Tourism in (Post)socialist Eastern Europe^*

* These papers stem from the session of the same title organized by Nelson Graburn and Magdalena Banaszkiewicz as Panel P0004 for the European Association for Social Anthropology which took place 3 August 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia. The triple session panel of 12 papers was derived from the 17 submitted to the organizers. These were presented with discussant Dr Svetlana Ryzhakova (Russian Academy of Social Sciences). The present papers were selected from those available after the conference for the JTCC with the additional advice of Sabina Owsianowska. Nelson Graburn wishes to thank Drs Banaszkiewicz and Owsianowska for their hospitality during the International Scientific Conference: ‘Anthropology of Tourism – Heritage and Perspectives’ in June 2015 during which time we had an opportunity to review the papers ad direction of this volume. Ideas in this introduction may stem from the original papers and the discussion in Tallinn in 2014, further communications with the authors and editors and especially during the 2015 conference in Cracow.

Introduction: two kinds of history

To most of us in Western Europe and North America, Eastern Europe has had a very special place in recent history. The focus of the Cold War between the ‘First and Second Worlds’ and immediately before that the most bitter center of the hot war between the Fascist and Communist regimes, life in Central and Eastern Europe has been far from ‘normal’ in the sense of now taken for granted aspects of human life such as mobility and tourism. Constrained by political positioning and citizenship, as in Maoist China (Graburn, 2002) rather than personal economic wealth, mobility was channeled by one’s employment and contacts (Keck-Szajbel, 2013; Keck-Szajbel & Stola, 2015). And within the Socialist countries much of the domestic tourism was regularized as ‘social tourism’, assigned holidays that were not bought but were the privilege of one’s employment or Party position. Obviously, the transitions from those systems and sub-systems have been almost total and transformational.

But to the people of Central and Eastern Europe themselves, the centuries of history before World War II are probably more important and certainly more immanent and eras of civilizational movement, conquest and turmoil than most in the West are aware of. The early invasions of the Huns, Slavs, Mongols, and the Muslim Turks – the rise of early empires and colonization, by the Bulgars and Magyars and soon the Swedes and particularly the Russians and the spread of the powerful Hanseatic league along the North. The stability and even existence of the most important countries has fluctuated – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Croatia, Belarus and even more remarkably the very existence of Poland and Ukraine. Other regions or ethnic groups’ territories, came to the fore, changed names and receded – Bohemia, Galicia, Wallachia, Ruthenia, Moravia and many others. And to the survivors of this history, today’s ‘post-socialist’ Eastern Europeans, equally significant as we will see are the memories of displacements and movements within and across these unstable entities, the remains of biological and cultural relatives, and the unique hybrids that resulted and still stand out. It is important to point out these factors to emphasize that the post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe is but the inheritor of an even more complicated pre-socialist Central and Eastern Europe!

Post-socialist Europe

What exactly is a ‘post-socialist Europe’? This seemingly simple question requires presentation of the historical and geographical context. Firstly, it is necessary to clarify in spatial terms, what area is being discussed. Secondly, it needs to be determined in which time perspective term one will try to characterize this particular area.

The Cold War discourse left in the geopolitical dictionary many metaphors that set a sort of dichotomy between ‘us-them’, according to the dominance of the two empires: the USA and the USSR. Western Europe was separated from the Soviet sphere of influence with ‘Iron Curtain’ (the term first used in the context of the Cold War symbol by Winston Churchill in 1946 (Feuerlicht, 1955). The so-called ‘Eastern Bloc’ was named ‘Second World’, in the Western-centered narrative taking place somewhere between ‘the First’ (developed countries of Western democracies) and ‘the Third¹ World’ (identified with a ‘civilizationally underdeveloped’ area) (Fry, Goldstein, & Langhorne, 2002). On the surface, the other world was a kind of microcosm, whose boundaries were marked by the influence of the USSR, but in which there were a center and peripheries, a nucleus and transitional areas.

Moscow’s sphere of influence (both in terms of ideology, politics and economy as well as culture) was most evident in the area of the Soviet Union structure, which included the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) and today’s Ukraine and Belarus. Further to the west stretched so-called Satellite States (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, East Germany), whose sovereignty was largely limited, but were governed by quasi-independent authorities. At the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Balkan Peninsula stretched the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, not being a part of the Warsaw Pact politically linking the aforementioned entities. Eastern Bloc was therefore intrinsically heterogeneous: some countries enjoyed greater political or economic freedom (e.g. the unique nature of market socialism, which emerged in Hungary in the late 1950s, was nicknamed ‘goulash communism’ (see: Bockman, 2011), others had more features of a totalitarian system.

