News

In the latest issue of the Zeitschrift für Slawistik you can find an article written by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska titled “Memory-making and Vampire-hunting: A Hauntological Study of the “Recovered” Pomerania in the 1950s”.

This article examines how memory and materiality were managed in the Recovered Territories, lands incorporated by Poland after 1945, through a case study set in Central Pomerania. It juxtaposes Bram Stoker’s Dracula with 1958 bureaucratic documents concerning the trade in cemetery stones from former German graveyards near Koszalin. The study reveals how local and central authorities in People’s Poland navigated the legal, political, and symbolic challenges of dealing with remnants of German heritage. By exploring tensions between top-down directives from Warsaw and local interpretations, the article sheds light on broader post-war memory processes and the contested legacy of German material culture in the 1950s.

Link to the article you can find here.

fieldwork in Pomerania, photo: Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska

The blog post was quest-written by Karolina Gembara, a visual artist, researcher, born and raised in Ząbkowice Śląskie in a family resettled from various parts of today’s Ukraine.

A chance discovery of a bag filled with old photographs led the author of this month’s blog post into a poignant reflection on memory, inheritance, and the aftermath of postwar displacement.

The found images – wedding portraits, marginal notes, rare wartime snapshots – revealed a tangled history of Polish and German lives, layered with silence, loss, and emotional complexity. Among them, a photo album titled Erinnerungen (Memories), likely once owned by a displaced German family, raised urgent questions about symbolic appropriation, mourning, and the uneasy intimacy of living with things that are both ours and not ours.

Link to the blog post you can find here.

From July 14 to 18, 2025, three members of our team—Magdalena Bubík, Karina Hoření, and Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska—presented their research at the 9th Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association, which took place in Prague, Czechia, under the theme Beyond Crises: Resilience and (In)Stability. Conferences are always a collective endeavor, and we’re happy we could be part of this one. We reconnected with long-time colleagues, forged new friendships, and had the opportunity to share our research within the SpectralRecyling project. 

Magdalena presented part of her PhD study in a talk titled Two Phantom Churches, Only One Remembered: A Comparative Study of Protestant and Catholic Churches in Post-Displacement Regions. She focused on Piła, where two churches were demolished post-1945, but only one has been actively commemorated, both in the cityscape and in collective memory: the Roman Catholic one. Her analysis explored why certain religious sites are remembered while others are forgotten, shaped by memory politics, local agency, and material decay. She was part of the panel Nostalgia and Memoryscapes, alongside Ümit Fırat Açıkgöz (American University of Beirut), who spoke on Monuments, Ruins, and the Making of the Future: The Crisis of Urban Memory in Early Republican Istanbul (1923–1949), and Bjorn Krondorfer (Northern Arizona University), who presented on Testimonial and Toxic Landscapes and Memory Objects. All three talks focused on the memory in particular landscapes, where people’s individual stories cross paths with the larger projects of rebuilding, both the past and the future. The panel was moderated by Marcin Jarząbek (Jagiellonian University, Kraków).

Karina presented in the panel Conspiracy Theories, Myths, and Alternative Histories: Probing ‘Speculative Memories’ in Times of Crises, organized by Ilana Hartikainen (University of Helsinki). Her talk, Ghosts and Treasures: Stories about Post-War Property Changes in the Czech Borderlands, explored a topic she had been eager to tackle since the very beginning of our shared project. Namely, how narratives of postwar property shifts in the Czech borderlands have long revolved around the motif of treasure hunting—and how that motif has evolved. Ilana presented on A Pseudohistorical Brotherhood: Pro-Russian Sentiment in Czech Political Rhetoric During Russia’s War in Ukraine, introducing us to the concept of pseudohistory to explore how Pan-Slavism is present (and more often absent) in contemporary Czech far-right narratives. The panel also included Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby (University of Kentucky), who discussed her forthcoming book on sacred landscapes in Western Siberia. The session was moderated by Tatjana Menise (University of Tartu).

Karolina presented on the final day of the conference, in a panel she co-organized with our colleagues from the MEMPOP ERC StG project, affiliated at the Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences. The panel was chaired by the PI of that project, Johana Wyss. Together with Jitka Králová, Laura Mafizzoli, and Ioana Brunet, Karolina explored the question of reconciliation: When is memory enough? Karolina’s talk, “My uncle used to collect everything. Now, I somehow admire him”: The Stories of Formerly German Objects Between State-Level Administration and Personal Narratives, looked at the everyday ethics of keeping, discarding, or interpreting things that come with layered pasts. She was looking for a method of dealing with entangled pasts, stemming from a case study she encountered during her fieldwork in Wałcz, Poland. Ioana Brunet shared insights from her initial fieldwork in Romanian Bukovina in a presentation titled Oktoberfest in the East, while Jitka and Laura summed up their fieldworks: Laura in Georgia, Gulag past presencing: Generational Memory and the Politics of Reconciliation in Georgia, exploring stories of reparations for Soviet-era repressions, and Jitka in Czechia, Uprootedness as a symptom of marginalisation: Case study from the Ústecký region, where she examined how the local history of expulsion is used to explain the development of the region.

