 36(3), 321-339.
  Google Scholar

Sumartojo, S. (2016). Commemorative atmospheres: Memorial sites, collective events and the experience of national identity. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(4), 541-553.
  Google Scholar

Sumartojo, S. (2020). New geographies of commemoration. Progress in Human Geography, 0309132520936758.
  Google Scholar

Szpociński, A. (2016). Sites of Memory. Teksty Drugie, (1), 245-254.
  Google Scholar

Šmidrkal, V. (2012). „Železná opona “jako české místo paměti. Střed. Časopis pro mezioborová studia Střední Evropy 19. a 20. století, 4(1), 56-80.
  Google Scholar

Vedru, G. (2009). Layers of landscape, layers of site. Eesti Arheoloogia Ajakiri, 13(1), 21-35.
  Google Scholar

Whelan, Y. (2016). Heritage, memory and the politics of identity: New perspectives on the cultural landscape. Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Winter, J. (2008). Sites of Memory and the Shadow of War. Cultural memory studies: An international and interdisciplinary handbook, 8, 61.
  Google Scholar

Wróblewski, Ł., Kasperek, A. (2019). Euroregion as an entity stimulating the sustainable development of the cross-border market for cultural services in a city divided by a border. Sustainability, 11(8), 2232.
  Google Scholar

Zaiotti, R. (2011). Cultures of border control: Schengen and the evolution of European frontiers. University of Chicago Press.
  Google Scholar

Zhurzhenko, T. (2010). Borderlands into bordered lands: geopolitics of identity in post-Soviet Ukraine (Vol. 98). Columbia University Press.
  Google Scholar

Zhurzhenko, T. (2013). Memory wars and reconciliation in the Ukrainian–Polish borderlands: Geopolitics of memory from a local perspective. In: History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 173-192). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
  Google Scholar

Download


Published
2022-10-04

Cited by

Elbel, O. (2022). Border-crossings as memory sites? The case study of the Czech-Polish border in Cieszyn Silesia. Border and Regional Studies, 10(3), 145–170. https://doi.org/10.25167/brs4689

Authors

Ondřej Elbel 
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6704-5500

Statistics

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.


License

Copyright (c) 2022 Border and Regional Studies and the Author

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.