Being aware that this is a big simplification one can say that areas that were previously subject to long-term Russification by the Russian Empire (e.g. Ukraine) were more susceptible to Sovietization, while those that had state traditions in their history, put up greater resistance to Moscow’s impacts (e.g. Hungarian Revolution in 1956). It is impossible to carry out an in-depth political-historical analysis, tangling in details of internal diversity of the Eastern Bloc. Heterogeneity of the region, which has not been eliminated despite the efforts of the Soviet apparatus of power, however, is important from the perspective of understanding the identity of today’s Central and Eastern Europe.

Considering its diversity, both before the outbreak of the Cold War and after the transformation of 1989–1992, post-socialist Europe cannot be treated monolithically. All the more reason for it is, that as a result of the inclusion of some countries of the former Eastern Bloc into the structures of the European Union, generalizing categories such as ‘post-socialist countries’ are no longer sufficient to describe the situation. As noted at the beginning of the 1990s by Darendorf (2014, p. 26): ‘The First and the Second Worlds are being reunited into something which has no name yet, nor a number; perhaps it will just be the World.’ In retrospect it is evident that globalization marked unification failed. Post-socialist countries, which were ‘incorporated’ back into Europe are trying to keep pace with the leading ‘old’ Europe, but the debate about the inability to achieve consensus that would lead to ‘speak with one voice’ has been recently particularly lively. Moreover, as Khanna concluded (2008, p. 4) ‘The actual journey through this new European East is extremely bumpy and filled with unpredictable delays, leaps of faith, and all the anxieties of people liberated less than a generation ago from totalitarianism.’

The statement above perfectly corresponds with the problem of temporary specifying what ‘post-socialist’ means. The fall of the Berlin Wall is most often mentioned, a symbolic event separating the ‘post’ and ‘socialist’. However, the transition from socialism to post-socialism was a process, which groundbreaking moments in individual countries were represented by a variety of events: the first free elections in Poland in June 1989, declaring independence by the Baltic States, suppressing attempted coup d’état in Moscow in 1991, were just a few watersheds contributing to the gradual break-up of the existing system. Due to the heterogeneity of internal transformation, this phenomenon became attractive for researchers of various provenances (both political scientists, economists or sociologists, but also anthropologists and culture experts). Importantly, more intense participation of researchers coming from East-Central Europe in international discourse can be noticed. It is very insofar significant that for many years mainly Western researchers wrote about the events happening behind the Iron Curtain. There was actually no account ‘from the inside’, which would reach wider reception (excluding both the belles-lettres and less scientific literature which would ‘flow out’ outside by means of unofficial channels or which was already written in the West by the immigrants from the Eastern Bloc). Owing to this ‘rooting’, analyses offered by local researchers constitute an interesting and important counterpoint to the research from the Anglo-Saxon perspective (see: Berdahl & Bunzl, 2010; Bridger & Pine, 2013; Buchowski, 2001; Cervinkova, 2012; Cervinkova, Buchowski, & Uherek, 2015; Galasińska & Galasiński, 2010; Grabher & Stark, 1997; Kürti & Skalnik, 2013; Negro, 2012; Schröder & Vonderau, 2008).

‘Post-socialist Europe’ is, therefore, a group of countries that over the last quarter century, would ‘come out’ of socialism and which now, if one refers to Laszlo Kürti and Peter Skalnik ‘are in the phase we may label as post-transition’. Nevertheless, even if one takes the socialist stage as several decades of intensive ‘enforcement of uniformity’ (uravnílovka) (pejoratively meaning unification, often connected with consequent loss of quality), the socialism of the Eastern Bloc was only a relatively short moment in the complicated historic process of this part of Europe. Therefore, post-transformational reality differs from each other depending on the country. From a broader perspective, we see that regionalism exceeding political borders is a significant phenomenon and makes the description of Central and Eastern Europe only superficially a simple task. The more that, ‘we should conceptualize post-socialism within an analytic perspective that connects local reactions and places to global processes’ (Buchowski, 2012, p. 71).

