The Imagined City: The Great Flood of 1997 as a Foundation Story of Wrocław

Abstract

Wrocław started its existence on the ruins of German Breslau, several dozen years ago, as a result of the Potsdam Conference. The article is a voice in the discussion about the situation of the city, which, deprived of the possibility to draw on its foreign cultural heritage (the existence of which was ignored in official studies), still struggles with the problem of defining its identity. I present this issue based on actions taken by elites since Wrocław’s establishment as a Polish city. These elites have been creating successive narrative “identity projects” for Wrocław’s citizens. The main thread of my analysis is the city’s foundation story, built in relation to the flood that Wrocław experienced in 1997. According to this story, the fight against the water flooding the city became a watershed moment in the city’s history; it was a shock, thanks to which the citizens of Wrocław finally became conscious citizens, felt an emotional bond with their city, and took responsibility for the testimonies of its pre-war, non-Polish past. All this happened several decades after creating Wrocław in 1945 and promoting, for decades, its unquestionable Polishness. I confront this foundation story with the image of this flood that emerges from the statements of ordinary residents of the city. The flood of 1997, as seen by ordinary citizens of Wrocław, is built from memories of the mundane but acute impediments of everyday life, neighbourly support, and post-flood waste.