Official Celebrations Research Articles

Materiality of Memorialisation: Mapping Migrant Women's Landmarks in Europe

This article investigates the memorialization of migrant women across transcultural landscapes, and analyses results from the Register of Migrant Women Landmarks in Europe (hereinafter RMWLE), central to the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) action project “Women on the Move” (CA19112 – WEMov). It serves as reference for subsequent research based on data from this Register, for which data collection is continuing. The RMWLE registers toponyms, such as monuments, plaques, streets and other infrastructures named after women with a significant history of migration. It honours aspects rarely prioritized in memorialisation agendas, which are skewed towards men’s stories, and towards the more linear biographies of sedentary figures whose European, national, and regional memorialisation have remained uncomplicated by migration. This Deep Data study reveals recurring patterns at the level of Europe in the memorialisation of these women migrants. The diversity of stories, the richness and the prominence of landmarks devoted to men compared to women is a subject well-covered in memorialisation studies. This unbalance is compounded by the data from our register which shows landmarks on women migrants that are sometime tokenized, often marginalized, and which reproduce the bias towards nurture and care that have besieged the memorialisation of women in general. It further shows that the memorialisation process and the political and cultural mechanisms of official celebration often work against the recognition of cross-border careers and stories. The intersectionality of the project, highlighting both gender and migration, uncovers a political landscape of toponyms – and we reflect on how this register can help combat cultural prejudice by recovering migration episodes. The RMWLE helps us reflect on the defining impact of migration episodes, a reality rarely underlined in the biographies of famous women. This article favours a storytelling approach, to counter dominant cultural narratives and knowledge practices.

История освобождения Гамбурга весной 1814 года

This article examines the history of the liberation of General L. L. Bennigsen in the spring of 1814 the city-state of Hamburg from soldiers of the Great Army of Napoleon. After a grueling, almost year-long occupation of acrowdedcity that hassurvived the destruction of entire districts, the looting of a local bank, the expulsion of part of the local population from the city, an epidemic of typhus, which claimed the lives of several thousand people, the citizens welcomed the Allied Coalition Forces in the vicinity of theircity again. Incontrast to the first liberation of thecity from the French in the spring of 1813 local authorities now prepared for official celebrations more thoroughly. A special regulation was drawn up and the rules of conduct for the entry of Allied troops into the city were communicated to the citizens through the press. The main imperative of both the city and the Allied military command is to avoid revenge excesses. Also, the article, based on the analysis of sources of personal origin and the press of that time, reveals the perception of occupation by the allied troops of the city as a local population and Russian officers.

Празднование годовщины установления антибольшевистской власти в Сибири 7 июня 1919 г. По документам Омской городской думы

The paper analyzes the story of the history of Omsk city self-government, associated with the attempt to approve a new public holiday in anti-Bolshevik Siberia - the anniversary of the entry of White-Czech troops into Omsk. The connection of the investigated issue with the historiography of the problem is given, on this basis the relevance of the work is connected with the introduction into the scientific turnover of unpublished sources from the funds of the Historical Archive of the Omsk region. These documents allow us to detail the emergence, discussion and coordination of the initiative, the course and results of the official celebrations in Kolchak's Omsk on June 7, 1919, positioned as the day of "liberation of Siberia" and "revival of Russian statehood". The importance of those events is connected with the fact that Omsk then had the official status of the capital of anti-Bolshevik Russia. The aim of the paper is to analyze the preparation and results of the celebration on the basis of new sources - minutes of the Omsk City Duma meeting within the period - the end of May and the beginning of June 1919. The theoretical basis of the research is a combination of approaches (institutional, systemic, anthropological) and methods (problem-chronological, comparative-historical) traditional for historical science. This makes it possible to establish the degree of participation of the institutions of power in the attempt to establish a new public holiday of potential significance for the entire anti-Bolshevik Siberia, as well as the role of specific socio-political figures in the realization of that initiative. The nature and course of the celebration demonstrate the conservative views of the authorities in White Omsk (both at the level of the Russian government and the City Duma), as well as the special importance of the festivities of June 7, 1919 for the highest circles of the anti-Bolshevik statehood. In addition, the study of the celebrations in the Kolchak capital prompts thoughts about the significant influence of the religious factor in the Civil War in eastern Russia. The study is an example of when a casual episode of local history acquired all-Russian significance. The work also emphasizes the inviolable postulate of historical research that for a full-fledged assessment of events it is essential to take into account the widest possible range of sources. The publication may be of interest to academic specialists studying the Civil War and anti-Bolshevik movement in the East of Russia, the history of public holidays, as well as socio-political and everyday life in the era of social cataclysms.