Tourism in socialist Europe

After World War II in Central and Eastern Europe several stages in the development of tourism can be distinguished. Lack of freedom of movement outside the Eastern Bloc, difficulty in obtaining a passport, visa restrictions and financial limitations caused that in the period between 1945 and 1991, the representatives of this part of Europe did not participate massively in foreign tourism. Trips were available for the elite, subject to various formal and financial conditions, and complying with the criteria did not guarantee permission to leave the country (Podemski, 2011; Rosenbaum, 2015). During the decades of Soviet domination the situation was changing between exacerbations and liberalization. The biggest limitation of mobility occurred in the period of Stalinism (until 1953). In the 1960s, the possibility of international travel within the socialist countries increased, excursions to capitalist countries were easier and so were the arrivals of foreigners who were welcome because of the desire to acquire foreign currency and ‘show off’ achievements of socialism. Despite numerous difficulties, the people of Central and Eastern Europe sought to travel, showing the often remarkable ingenuity and resourcefulness. Trips outside the borders were usually multifunctional – sightseeing and recreation, and also for profit or commercial (Podemski, 2011). In the period of intense social protests, international tourism became more difficult or impossible (e.g. during martial law in Poland, between 1981 and 1983). It was not until after the Communism fell, the freedom of movement around the world fully recovered.

In the context of a centrally planned economy, activities of travel organizers was controlled by the state (although in some countries private sector developed, especially in mountain and seaside resorts, e.g. in Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia; Podemski, 2011; Light, Young, & Czepczynski, 2009). Social tourism boomed, resorts for workers and their families were dynamically developed. The authorities sought to ensure that all citizens have equal access to leisure and recreation, which would guarantee the rest, calm the public mood and prove the superiority of socialism over capitalism. So it was not the time free from indoctrination. Tourism to places of cultural heritage was an important element of the local economy, as the state subsidized (compulsory) school and company trips, visits to factories, etc. taking care of the right propaganda message accompanied the excursions. Writing history anew – in a version that left out ‘uncomfortable’ topics and legitimized the oppressive actions of authorities – and then instilling it through the mass media, education and leisure, however, did not bring the desired effects. Family accounts (‘communicative memory’; Assmann, 2008; Halbwachs, 1992) as well as the opposition relations (the so-called second circuit, where among other things magazines, books, leaflets were published) meant that there was no general consensus for narrations created by the regime authorities and cultural institutions, while attempts to spread the new rites, national rituals (e.g. 1 May parades, celebrating the October Revolution), did not gain general acceptance.

Post-socialism and tourism after the fall of the Iron Curtain

In the course of political transformation there has been a dynamic development of the tourism industry and the mobility of nationals coming from the countries so-far separated from each other with the ‘Iron Curtain’ significantly raised (Vukonić, 2006). Residents of post-socialist countries were traveling increasingly (although initially it concerned only the narrow groups, mostly educated people, coming from cities; see Alejziak, 2011). Foreign tourists visited the countries of ‘new Europe’, wanting to know their characteristics and verify their ideas. The rapid increase in arrivals was recorded after the enlargement of the European Union, and later on the occasion of cultural or sporting events of an international scale (e.g. EURO 2012 in Poland and Ukraine). A modern tourist infrastructure was being created, likewise emerged travel agencies and information centers; area development plans were projected and care for the natural environment and cultural landscape was common. Advertising campaigns were aimed at changing the stereotypical image of the region (Owsianowska, 2011). Tourist agencies formed the structure of the National Tourism Administration and National Tourism Organizations, known from the Western European countries (e.g. in Poland it is the Polish Tourist Organization, operating since 2000). The process of touristification in different countries proceeded at a different pace, but the course of action was convergent.

The accession of new countries to the European Union (and later the Schengen area) was another breakthrough (Ferfet, 2008; Hall, Smith, & Marciszewska, 2006). Cooperation with the ‘old Union’ had been encouraged in the pre-accession period: cross-border structures were created, so-called euroregions within which cooperation was being promoted in respect of transnational strategies for destination development, integrated promotion, harmonization of standards, staff training and subsidizing local initiatives. Applications for EU grants had to meet certain criteria corresponding with trends in European and worldwide tourism. This way, the tasks of sustainable development were carried out (sustainable tourism development), best practices and solutions were implemented (e.g. Greenways Trails), including promotion of natural and cultural heritage. Due to the turbulent history, the region is abundant in historical monuments; some of them have been included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Traces of socialism also attract attention: monuments, museums and mausoleums, new cities and other examples of socialist realist architecture, for example, in Warsaw, Riga, Prague, Bucharest (Czepczynski, 2007; Knudsen, 2010; Light et al., 2009).