Taken together, the three presentations by Magdalena, Karina, and Karolina reflect the core questions at the heart of our research team: How do material remnants—whether sacred architecture, things sought after as treasures, or everyday objects—shape post-displacement experience? What ethical, emotional, and political negotiations emerge when people confront things left behind by others? And how do individual stories, state-level frameworks, and ghostly traces intersect in the formation of new societies? These panels offered a valuable space to test ideas, refine concepts, and stay in dialogue with scholars working across geographies and disciplines. We’re looking forward to building on these conversations in the months to come.

Two members of our research team, Karina Hoření and Magdalena Bubík, used the summer not just to relax, but also to dive into academic work and spread the word about our project. In early July, they set off from two different cities – Magdalena from Kraków and Karina from Prague – to meet at a shared destination: the Slow Memory Conference in Porto.

The event was organized by the COAST Action network SLOW MEMORY, which brings together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences under the common motto: slow down and take time to remember well. This idea shaped the entire conference, fostering reflection, collaboration, and attentiveness to memory and history.

During the conference, Karina and Magdalena led a workshop titled Slow Memory in Photographs. Working in small groups, participants discussed postcards featuring sites from our field research. They grouped the images by theme, then created their own postcards inspired by the conference experience. The workshop took place in the evocative setting of a former lamp factory – now repurposed as the Lino Cultural Space. We included new technologies in our workshop, using a mini printer to create photographs on site to capture the experience of various memory layers visible in the space. It is no wonder that the participants did not have a problem with identifying some ghosts lingering in that place.

The time Karina and Magdalena spent in Porto brought not only valuable new contacts and insights but also a wave of fresh, ocean-inspired energy – and plenty of ideas for future research initiatives.

We’re pleased to share that, starting this July, our PI, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, has been appointed to the position of associate professor.

In the Polish academic system, there are two types of professorships: one is the title of professor – the highest academic distinction awarded by the President of Poland in recognition of scholarly achievement – and the other is a professorial position within an academic institution.

Karolina’s appointment refers to the latter. We warmly congratulate her on this achievement and recognize it as an important step in her continued academic path.

How do you stage the end of East Prussia?
This question was taken on by the team at the Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn. Set in a city that was once German—and in a theatre originally built as the Treudanktheater to commemorate Germany’s plebiscite victory in the 1920s—the production unfolds in a space rich with historical layers. Reopened as a Polish stage in 1945, this venue becomes the haunting backdrop for All for Nothing, Walter Kempowski’s novel brought to life by director Weronika Szczawińska.
The play tells the story of Prussian nobility and their neighbors facing the collapse of their world in the brutal winter of 1945. Karolina travelled to Olsztyn to see how this apocalypse was brought to the stage—and what it means to perform it in a place that carries such a complex past.
Link to the blog post you can find here.

For the fourth time, a student march from Postoloprty (formerly German Postelberg) to Žatec (formerly German Saaz) in Czechia took place, commemorating the victims of post-war violence against the local German-speaking population. Among the approximately 200 participants were representatives of the media from both the Czech Republic and Germany. Our researcher, Michal Korhel, who studies the culture of memory in the Czech border region in relation to post-war violence against the German population, also took part in the march. The nearly 20-kilometer journey provided many opportunities for conversation, during which Michal was able to share insights and experiences from his research.

One such conversation later featured in an article titled “Die Wanderer von Postelberg: Wie junge Tschechen an ein Massaker an Sudetendeutschen nahe dem Erzgebirge erinnern.” [The Wanderers of Postelberg: How Young Czechs Remember the Massacre of Sudeten Germans Near the Erzgebirge.] The article highlights the importance of engaging with history among younger generations to foster greater understanding and a shared culture of remembrance. Michal is cited in the piece as an expert on local memory culture, emphasizing its diversity – particularly at the local level. While the prevailing view in the Czech Republic today is one of condemnation of the post-war violence against Germans, this sentiment is not always reflected locally. This is especially evident in the difficulties surrounding the establishment of memorial sites dedicated to the victims.

The text in German to be found here.