Празднование Нового года в Византии

Introduction. Many cultures consider the first day of the new year a holiday which supposes the performance of specific rituals and rites. The traditions of New Year celebrations reflect the nature of this or that civilization, its historical experience, and religious and world-viewing constants. The said is to the full extent actual for the Byzantine civilization. The purpose of the work is to reconstruct the general scenario of official celebrations, to trace its evolution, and to analyse the folk tradition related to it. Methods and materials. The main sources of the given research are liturgical books, treatises on ceremonies, and epistolography. Analysis. In Byzantium, the New Year was celebrated on September 1 at different levels: church, state, and public. Despite its origin from the laity, the Byzantines viewed this holiday primarily as religious as it opened both the new year cycle and the church calendar. By the tenth century, there developed the order of service (akolouthia) for the first day of the new year. The patriarch served special liturgies in St Sophia’s Church and performed a crucession. The emperor was not allowed to participate in the church rituals. In Late Byzantium, the climax of the New Year ritual was the public prayer made in the imperial capital, in the Forum of Constantine, in the presence of the emperor. The ceremonial protocol documented that the ruler must participate in the New Year service. The ordinary people of Byzantium widely celebrated this holiday, spending this day in going to church, paying visits, and exchanging greetings. Conclusions. The enlarging of the programme of palatial ceremonies with the emperor’s appearance in the New Year celebration shows, from the one hand, the strengthening of the secular component of the holiday and, on the other hand, the trend to sacralization of the palatial life. The comparison of the scenario of the New Year celebration that existed in the Age of the Palaiologoi with the official holiday on such a case in the pre-Petrine Russia shows an important Byzantine influence on Russian culture of celebration and church policy.

Civic Babylonian Pride in Vondel’s Mars Tamed

In 1647, one year ahead of the official celebrations of the Peace of Westphalia, the Dutch poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel published a long panegyric called De getemde Mars (‘Mars Tamed’), a poem fully translated into English for the first time in this article. Despite celebrating the Peace, Vondel did not refrain from presenting extremely violent scenes of war in the middle part of the poem. Surprisingly, however, the war scene shifts from the wars that devastated Europe to a war which Mars wages against Jupiter and his circle of gods. Unable to control Mars, and on the verge of seeing his rule collapse, Jupiter looks for support and finds it in an allegorical maiden representing the Dutch Republic and its main hub Amsterdam. This article argues that the allegory employed by Vondel is set up against itself. The familiar allegorisation of classical material for Christian purposes turns into a baroque allegory that works against principles of theologically underpinned political sovereignty. Here, the poem testifies to a distinct civil pride, with Vondel considering the burgomasters of Amsterdam, which he takes as embodying civil government, as a prominent source of international peace. By 1648, however, the Dutch Republic had also become an imperial and global power that confronted other sovereign states in violent actions. In this context, the poem’s baroque contradictions multiply.

Coronavirus, Imagined Location, and Disenchanted Home in Africa

This essay, which is based on secondary sources and online research, examines the home dilemma experienced by many diasporic African elites during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. It argues that despite the pervasive nationalist discourse on homeland and the official celebration of national home, many postcolonial African elites actually view their home nations as a “ second chez soi” (second choice home), from which they quickly distance themselves during times of political unrest and health emergencies. This oscillation between cosmopolitanism and nationalism partly explains why many of the so-called Afropolitans started to experience anxiety after the global health pandemic forced them to lead sedentary lifestyles akin to those of their less fortunate peers. Furthermore, the essay sees the COVID-19 pandemic as a leveling and game-changing force that has significantly altered the home life and mindset of the “rooted cosmopolitan” African elites. Many of them are now neo-localists or maisonneurs (stay-at-home people) who strive to create a new sense of community in their formerly unloved African homeland.

Estonian Teachers’ Day – October 5. From 1960s to Nowadays

Teachers’ Day is celebrated globally on various days of the year. The official celebration began either in 1965 or earlier. UNESCO established the World Teachers’ Day in 1994 to focus on work and achievements of teachers. Teachers’ Day has been celebrated at schools in Estonia since the 1960s. At that time, the best students became teachers, and lessons were given primarily to younger classes and at basic school. The newer rules in the 1990s became much more exciting, according to which teachers really changed roles with students (embodied as students), disguised themselves, and chose a certain style. Behavioural patterns and norms also become free: teachers live out by teasing: scattering paper planes, disturbing lessons, talking and being naughty, do not bother to answer. But students may also be shown what their teachers are like outside school: talented musicians, performers, experimenters, and so on. At the end of the day, they can return to the original rules: a coffee table made by students and flowers for teachers, a visit from the rural municipality, city government or education department, and congratulations. In addition, and above all, this is a day where teachers are excited because they are just great. We see many rapid role changes, changes in norms, parody and ridicule, black humour along with the implementation of various scripts.