EU programs on tourism to the sites of cultural heritage (educational, back-to-the-roots travels, culinary, festival, etc.) remind of the former multicultural and multi-ethnic character of the Central and Eastern European countries (Light et al., 2009; Macdonald, 2013; Murzyn, 2012; Zatori & Smith, 2015). The legacy of cultures of ethnic, religious, social minorities, which was treated with secondary importance for decades, or even ‘erased’ from memory, education, discourse and public space, becomes, in new reality, the foundation for creating attractions and tourism products. Reinterpretation of history on the one hand leads to the exposing former ethnic diversity, while the on other – to commercializing the multicultural past (Buzalka, 2009a, 2009b). The indubitable advantage, that is, the activation and modernization of underinvested areas and peripheral, rural areas thanks to EU funds, requires the acceptance of the EU cultural policy. And this is not always easily attainable. It happens that dilemmas arising from the inevitable cultural heritage dissonance (Ashworth, 1994; Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996) are ignored, which additionally complicates the relationship towards troubled past (Bechtel, 2013) and may affect the guests–hosts relationships.

The development of tourism in the post-socialist countries was connected with the desire to make up for lost time and the rapid growth of income from tourism economy. This justifies the domination of research carried out from the point of view of tourism business. However, as soon as in the 1980s the importance of the anthropological dimension of the phenomenon, as well as the need to analyze its human and social aspects were appreciated (Przecławski, 1979). Description of new tourists, their motivations and preferences of travel allowed for better understanding of the travelers’ expectations and behavior. The debate over the ‘new Eastern Europe’, was provoking questions whether the development of tourism in this region is characterized by some specific features, or if the processes known from other parts of the world are repeated here (Hall et al., 2006; Jafari, 2008; Smith & Hall, 2006; Vukonić, 2006 among others).

One of the basis for comparison is treating the period of Soviet domination in Central and Eastern Europe as a form of colonialism. Therefore, similarities between post-socialism and postcolonialism are pointed to and these include: formation of new states in place of the former empire or re-determination of national and individual identity, in which a huge role is played by heritage. Suchland (2011, p. 842) ironically asks, reformulating the Gayatri Spivak’s question: ‘Can the Postsocialist speak?’ However, the differences between both concepts are emphasized as well as new approaches within postcolonial discourse, including the decolonial option which ‘does not propose to change one (western) epistemology with another or others. (…) All models continue to exist and remain viable as sources and targets of criticism’ (Tlostanova, 2012, p. 6).

The issues of globalization form analytical perspective for the East-Central European reality. ‘Centrifugal’ processes, appearing in response to the growing institutional, economic, social and cultural interdependence and integration appeal to cultivate the particularist, national and regional. Glocalization is a term expressing the attitude of ‘think globally, act locally’ (Robertson, 1995), which in relation to the development of tourism is a recommendation to listen to the voices of various groups and skillfully reconcile conflicting interests, before taking a strategic decision (Jafari, 2008; Salazar, 2010). Jafari (2008) stresses that the countries of the ‘new Eastern Europe’, which entered the path of dynamic development of tourism should take into account the experience of others and not repeat the mistakes of their predecessors. His main message can be summed up in the statement ‘tourism is for the hosts’ (p. 7) not only in the sense that it brings income and the progress of civilization to local communities, but above all because it respects their traditions, lifestyle and needs, as well as takes into account threats to the environment and culture.

The study of post-socialist tourism from the anthropological perspective

Tourism in the socialist period was already the subject of research, and the politico-economic importance of tourism and its potency for change was foreseen and studied within and beyond the region (Bystrzanowski, 1989). The study of post-socialist changes was of great concern to politicians, economists and social scientists alike (Hall et al., 2006). And Jafari (2008) wrote about ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’. There were fears about a predatory invasion of Western (European) hotel chains and travel companies, and later of a newly enriched Russia taking their pick, ‘shopping around the bloc’ and the possible popularity of new players such as the further off ‘-Stans’ now free of Soviet control. But positive developments included more freedom of religion and the burgeoning of pilgrimage both within and later across nations (Galbraith, 2000; Liutikas, 2013; Sekwerdej, Pasieka, & Warat, 2007). By 2000 the concept of a more united Europe emerged both in politics and as a wide field of desirable destinations, but this has begun to wane for a variety of reasons in the last 10 years. Recent history asserted itself of many outsiders too, especially the attraction and melancholy of the memorial tourism to sites of atrocities focussed in Eastern Europe. These destinations have accommodated both the general cultural tourist public aware of history as well as the descendants and relatives of those who had previously lived and died there (Feldman, 2008).