This is the title of the newly published special issue of the journal Sprawy Narodowościowe. Seria nowa, edited by our researchers Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska and Michal Korhel. What began as an abstract for the 6th Congress of Polish Studies, held in March 2024, has developed into a publication, offering valuable insights into how communities navigate their historical narratives and cultural identities amidst shifting national and cultural landscapes.

Invited scholars from various disciplines contributed articles examining the complex interplay between memory, identity, and heritage in areas where historical displacements, such as post-war population transfers and border changes, have left lasting imprints on cultural landscapes. The contributors explore how local communities reconstruct and reinterpret their histories through diverse forms of expression, including folklore, public monuments, theater, and museum curation.

We hope that this special issue will help scholars gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics at play in post-displacement societies in East Central Europe – and beyond.

The issue includes the following articles:

Veronika Kupková – To See the Unseen: From History Books to Learning from the Landscape (about how learning from the landscape facilitates better understanding of history in post-displacement Czechia)

Anna Kurpiel – Lower Silesian Costume: Transposition of Prewar Heritage Within Folkloristic and Regional Frameworks (about how the invention of tradition transcends historical and local frontiers in post-displacement Lower Silesia in Poland)

Michal Korhel – German Ghosts Haunting Slovak Theater: The Role of Drama in the Slovak Culture of Remembrance (about how we can interpret theatrical plays dealing with historical events, such as expulsion, in the case of Slovak post-displacement regions)

Agata Tumiłowicz-Mazur – Unsettled: Movable Monuments at the Cusp of German and Polish Heritage (about how objects may speak for themselves in spaces of post-displacement Polish Silesia)

Petr Wohlmuth – Veterans Day Celebration in a Hlučín Village: A Unique “Confirmatory” Military Reenactment Event (about how the dissonant heritage of the past is unveiled in post-displacement Czechia)

Agnieszka Pufelska – The Museum Appropriation of German Cultural Heritage: A Case Study of Allenstein/Olsztyn (about how the museums were created in formerly German East Prussia after it became part of Poland)

Maciej Zawistowski – The Process of Adaptation and Assimilation after 1957 as Remembered by the Descendants of the Czech Brethren in Lower Silesia (about how the members of the Czech minority in Lower Silesia in Poland deal with their heritage in post-displacement space)

Additionally, the issue includes a retrospective article. As the journal was founded in 1927, each new issue invites one author to engage with topics addressed in an interwar-era edition. In this issue, our team member Karina revisits a piece by Wacław Junosza that explores Czech-German relations. She reflects on how the issues discussed in the original article appear in light of contemporary knowledge and perspectives:

Karina Hoření – From Greatness to Ruins: The Hundred Years Between “The German Minority in Czechoslovakia” by Wacław Junosza (1929) and the Present 

The issue also features two book reviews, both addressing the question of what follows after migration:

Magdalena Bubík reviews Porządek rzeczy: Relacje z przedwojennymi przedmiotami na Ziemiach Zachodnich (Order of Things: Accounts of Prewar Objects in the Western Lands) by Anna Kurpiel and Katarzyna Maniak. 

Kamila Fiałkowska reviews Koloniści z Rio Claro: Społeczno-językowe światy polskich osadników w południowej Brazylii (Colonists from Rio Claro: Socio-Linguistic Worlds of Polish Settlers in Southern Brazil) by Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska.

The full issue is available for free in open access online through the journal’s platform.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of the contributors for their creativity, patience, and dedication. Your work has been invaluable to this issue.

At the beginning of June, our researcher, Karina Hoření, had the opportunity to present her work in Prague. She joined the symposium Text, Textile, Context that took place at the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences on June 11th-13th. Her presentation, Koberce z Liberce: Ruční vázání koberců mezi českou a německu kulturou (“Carpets from Liberec: Handweaving Between Czech and German Culture”) was a case study of a carpet from Maffersdorf/Vratislavice, which was produced in the 1920s, lost after the war, and finally restored and displayed in the local library. This case study was presented among other captivating speeches about the historical and political meanings of textile techniques and their reflections in literature. Participants didn´t just talk about making textile, they also tried out the technique of embroidery and its ability to foster dialogue and female solidarity. 

We’re excited to share that our PI, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, was recently featured as an expert voice in de Volkskrant, one of the leading newspapers in the Netherlands. In a special report marking 80 years since the westward shift of Poland’s borders, Karolina spoke to Arnout le Clercq about the spectral dimensions of post-displacement—how echoes of loss, memory, and the past continue to shape the present.

She reflected on how the end of World War II not only redrew borders but also uprooted millions of lives. In the article, she explained how not only authorities, but also people subjected to these changes, responded to forced migration.

The article also highlights our ongoing research into the legacies of post-displacement in Central Europe—looking at how history haunts space, material culture, and community life today.

Read the article (in Dutch) here.