11.11.1918. Independence and Memory in Central Europe

The majority of citizens of the newly reborn Poland had no doubts that regained independence called for special forms of commemoration and celebration. The problem was that even something as elementary as establishing the date that would symbolise this event proved difficult so that the debate on when and how this event should be celebrated spanned the entire interwar period. It did not get any easier as the time went by…

The book focuses on the history of the independence day in Poland and other countries of Central Europe. The perspective on the region at large allows to locate Polish debate in a wide continuum of memory-related arguments. This involves not only competing and potential sites of memory (nurtured by various political groups, national minorities and marginalised social groups), but also processes of repression and rejection of the results of the Great War in the countries that suffered defeat.

The authors take this story up to the present day, when the struggle for ownership of national symbols seems as heated as many decades ago.

The publication is available only in Polish.

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