The developments and changing travel patterns of the last 20 years of tourism undoubtedly offer a range of issues that can be (and should be) analyzed through the prism of anthropology. Let us enumerate the most significant paths of enquiry:

1. Culturalization and individualization of tourist praxis and new class formations (the development of package tourism and subsequent openings for cultural, 3 E tourism²).

2. The influence on worldviews (stereotypes, a category of ‘the stranger’, social distance, emergent ethnicities) and new, global trends (e.g. evolution of gender and family relations).

3. Tourism as re-creation: searching for mental, psychical, spiritual support, active tourism, relationships with nature.

4. Revitalization of heritage (including the controversial ones like industrial or socialist heritage).

5. Regionalization and globalization (e.g. cross-border cooperation, UE & Schengen Zone).

6. Discovering ethno-cultural identity (e.g. ethnic cuisine, festivals, design).

7. Memory and history (e.g. historical narrative in the creation of tourist products).

As the term ‘post-socialist Europe’ is only a generalization, a label that does not reflect the inherent complexity of the discussed area, the articles comprising this volume do not claim to represent the whole region.

This small collection of research papers can only focus on a few regions and nations and a small range of important topics. Excluding for the most part the vast flows of international tourists, especially from West and the more routine ‘recreational’ (Cohen, 1979) types of tourism, we have decided to illuminate those forms of tourism which have to do with identity and memories, particularly building upon the unique past of this area, and on the personal aspects of tourist interactions relating to individualism and family, intergenerational memory and solidarity, and methods of catharsis of the painful more immediate past.

Penny Capitalism:³ As expected small-scale businesses emerged in the management of tourism as well as many other kinds of enterprise. Ivan’s article about the lively commercial fishing and hospitality industry in the Romanian Danube Delta illustrates many typical emergent features, which she summed up in the original title of the paper: ‘We make more money now, but we don’t talk to each other anymore.’ Freed from socialist government guidelines (and supports – a point also emphasized by Wadle) and emerging from more traditional rural customary arrangements of sharing and reciprocal labour, these ‘new capitalists’ find themselves in intense competition for the incoming tourists. The emphasis falls on the nuclear family as the unit of production, reinforcing the gendered division of labour – men take the tourists fishing by boat and the women hone and promote their skills in cooking fish-based meals for the tourist families and groups. They no longer have much time to chat with friends and family but at the same time they are losing trust in these more distant community members as possible competitors. When they do cooperate with family members beyond the immediate household, there is an ambivalence about the relationship of taking advantage of them as ‘hired help’. In the Masurian Lakes area of Northern Poland described by Wadle (see also later) local social relationships were more fragmented as the pre-WWII German population had been ousted and the newer inhabitant included both ‘local’ Poles and others displaced by others from Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. The entrepreneurs were not part of a stable network of prior relationships, and they competed by taking up many different kinds of enterprises, competing through ‘difference’ and focusing on their relations to their tourist customers.

Tourist Encounters:⁴ Such monetization of labour and land is typical of post-socialist societies. The dyadic relationship between local entrepreneurs is no more important than the dyadic relationship between entrepreneurs and tourist customers. Here again the present relationship is framed in terms of past relationships. Wadle’s paper analyses a set of circumstances amongst the rural entrepreneurs of the Masurian Lake District of Northern Poland. Here the participants or more aware of the problematic moral nature of these social arrangements drawing upon the culture of class. In one case a local sail repairer invoked the traditional egalitarian and trusting ethos of ‘sailors’ in the face of economic inequality. A family beach resort entrepreneur treated both visiting urban and local rural customers as equals even though the latter were otherwise inferior in the traditional local social system, however these relations were strictly short term. On the other hand the local potter, practicing a newly learned craft, tried to turn his relationships with his frequently urban and outsider customers into lasting authentic friendships (Wang, 1999) of shared creativity.

