News

At the beginning of September, Magdalena Bubík participated in the mid-term meeting of the Anthropology of Religion Working Group of the German Anthropological Association (DGSKA) at the University of Bremen. The event brought together scholars in the anthropology of religion from all over the world. Magdalena listened to presentations on a variety of topics, such as beliefs in Jakarta, Bengal, or Bangladesh. Each was followed by a discussion by all conference participants. The lecture by keynote speaker, Professor Tyler Zoanni (University of Bremen), on beliefs in Uganda was especially captivating: it tackled the issue of the natives who have learned to live with spirits because they believe it benefits them. This tempted Magdalena to carry this issue onto her research and to consider how ghosts are perceived by the inhabitants of post-displacement regions in Central Europe and how they are aware of their presence. During her presentation, Magdalena shared the story of an altar painting from a blown up church in Liberec. She posed the question of what insights can this story offer about both former and present religious communities in Liberec.
After the conference, Magdalena also had the opportunity to visit the city center of Bremen, part of which is UNESCO-listed, and take a photograph with the famous characters from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, as touching them is said to bring good luck.

At the beginning of September Karin, Karolina and Michal met in Greifswald. It was not an ordinary work meeting, as their task was to prepare a proposal for the book that is going to be the main result of our project. Even though outside there were the last summer days, our team members worked diligently and, at the end, came up with the structure of the whole book as well as the individual chapters. When the right time comes, we will reveal more details about their results.

It was not a coincidence that our team members met in Greifswald. The town in northern Germany is the home of the Pomeranian State Museum, where Karin, Karolina and Michal met for their working sessions. The museum shows the history and culture of Pomerania, a historical region nowadays divided by the German-Polish border. In our research we focus on the Polish part and the objects left behind by their former German owners. In the museum in Greifswald our team members could see various objects that the fleeing or forcibly resettled Germans managed to take with themselves. Karin, Karolina and Michal got a guided tour through the exhibition of Pomeranian history in the 20th century by Dorota Makrutzki, a research assistant at the Cultural Office for Pomerania and East Brandenburg. They are very thankful for that and look forward to potential future collaboration. 

pictures taken by Michal Korhel

Karina Hoření decided to see the Trail of Slovak National Uprising to explore the life of Adolf Hammer, a Slovak German involved in the Uprising. She documented her experiences in diary form, delving into the current memory of the event and the role of Slovak Germans in it. This unique method of research allowed her to immerse herself in the places associated with the Uprising and gain a deeper understanding of its significance. Through her journey, she shed light on the historical and cultural aspects of this pivotal moment in history of Slovakia.

Link to the blog post you can find here.

The August issue of Kapitál magazine features an article by Karina Hoření and Michal Korhel, titled “Heroes or Victims? The Slovak National Uprising from the Perspective of Slovak Germans.” This article presents findings from their research in Central Slovakia, shedding light on the varied experiences of Slovak Germans during the uprising. Michal discusses the village of Sklené, where the largest massacre of ethnic Germans in Slovakia occurred in Fall 1944, while Karina covers the history of nearby village Malinová/Zeche, where local Germans formed a partisan group that actively participated in the Slovak National Uprising.

Editor Dominik Želinský emphasizes the importance of recognizing the multinational nature of the uprising, as demonstrated by the researchers’ work. Kapitál magazine is recommended reading for those interested in hiking the Path of Slovak National Uprising or other adventures, offering valuable insights into the historical and cultural context of the region. For non-local readers proficient in Slovak, the entire current issue is also available online.

On the last day of May 2024, we celebrated the second anniversary of work in the Spectral Recycling project. Our research involves archival queries in national and local archives, as well as ethnographic fieldwork in three selected regions, namely Pomerania in Poland, Northern Bohemia in Czechia, and Upper Nitra Basin in Slovakia. In the initial two years of our project, we successfully gathered nearly 200 interviews. This dataset encompasses both oral history interviews and ethnographic approaches. We spent many hours in the archives, looking for the relevant documents, talking with our interview partners, taking pictures of the things left behind, and exploring the locations we investigated. 

Community-based research

During our project, we collaborate with local communities, focusing on the history and present of their post-displacement experiences. Two key partnerships stand out. Firstly, we engaged with the “Goleniów Photostories” project, based in Goleniów (formerly German Gollnow, Poland). After a series of photographic negatives depicting local settlers in the post-war decades was found, we helped with the launch of a community-driven initiative. Our team assisted in establishing the methodological framework for ethnographic studies, including interviews, and carrying out some of them (interview 1 and interview 2). Secondly, we collaborate with the Wałcz Land Museum. The project’s PI not only conducted ethnographic interviews but also contributed to framing the museum’s new permanent exhibition, which will focus on artifacts brought by settlers and unveiled by them on-site. We are very happy to be a part of these initiatives, as we firmly believe that ethnographic research is inherently tied to social engagement as well. 

Presence in media

Our team maintains a notable media presence, actively disseminating the topic of our research. We participate in radio broadcasts, podcasts, and public lectures, effectively reaching wider audiences, i.e. beyond academia. Furthermore, the project’s PI has given several interviews for various news outlets (links you can find here). These interviews followed her recognition—the Polish National Science Centre Award in Humanities and Social Sciences [more information: short video with English subtitles, podcast on Spotify (in Polish) and a note]—for pioneering the establishment of a novel category of the resettlement cultures.

