Modern rural landscapes in contemporary heritage imaginaries: the case of Germany’s southern Oderbruch

Emily Bereskin,S Bell,M.H Maia,V Capresi,A Fisher,C Pallini

doi:10.1051/shsconf/20196311002

Abstract

Using the Southern Oderbruch as a case study, this paper investigates the presence and representation of the modern rural landscapes of the German Democratic Republic within the region’s contemporary heritage and tourism landscape. Following an analysis of extant discourse production in place marketing materials and heritage sites (primarily local museums), the paper argues that although the unique landscapes developed in concert with the collective farms (landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften) of the GDR remain very much in situ, they remain largely invisible in the heritage and touristic representation of the Oderbruch, which tends to focus on more traditional manifestations of “pastoral beauty” and on historical events preceding the founding of the GDR. This paper hypothesizes several reasons for this conspicuous absence, arguing that the history of the LPG defies local will to narrativise due to its ongoing social, legal, and economic reverberations in everyday life. The second half of the paper reviews the current application effort fora European Cultural Heritage designation for the Oderbruch. The paper highlights the complexity of the situational landscape surrounding the production of heritage, in terms of political, economic, social, and symbolic factors and argues for similar analyses as a comparative path of investigation for the MODSCAPES project.

Highlights

The first line of the MODSCAPES project brochure asks, “Who ever heard of modern rural landscapes?”—a question whose syntax has been chosen carefully to suggest improbability
Others like them, currently valorised as cultural heritage in any way, shape, or form? If so, by whom and to what end? What are the processes through which heritage values become attributed to these sites? How might the heritagisation process be stymied by the contentious claims made on such sites, both in terms of their historical interpretation and in terms of their present-day repercussions?
All of the settlements in the MODSCAPES case studies have dissonant narratives, exceptionally so: whether it is the history of forced collectivization in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Estonia, colonial rule in Morocco and Libya, fascism in Spain, Italy, and Portugal, or refugee displacements in Greece, the rural landscapes we are investigating stem from highly contentious political circumstances, which, as evidenced by the anthropological investigations of e.g., Kaja Veddel, Martti Veldi, Vittoria Capresi, Marta Prista, and Friedrich Kuhlmann provoke a range of responses, memories, and interpretations [16, 17, 18, 19]6

Summary

Introduction

The first line of the MODSCAPES project brochure asks, “Who ever heard of modern rural landscapes?”—a question whose syntax has been chosen carefully to suggest improbability.

Results

Conclusion