Dissonant Heritage:⁵ Heritage refers to the selection, assembly and targeting of aspects of a community’s past (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996, p. 7) for present populations. This presentation may be for commercial purposes, to attract visitors and sell consumable products, but it may also be an attempt to make political statements about the meaning of the community’s past in the present and hence the relation of this community to other communities. As stated above, the relation of contemporary communities to their pasts is very complex in most of Eastern Europe: the past of the community may reside on a geographically different place, and the past in any one place may have ‘belonged’ to a community no longer present. These are some of the ways that ‘dissonant heritage’ may be present for tourists, their hosts and the all-important mediators (guides, travel companies, advertisers, museums staffs and so on) in many of these case studies.

Owsianowska’s paper about the Southeast Polish borderlands⁶ is a classic case of this kind of dissonance through displacement and erasure through new historical narratives and images. After 1989 the tragic history, which had been ‘forgotten’ was then revived for touristic purposes emphasizing not the brutal struggles and removal but the peaceful multicultural region where the nineteenth century Poles had portrayed their presence as a ‘civilizing mission’. This ‘beautiful East’ imaginary was propagated evidenced in a restored ‘theme park village’ and new festivals. Supported nationally and by the EU it propagated the ‘bright myth’ of creative peaceful coexistence for visitors with little prior connection. However, direct and ancestral memories of the brutalities, the ‘dark myth’ were also resurrected, in one area commemorating a 1943 massacre, catering to those who understandable felt bitter about their expulsion from a region where they had rather ‘imperial’ self-image, possibly postcolonial, according to Bachórz and Horolets’ paper. Yet, the local residents/hosts also experienced dissonance fearing that they would be the targets of blame. These bitter nostalgic after effects are very common among expelled ruling/upper classes, such as French colons, Portuguese from southern Africa, Jews and some Germans from Eastern Europe and so on (Marschall, 2017).

Bachórz and Horolets account of Polish tourists’ journeys to a wider swathe of the former territory of the USSR covers some of the same ground, but emphasizes how their itineraries most often include those areas which used to be inhabited by Poles during the previous centuries of Russian domination. Many of these tourists experience the dissonance within their own family and national memories, holding on to the positive experiences of some of their ancestors while acutely aware of the official memories of ‘horrors of war and so on’. The younger generations, however, may prefer ‘amnesia’, avoiding the ambivalent historical memories in favor of the landscape and their visual and embodied experiences.

Another form of dissonant heritage also found in Eastern Europe is where the geographical community may have remained to same, but that its past actions and reputation are not something that the present people are proud of and wish to embellish for contemporary consumption, either because it makes them ashamed and/or because it is not a narrative that they wish to offer to outsiders from other communities (cf. Brumann & Cox, 2010, on Japan). This kind is also called ‘difficult heritage’ (Macdonald, 2008). Banaszkiewicz’s chapter on Nowa Huta, the former model Communist town in what is part of post-socialist Krakow shows us how a fairly undesirable past is presented, interpreted and targeted at tourists. Rather than deny or hide the existence of this past phase of city life, the entrepreneurs use satire and mockery and making the touristic examination of the past a form of comic entertainment, selecting stereotypical features of the Communist past: for instance being driven around in Trabant cars,⁷ and visiting restaurants and milk bars reminiscent of the socialist past. The company and the guides are called Crazy Guides, preparing the tourists for a playful experience allowing them a mediated experience of the disagreeable facts of the past. Even though the tour contains objective historical information – photos, a lecture, these are presented in an undemanding atmosphere. Touristic evocation of the recent ‘dissonant’ past are found in much of Eastern Europe, some preserved like Nowa Huta, others constructed, as developer Villiunas Malinauskas of Stalin World in Lithuania explained: ‘C’est de l’Histoire, authentique, vivante … Aussi douloureuse soit-elle!’[‘It’s history, authentic, living … painful as it is!’] (Naef, 2015). Others, world renowned as Auschwitz, are by no means dramatized versions of the ‘dissonant heritage’ but serve as lieu de mémoire of the worst of human experience (Cole, 2000; Feldman, 2008).