Series of public lectures

Our team actively engages with broader audiences also beyond the media. To date, team members have delivered a total of 8 public lectures in Warsaw, Wrocław, Halle, and Prague. These events cater not only to scholarly audiences but also provide an opportunity for individuals outside the disciplines of ethnography and history, or academia in general, to become acquainted with the topic. Attendees can share stories related to their families and personal experiences in the context of post-displacement. The interest shows how the topic is still relevant but also that hauntology provides us with language that  is new in the debate about this topic in respective countries. Furthermore, on May 22nd, 2024, we had the opportunity to present our project at the Scientific Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Vienna with invited commentators from the Department of History at the University of Vienna, Professors Claudia Kraft and Kerstin von Lingen. It helped us to polish some of the aspects of our methodological queries. Also, we organised the first workshop planned for the project that took place in Vienna (link) on 23 May, 2024. We are delighted to share our research and learn from other researchers–we look forward to more such opportunities in the future.

Where to read about our findings?

As is usual in academia, we presented the initial findings as the conference papers and articles. We invite you to get to know more about the topic we study, learning about our  conference presentations and poster. You are also cordially invited to read the 5 articles available on our website. You can learn about the redefining of the German heritage, including the furniture left behind and the fruit orchards, read what the ignoring of the local knowledge may cause and how the idea of “recovery” of formerly German lands developed over time. Moreover, we share with you many experiences through blog posts in the languages of the studied regions. To date, we published as many as 14 posts, beginning in March 2023. You can learn about our field experiences, impressions and partial studies (some posts you can find here, prepared by Karolina, Karina, Michal and Magdalena). We inform you about our activities on the News section, for now we have prepared around 100 news in Polish and English.

Additionally, we prepared Postcards — a component envisioned as part of our methodological experiment. Drawing inspiration from a similar approach, we engaged in collaborative practices centered around ethnographic postcards. These postcards facilitated the creation, sharing, and comparison of materials across seemingly disparate field sites. You can see them as well and learn about other aspects of our project!

There are three more years of work ahead of us, and we are not slowing down. We will keep you informed about new activities, plans and achievements. You can see the list of all our activities here. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook where we keep you updated about what we do, but also share various interesting facts and information about our research work, the people we meet and the regions where we work.

Specters can often manifest themselves through sound, as demonstrated by Magdalena Bubík’s example of the whistling sound during the performance art “For Slovakia” at the “Cinema on the Border” festival (Kino Na Granicy / Kino Na Hranici). This spectral sound can evoke echoes of the past and remind residents of Cieszyn of the city’s former unity and painful times of division. The specter may take advantage of various circumstances to manifest itself, and it may require a specialized ear to hear it. This highlights the complexity of how specters can haunt through different sensory experiences, not just visual ones. Sound can serve as a powerful tool for evoking memories and emotions, making it an important aspect to consider when exploring the presence of specters in a given context.

Link to the text you can find here.

The CEU Review of Books Podcast Series explores the questions that affect us all through in-depth talks with researchers, policy makers, journalists, academics and others. This time Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, Karina Hoření, and Michal Korhel discuss with the podcast host, Andrea Talabér (Managing Editor), objects that had been left behind following expulsions and resettlements in the border regions of Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia. These remnants include a diverse array of objects, from everyday items like bowls and pictures, to larger structures such as villas and orchards left behind in the landscape. By examining these abandoned objects, we gain insight into the historical and cultural impacts of these forced population movements. These objects serve as tangible reminders of the lives that were disrupted and the communities that were uprooted, but also on the new cultures that emerged as an outcome of the encounters between them and the new inhabitants. Thus, they shed light on the complexities and lasting effects of these significant historical events in the region.

Link to the podcast (in English) you can find here.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the son of an illiterate Slovak coachman and a German-speaking cook, played a significant role in the creation of modern Czechoslovakia. As its first long-term president, he was a passionate advocate for democracy, despite often acting against the beliefs of his fellow citizens. In the 30th episode of Czechostacja, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, together with the host, Jakub Medek, explores Masaryk’s impact on the formation of Czechoslovakia and his lasting legacy as a leader.

You can listen to the podcast (in Polish) here

We are happy to announce that a new article by Michal Korhel was published in the Environment & History journal.

The 1960 landslide in Handlová, a town previously dominated by Germans before World War Two, caused significant destruction, displacing almost 1,000 people and damaging critical infrastructure. This event, occurring more than 15 years after the war, raised questions about the connection between the natural disaster and the forced displacement of residents during the war. Through previous research and interviews with local narrators, Michal Korhel attempts to understand this link and its implications. The findings aim to shed light on the complex relationship between historical events and their long-term effects on communities.

The article you can find on our web page and on the web page of the Environment & History journal.

We are happy to announce that a new article by Karina Hoření was published in the journal Český lid (Czech Ethnological Journal).

The article delves into the ways in which residents of Liberec, a town in north Bohemia, are managing the property they acquired following the displacement of the German-speaking minority after World War II. It examines the narratives of this historical event within Czech public discourse and explores how these stories are echoed in family histories. The study is centered on three family histories gathered through ethnographic fieldwork and employs an analytical framework rooted in memory studies and hauntology theories.

The article is available in open access on the web page of Český lid and our website. We’d like to encourage you to check the whole issue of the journal as well.