Real or Authentic? Two castles in Poznań
[ 1 ] Instytut Architektury i Ochrony Dziedzictwa, Wydział Architektury, Politechnika Poznańska | [ P ] employee
2024
chapter in monograph
english
EN The castle of Wilhelm II was a falsification of history, for many years a symbol of Germanisation and “internal” colonization. The negative associations were exacerbated by its reconstruction by the Nazis. The post-war use of the building as a municipal cultural centre gradually changed the frame of reference and allowed historical traumas to be worked through. As a testimony to a problematic, if not downright traumatic heritage, the castle has also become evidence of the possibility of working through/reacting to it in collective action. While the Imperial Castle created a false history, the Royal Castle of Przemysł II became a false rebuilding resulting from the manipulation of authentic history and inspired by additional, not fully articulated, motives. This has not only to do with treating its reconstruction as a means of satisfying one’s own ambitions, but, above all, of creating a “Polish answer to the Prussian castle” – a completely ahistorical one, as the present Royal Castle is older than the Imperial Castle. It will probably also become “real” over time – either as a result of social amnesia or the resolution of its underlying meanings.
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