The Itineraries of Solomonia Saburova and Elena Glinskaya

This article is focused on the pilgrimage travels and the journeys to towns and settlements by So-lomonia Saburova and Elena Glinskaya. The participation of the Grand Princesses of Moscow in different celebrations, formal receptions, weddings, and consecration of churches has been considered. The chrono-logy of the princesses’ departures from Moscow has been considerably clarified. The material sources (pictorial embroidery (“needle painting”) items from gold embroidery shops of the princesses, icons), which had not been previously taken for the study of the princesses’ itineraries, for the first time provided data on the pilgrimage travels of Solomonia Saburova to the monasteries of Suzdal and to the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Monastery, and of Elena Glinskaya to the St. Paphnutius Borovsk Monastery. As a result of studying the itineraries, the author has come to the conclusion that S. Saburova did not take active part in the affairs of state. The first wife of Vasilii III mainly went on pilgrimages, praying for childbearing to the Lord, to the Most Holy Mother of God, and to Russian saints. The itinerary of Elena Glinskaya is characterized by a higher richness and intensity of travels and a frequent change of location compared to the itinerary of her predecessor. Frequent pilgrimages by Elena Vasilyevna and Vasilii III were dictated by praying to God and Russian miracle workers for an heir and by expectations of conception. After the birth of Ivan IV, the schedule of travels to cloisters and the attendance of official celebrations by the Grand Princess did not become less frequent but, on the contrary, even more busy, being evidence of her increased social status and role in the court life. On the death of her husband and in view of her son’s infancy, Elena Glinskaya actually became a regent for Ivan IV from the end of August 1534. From that time she hardly ever departed from Moscow and rarely visited holy places even in the vicinity of the capital so as not to lose control over the internal affairs. The key role of Elena Vasilyevna in politics is demonstrated by her participation with her son Ivan in the negotiations with the Nogai and Kazan ambassadors in 1534–1536, as well as by her guidance, together with the boyars, of suppression of the insurrection of Andrey Staritskii in 1537. One of the additional subjects considered in this publication concerns the debatable issue of Christian double names, the regularities of choosing baptismal (simultaneously dynastic) and secular (with respect to the date of birth) names in representatives of the Moscow Rurik dynasty: Ivan III, Vasilii III, and his sons Ivan IV and Yuri.

Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Palekh lacquer miniature craft in 1974

The subject of this study is the analysis of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet craft of the Palekh lacquer miniature of 1974. The background and the course of the festive celebrations are revealed in detail, the characteristics of those areas of activity that were used by the Soviet state, the intelligentsia and society to popularize and recognize the Palekh craft are given. The purpose of the article is to try to prove the important role of the official celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Palekh lacquer miniature for the development of this craft, as well as to approve the fundamental thesis about the importance of studying this phenomenon - celebrating the anniversaries of the Palekh lacquer miniature craft of the Soviet period – for studying its history. Using narrative, retrospective and historical-systemic research methods, the author focuses on the importance of state and society support for the life of the Palekh fishery of the Soviet period, which is an extremely urgent problem in our time, when the fishery, according to many Palekh artists, is experiencing decline due to insufficient attention from the state. Thus, the scientific novelty of the study consists in an attempt to comprehensively describe a specific historical phenomenon that can serve as a model for future state policy towards Palekh as a unique heritage of Russian culture. The opinion expressed about the need to repeat the Soviet experience is the main conclusion of the proposed article.

TRACES OF WORKS OF STANISLAW MONIUSZKO IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL PROJECTS IN UKRAINE

The article attempts to investigate the use of Stanislav Moniuszko’s multifaceted creative. Composer heritage can be clearly considered today in the light of strategic management in culture. a number of strategic projects on the occasion of official celebrations in Ukraine of such anniversaries as the 100 th anniversary of Poland’s independence or the 200 th anniversary of the birth of Polish music classic Stanislaw Moniuszko, organized with the assistance of Polish embassies and consulates and Polish organizations in Ukraine. This uniqueness of projects is the basis for the cultural policy between the Republic of Poland (RP) and Ukraine and the strategies of its development.

