Multi-heirs heritage: a case study of pottery from a Polish-German Town

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on the phenomenon of pottery produced in Bolesławiec, a town that underwent a shift in state affiliation: after World War II the formally German town became Polish. Nowadays, Polish Bolesławiec ceramics is widely recognised as a trademark, part of the Polish heritage and a national symbol. The article was initiated by a simple question: how is it possible, considering that only a couple dozen years before, Bolesławiec pottery was in fact Bunzlau pottery, made by German craftsmen for hundreds of years? The authors analyse the process of creating heritage by re-constructing the biography of the ceramics and emphasising two coexistent forces that influenced the course of cultural production: political ideology and neoliberal mechanisms. Finally, they propose two terms: ‘multi-heirs heritage’ and ‘economics of (non)memory’ that enable them to grasp the complexity of the actors (people and institutions), attitudes and strategies that affected the researched case.

KEYWORDS:

• Pottery
• Bolesławiec
• creating heritage
• multi-heirs heritage
• post-conflict heritage
• economics of (non)memory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This statement comes from the experience of one of the authors, who came and grew up in a town near Bolesławiec. She remembers the sudden appearance of the stamped pottery on the market in the 90s, that lead to the present research questions: Why for many years were the stamps not in use? What was the reason for their return? And Why are they confused with Polish folk art?

2. Cooperatives were the favoured trade and production model in the Polish People’s Republic as they were in line with the communist idea of counteracting private ownership and entrepreneurship.

3. Film „Ceramika Bolesławiecka z Wytwórni Reinholda” Accessed 29 November 2019. https://vimeo.com/5389849.

4. A description of neoliberalism as a flexible system, adjustable to local conditions, can be found in a slightly different context among the work of Aiwa Ong: 2007, Neoliberalism as a mobile technology, ‘Transaction of the Institute of the British Geographers’ 32:308.

5. Tadeusz Szafran, was a Professor educated in both Polish and German schools and traditions of ceramic, who came to Boleslawiec in 1945 to rebuild the ceramic centres from the ruins.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Narodowe Centrum Nauki [Grant number 2018/31/D/HS3/00778].

Notes on contributors

Anna Kurpiel

Dr. Anna Kurpiel is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences at the Willy Brandt Center for Studies at the University of Wroclaw. She is ethnologist and cultural anthropologist by training and her research interests include cultural heritage with particular emphasis on borderlands, regions or nations in transition and the anthropology of memory. She conducts research in Western Poland and the Republic of North Macedonia. email: [email protected]

Katarzyna Maniak

Dr. Katarzyna Maniak received her PhD degree in ethnology and cultural anthropology from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland (2018). She is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Culture Anthropology, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Currently, she is involved in a project focused on post-conflict heritage in regions incorporated into Poland after World War II. She is also a part of a group dedicated to researching the heritage of work in Europe (‘Homo [Lab]orans’). In her field of interest are forms of institutionalisation of culture, approaches towards difficult heritage and social impact of heritage. [email protected]