Abstract
Once almost totally obliterated, and on many occasions dramatically reinvented and reshaped, Warsaw can obviously be seen as a precarious urban space par excellence The uncertainties about its spatial order and civic symbolism have always been closely tied to the changing historical and ideological narratives, shaping not only the urban landscape, but along with it the remembrance of the past. This article takes a look at some of Warsaw’s iconic spaces, tracing the fluctuations in their shape and symbolism stemming from the discontinuities of the city’s history as well as from the narrative turns in the dominant ideology, be it domestic (national) or imposed by the external context (colonization, the Soviet model of socialism, more recently global capitalism).
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Notes
- 1.
This is, of course, an informal name for the Oct. 26, 1945 law regulating the ownership and use of lands within the limits of the city of Warsaw, proclaimed by Krajowa Rada Narodowa (State National Council) which was presided over by Bolesław Bierut.
- 2.
Reflecting today on the restoration of the Old Town, one is tempted to look at it from the perspective of Christine Boyer (1994), describing the now-classic preservation project in South Sea Seaport (NYC) in terms of a spectacle, with its “staged landscapes”, “city tableaux” and “necessary illusions” pointing to the artificiality of reproducing an imagined past (pp. 421–476).
- 3.
On the cultural semiotics of the Palace of Culture, see the excellent article by Magdalena J. Zaborowska (2001).
- 4.
One recent characteristic attempt to obliterate another symbol of the Communist past was the June 2018 decision of the Warsaw City Council to remove the Monument of Gratitude to the Soviet Soldiers; one of the main arguments raised in favor of the decision was one that stated that the monument “stirs up aggressive behavior.”
- 5.
The call for tearing down the Palace was repeated like mantra by a number of prominent public figures, including the renowned architect Czesław Bielecki and the Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski. Among the most curious schemes to „cover up” the dominating presence of the Palace was the plan to mask the building with ivy.
- 6.
The most conspicuous physical change undergone by the Palace after 1989 was the addition of a big tower clock, adding a “Western” touch to the Stalinist relic by inviting comparisons with London’s Big Ben, or with a German-style Rathaus.
- 7.
A useful review of Lefebvre’s concept of the space of representation can be found, among others, in Marco Cenzatti 2008, pp. 80 f.
- 8.
For a sample of an emotional, nostalgic response to the Palace as a place symbolizing one’s youth, see for example Chutnik (2017). Some other conspicuous constructions of the Socialist period did not get their second life, most notoriously perhaps the tenth-Anniversary of the People’s Republic Stadium, the site of not only some major sports events but also major political events sponsored but the United Workers’ Party, the main organ of the Communist rule. The Socialist-era colossus and symbol was razed down in 2009, to be replaced by a new facility, The National Stadium, which became one of the symbols of the new order.
- 9.
As argued convincingly by Dariusz Czaja, Marc Auge’s term “non-lieux,” understood as places that are totally anonymous, characterless, and largely devoid of meaning, hardly in fact exist, as a site’s meaning is always “under construction” by its users. Another explanation for the preservationist impulse may be pointedly suggested by Murawski who brings up Yael Navaro-Yashin’s concept of “domesticated abject” (originally used in his discussion of the fate of Turkish property taken over by the Greeks in Cyprus) to account for the displays of nostalgia in the argumentation of the defenders of the Palace of Culture who oppose its liquidation (Murawski, 2011, pp. 9 f.).
- 10.
Probably the most insightful recent treatment of the dominant mythical narrations distorting, and disavowing the significance of cultural and social change undergone by Poland in WWII and during the Communist period, is Andrzej Leder’s 2014 study Prześniona rewolucja.
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Skurowski, P. (2020). Warsaw: Precarious Spaces, Precarious Memories. In: Rachwał, T., Hepp, R., Kergel, D. (eds) Precarious Places. Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27311-8_7
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