A cautionary tale for the generations. The reconstruction of the former border-check-points in Poland

Abstract

ABSTRACT Relict borders may long remain tangible in the field and in people’s behaviour. However, in recent times, a process of the deliberate ‘re-creation’ of these borders has developed, with a view to their serving tourist, heritage-related and remembrance functions. The author here illustrates the processes involved by reference to the border once separating the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires – as one of those associated with Poland’s erasure from the map of Europe for more than a century. Empirical research finds at least five different old check-points now playing the role of tourist attractions. There are three leading themes being loss of independence thanks to the Partitions; the regaining of that independence for Poland (in 1918) and remembrance of the heroes responsible for that; and information regarding local conditioning of border operations and controls, also in the wider context of its significance for everyday life and hence possibilities for the border to be crossed. The overriding premise on which the re-creation of relict border check-points is based is that people should go on recalling negative aspects of the past, and treat them as cautionary tales.