Памятники на фотографиях городов. Взаимодействие и противостояние прошлого и настоящего

The paper explores the photos that capture monuments and memorials. A topical issue is the collision of various cultural and temporal layers in the image, as well as the interaction of personal and collective memory, arising as a result of imprinting a person and a monument on a photograph. The aim of the study was to create a typology formulated on the basis of the functions of photographs and their aesthetic characteristics. Each of the types was considered from the point of view of its significance in the culture of memory and in relation to other commemorative practices. Special attention was paid to the touristic photography, acting as a meeting and dialogue of different cultures. The importance of this topic is explained by the active movement of people between cities and countries and the erasure of spatial boundaries in the Internet network, where the bulk of digital photographs circulate. The paper reveals that such images may act as sources of conflict that arises out of the collision of traveler's self-identity and a collective memory of another people. As a result of the study, three main types of images were identified: 1) the monument as an artistic object in the environment, 2) tourist photography, 3) reporting photographs taken during official celebrations. In each case, the imprinting of the monument is subordinated to a specific task. The author comes to the conclusion that photographing monuments meets the needs of secular society in a ritual action expressing respect, attention or interest in relation to an object that preserves the memory of a place, event or person.

Venice Carnival from the Middle Ages to the Twenty- First Century

As with other carnivals around the world, the history of the Venetian Carnival sheds light on the complex dialectic between festivity and politics and more particularly on the growing need for political authorities to control the urban environment. This article provides a longue durée approach to carnival in Venice and unpacks the meaning of its successive metamorphoses. During the Middle Ages, Venetians used carnival as a defense strategy for their city, intended to ensure the cohesion of its various neighborhoods around a common destiny. In the fifteenth century, the legacy of public festivals for both rich and poor gave way to a more official celebration, which allowed Venice to outdo its European rivals. The civilized and policed expressions that were elaborated from the Renaissance until the eighteenth century gradually set Venetian Carnival apart from the exuberance and invertibility displayed by rustic carnivals in other parts of Europe. However watered-down and commodified present-day Venetian Carnival may seem, it continues to raise eminently political issues, most of which have to do with the appropriation of public space by private interests and the recreation of traditions for mass consumption.

Luther’s Hammers: German Academic Historiography and Popular Memory of the Reformation in the Context of its 2017 Anniversary

Abstract This essay analyses the relationship between scholarly and public treatments of the Lutheran Reformation surrounding its 500th anniversary in Germany in 2017. It aims at critically re-evaluating the celebrations and their media coverage from a historical and historiographical perspective. Taking into account important links between contemporary and earlier forms of German Reformation memory, the chapter first focuses on current views of Martin Luther and the posting of his theses, because both featured prominently during the official celebrations and were meant to link the Lutheran Reformation to modernity. The next part summarizes the historical origins of Luther’s alleged hammering of his theses. The essay then assesses another contested issue; namely a diffusion of Lutheranism from the small town of Wittenberg into Europe and across the world. The final section addresses current historiographical and methodological trends in German Reformation research and how they connect to a public Reformation memory.

Celebration of Nowruz in Bukhara and Samarkand in Ritual Practice and Social Discourses (the Second Half of the 19th to Early 20th Centuries)

Celebration of Nowruz across a vast territory from the Ottoman Empire to Xinjiang had both common features and differences. This study focuses on distinctions between the festive traditions of two major cities of the Zerafshan Valley (Bukhara and Samarkand) in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when, after Russia’s annexation of the region, the Nowruz ritual practices were transformed and subjected to critical discourses among theologians and enlighteners. On the basis of unpublished archival sources, memoirs, and studies of Imperial Russian history, I analyze two types of Nowruz: official and folk. In the Emirate of Bukhara, a broad official celebration of Nowruz was started by Emir Muzaffar, who sought to strengthen the image of the Manghit dynasty during the crisis of political legitimacy. This gave rise to disputes among Islamic intellectuals about the need for a large-scale and prolonged celebration of Nowruz, which they felt went beyond the borders of Islamic tradition. In Samarkand, closer contacts between the settled Tajiks and Uzbeks, on the one hand, and the semi-nomadic Turkic-speaking population, on the other, enhanced the synthesis of agricultural and pastoral elements in the ritual practice of Nowruz. The festival was legitimized by prayers at mosques, and visits to the mazars of Muslim saints and to sacred streams. In Samarkand, following its annexation by the Russian Empire, there was no official celebration of Nowruz, and the scale of popular celebration decreased.

