Coordinator: Prof. Stefan Kiedroń (University of Wrocław)
Project description: Places are not merely physical entities. They are centers of meaning with which individuals have an emotional attachment. In the social – human-made – space it is possible to differentiate between sacred, historical and everyday places. Like individuals, places have their identities: place identity is a set of intersubjective meanings attached to that place and common for some group of people. Place identities are not stable though: they are subject to constant reinterpretation, and frequently contested. Places even serve as a means of political propaganda. This was especially true under the totalitarian regime, when the Soviet government created and propagated sites that conformed to the official Soviet narrative (for example, the “image” of Hero Cities, World War II memorials, places associated with the October Revolution, or the 1905 Revolution etc.). Place politics continues in the post-totalitarian society as well: under new political conditions the authorities try to reinterpret “old” places, give them new meanings or even create new places that fit their political programs. The public has varied reactions to these attempts, which is reflected in the dynamic processes of accepting, rejecting, or modifying new place-identities. The project will analyze the peculiarities of place politics in a comparative context in Soviet / post-Soviet Georgia and socialist / post-socialist Poland, showing the key importance of place politics for contemporary political discourse, which has received less attention in contemporary research.