Lieux de mémoire,⁸ Memory and Selective Amnesia: In his study of the toponymy of post War II France, Nora (2006) suggested that official history was signaled by ‘lieux de mémoire’ places of history which served to clarify for present populations the places and the occurrence of important historical events. This researched and sanctioned ‘history’ was opposed to personal and community memory which might have other versions of local history.⁹ This clash is typical of dissonant heritage where a community or otherwise self-identified group has a different interpretation of the past from that of the authorities, as commonly found in historically mobile Eastern Europe. And it is the material signs, symbols and built environment that supply the ‘official’ sites of memory for tourists, official memories which may, however, be challenged by more emotionally cogent personal, family and ethnic memories.

In the case of the Polish borderlands, according to Owsianowska, memories were repressed after the expulsion and two versions of lieux de mémoire were erected after the fall of the USSR. The first was a ‘peaceful’ mythologized version of history, for example, in the form of the ‘village theme park’ but it was only after authoritative written histories of the awful events of WWII and after were made public, that people were allowed to express their personal and ethnic memories and have them assuaged at the novel lieux and temps de [time for] mémoire. Bachórz and Horolets, on the other hand, show that some Polish tourists drew upon their personal and family (communicated) memories to challenge the ‘dark history’ narrative, and replace it with a more innocuous set of stories which may place some of the ‘blame’ on the ‘imperial’ Poles. ‘Incidental’ lieux de mémoire exist in parts of Russia in the forms of buildings and institutions with Polish backgrounds or connections which serve as infrastructure for the tourists as well as witnesses to history, yet the tourists may use them but still privilege their memory narratives in interpreting their travel experiences.

These anthropological papers, though limited in geographical scope, illustrate some of the features of contemporary tourism which are more characteristic of the immense changes to post-socialism than some other contemporary forms. For instance, there is relatively little emphasis on cultural borrowing, the demonstration effect of the exploitation of workers. Nor is there are focus on the place of these forms of recreation on the annual cycle lives of the tourists and their families. There is hardly mention of gender, sex tourism, child exploitation or drug consumption. On the other hand there is a pervasive examination of national identity and historical enmities, and on family history and migration. There is attention to both ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ forms of memory and nostalgia, as well as to seemingly purposive amnesias. And in the more community focused cases, there is attention to old and new forms of customer relationships, as well as the management of competitive entrepreneurial roles and both the instrumental use and the neglect of family relationships. Eastern Europe may look towards the EU and become further subjected to global consumerism, but the peoples will always have recourse to their unique pre- and post-socialist histories.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* These papers stem from the session of the same title organized by Nelson Graburn and Magdalena Banaszkiewicz as Panel P0004 for the European Association for Social Anthropology which took place 3 August 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia. The triple session panel of 12 papers was derived from the 17 submitted to the organizers. These were presented with discussant Dr Svetlana Ryzhakova (Russian Academy of Social Sciences). The present papers were selected from those available after the conference for the JTCC with the additional advice of Sabina Owsianowska. Nelson Graburn wishes to thank Drs Banaszkiewicz and Owsianowska for their hospitality during the International Scientific Conference: ‘Anthropology of Tourism – Heritage and Perspectives’ in June 2015 during which time we had an opportunity to review the papers ad direction of this volume. Ideas in this introduction may stem from the original papers and the discussion in Tallinn in 2014, further communications with the authors and editors and especially during the 2015 conference in Cracow.

1. The concept of the ‘Third World’ (sometimes called ‘the South’) originally emerged for the First World Conference of Non-aligned Nations convened in Jakarta in 1955 by Sukarno and Tito, those nations that did not want to align themselves with the USA (NATO) or the USSR (Warsaw Pact) (Graburn, 1981).

2. 3 E tourism is dedicated to Entertainment, Excitement, Education.

3. This is a term taken from the book of the same name by anthropologist Tax (1953) concerning Guatemalan peasant farmers engaged in small scale monetary trading.

4. This phrase is taken from the seminal work of Simoni (2014, 2016).

5. Phrase taken from Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996).

6. Those parts of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine which used to be part of Poland, which became USSR in 1945 and separate nations after 1989. The Polish population was ‘cleansed’ or driven out.

7. Trabant cars were manufactured by the state in Communist East Germany 1959–1989. They were powered by small, noisy, smelly two-stroke engines and were very ‘basic’ compared with commercial cars in the West. They have become a symbol of Communist technical and stylistic backwardness.

8. This phrase is the title of the works of historian Nora (1989).

9. Lowenthal (2015) suggests that in recent years, official versions of history has given way to officially sanctioned memories, especially in emotionally charged catastrophes of recent history.