Contested Rites – Janša’s Politics of Statehood Celebration in Contemporary Slovenia

Political division, which re-emerged after Slovenian independence and parliamentary democracy in 1991, has strongly influenced Slovenian social life. The article focuses on official and parallel celebrations of statehood day as a political tool in political arena. The author analyses those manipulative and discursive techniques used by opposition leader Janez Janša that were the most evident in the critique of the official celebrations of statehood and the construction of parallel ones. Presented taxonomy of his interventions is based on extensive ethnographic work and offers a summarised review of some basic ideological disputes during the Slovenian post-socialist transition.

„Nie łzawe wspomnienia dawnych bojów, ale realna nauka z przeszłości”. O świętowaniu rocznicy niepodległości w szkołach II Rzeczypospolitej refleksji kilka

The article discusses the question of celebrations of Poland’s Independence Day – November 11th. The tradition of celebrating state holidays in Polish schools dates back to the era of the National Education Commission, which in 1783 ordered official celebrations of the centenary of king John III’s victory over the Turks at Vienna. After 123 years of foreign subjugation, which broke the connection between the citizens and the state, Poland returned to the tradition of celebrating state holidays in schools. Several brochures with proposed event scripts, poems, and small plays were published in order to ensure the celebrations would be given an appropriate flair. “Płomyk”, a magazine for slightly older children, was also involved in the preparation for independence anniversary celebrations. The issue of celebrating state holidays in schools was also considered within teaching theory: on the one hand, they were considered very valuable educationally – particularly for instilling patriotic and civil virtues, on the other, it was remarked that the students were bored with the ceremonies.

The Peace of Westphalia and nineteenth century German history painting

ABSTRACT The apparent dearth of official celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia in Germany in the ‘revolutionary year’ of 1848, as well as of depictions of the Peace of 1648 by German history painters of that time, raises a variety of questions. Much has already been written on the political caricatures of 1848. This paper investigates links between the religious and the political spheres in paintings completed in or around 1848 in Germany that demonstrate interest in the history of the Thirty Years’ War or in its confessional and political legacies. These paintings include history paintings of the Thirty Years’ War by – amongst others – the artists Carl Friedrich Lessing (1808–1880) and Eduard Geselschap (1814–1878). Comparisons are also made with earlier history paintings and with other paintings worked upon in 1848 by J.P. Hasenclever (1810–1853) and the then Director of the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, Wilhelm von Schadow (1788–1862), as well as with one later ‘pro-Prussian’ depiction of the 1648 Peace for Münster by Fritz Grotemeyer (1864–1947).

History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s by M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska

Reviewed by: History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s by M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska Erik Christiansen (bio) History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s. By M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Pp. 258. $90.00 cloth; $29.95 paper; $19.99 ebook) History Comes Alive offers the most comprehensive study to date of the relationship between Americans and history during the decade of the 1970s. Adding to the rapidly growing historiography of the 1976 bicentennial, and framing contemporary public engagement with the past within a new interpretation that clarifies how and why the seventies represent a watershed moment for public history, the book is essential reading for serious scholars of intellectual, cultural, and public history. The heart of the book consists of the five chapters (two through six) that creatively analyze the popular engagements with history during the bicentennial years from multiple angles. Chapter two closely follows the national commissions and related politics during the Johnson, Nixon, and Ford administrations, as the official celebration shifted from national and partisan, to grassroots and politically dynamic. Much of this story has been told before, recently by Tammy Gordon, but Rymsza-Pawlowska's articulation of how shifts at the national political level reflected cultural shifts related to history builds to something new as she continues the narrative into the more explicative chapters that follow. Chapter three describes how accepted principles of preservation underwent a radical transformation that resulted in significantly less veneration of extraordinary historical artifacts, but also an increasing recognition of the ordinary and near-contemporary. Chapter four studies four distinct museum spaces to persuasively argue that contemporary public history professionals also rejected the centrality of artifacts and embraced immersive and emotional experiences as the new goal. The argument develops further in chapter five, which explores popular reenactments connected with the bicentennial, from the Wagon Train to a transcontinental "bike-centennial," and drives home the point that contemporary Americans [End Page 646] sought to experience the lives of ordinary people of the past and remake history's foreignness into something more familiar. Chapter six shows how activists used this growing historical engagement to press their fellow citizens to think critically about how commemorated historical events and ideas challenged complacency in the present. Given the strength of the later chapters, it is doubly unfortunate that the book begins, following an introduction, with its weakest chapter, which covers history on television from the 1950s through the 1970s. The presentation of Roots and Little House on the Prairie is fine, if not groundbreaking, but the discussion of earlier programming is riddled with errors and the arguments are marred by inexplicable omissions. Claims about the dearth of historically-themed TV shows during the 1950s and early 1960s collapse because she neglects to even mention (much less explain) hugely popular programs like Gunsmoke (fiction) and Cavalcade of America (non-fiction, and precisely the sort of narrative non-fiction show she avers did not appear until the 1970s). Similarly, using Disney's Tomorrowland and modernist architecture as proof that Americans of the 1950s ignored the past, while eliding contrary evidence including Disney's Frontier-land or Main Street, or the popularity of "colonial" suburban design, discredits the project. Her description of You Are There is objectively wrong and ignores the leftist interpretations of history offered by the blacklisted communist writers of most of the series' episodes. Innovations she attributes to 1970s programs, such as historical characters speaking directly to the camera, were pioneered by You Are There in the early 1950s. Both that series and Cavalcade were promoted and distributed through the nation's schools, but she argues that ABC's similar promotion of Roots a generation later indicates television's newly radical assertiveness regarding authentic historical representation. Citations for this chapter reflect limited engagement with the extensive literature on early television, which may explain the deficiencies. Moreover, this chapter seemed superfluous. With the exception of chapter two, her primary argument is consistently supported throughout the book. There were missed [End Page 647] opportunities for comparisons across time: the brief mentions of the bicentennial Freedom Train and other programs like "USA Redirected" and "Heritage...

Культурна цінність та поліфункціональність суспільного простору міської площі: історико-культурологічний контекст

The article explores changes in the organization and functioning of public space in cities in the context of sociocultural dynamics – from antiquity to modernity. The sociocultural features of open urban space in ancient Greece and Rome, Renaissance Italy, modern Europe, the USA, Latin America, Ukraine are clarified. The experience of the functioning and management of public space is analyzed on specific examples of world- famous urban squares – Antique agora, roman forum, piazza del Campo in Siena, piazza della Signoria in Florence, piazza San Marco in Venice, Union Square in New York, Latin American squares, Bibikovsky boulevard and University park in old Kyiv, "Maydan" – Independence Square in contemporary Kyiv. Particular attention is being given to transformations of ceremonial, religious, recreational, economic, political, aesthetic and moral functions of open public space. Urban squares are places for official celebrations and religious rituals. They serves as a place of a rest, realization of creative ideas and are a conductor of public communication. Public spaces create opportunities for trade, affect the formation and retention of real estate prices, and are a means of attracting investment and business development in them and adjacent territories. All these provide opportunities for uniting citizens for joint projects and activities, political protests or symbolization of power. It is noted that the cultural value of the modern square is manifested in architectural forms, aesthetics of recreational areas and historical monuments, and is associated with its ability to be a place for the proclamation and implementation of high moral ideals of order, equality, solidarity, freedom, independence, human dignity, the value of moral rights and civic virtues. From the time of antiquity to the present day, the central squares of cities, as a public space, reproduce the aesthetics of the city and become a symbol of spiritual and political power, since temples, municipalities, financial and commercial institutions, theaters, and restaurants are often concentrated in such spaces.

Obchody dwudziestolecia III Rzeczypospolitej. Próby kształtowania pamięci zbiorowej polskiego społeczeństwa

The paper tries to sum up the celebrations to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Third Republic in 1989 and to present them in the context of the ‘remembrance policy’,meaning the endeavors various circles are engaged in to shape Polish society’s collective memory. The authors analyze the celebrations in terms of several selected aspects. The first one concerns the academic field: conferences, seminars and resulting publications. Another aspect refers to the official celebrations organized by state institutions. The third is about the response and debates taking place in newspapers at that time. The review of different ways of commemorating the anniversary results in the conclusion that they were all strongly politicized and used for the purposes of the current political struggle. This was particularly clear during the official celebrations, divided into those organized by the government and president respectively, yet even the events organized under academic auspices were not free from political manipulation. Therefore, the celebrations corroborated the fact that 1989 has not strongly registered in Poles’ awareness as a generational experience that positively organizes the collective memory; the celebrations did not stimulate a nationwide reflection on the achievements of the era commenced with the events of 1989. They did not make a contribution to creating in the collective memory a ‘national consensus of pride’ at the regained statehood reminiscent of that of the Second Republic.