The Specters of the Piasts. The Case Study of a Post-Displacement Town in the "Recovered Territories"
In 2024, a mural was unveiled on the main street of Wałcz, featuring a grey and navy blue silhouette of Casimir the Great, towering over other, diminished town symbols, including the Pomeranian Wall monument and the German post office. This mural is the most recent, although not the only, manifestation of the presence of the last Piast dynasty representative in the town. In 1368, Casimir the Great purchased the Wałcz Land from the Margrave of Brandenburg. This historical event has been repeatedly commemorated, especially after 1945, when the region once again fell within the borders of Poland. In my presentation, I will focus on elucidating how references to the Piast dynasty are employed in the context of a post-displacement town such as Wałcz. Using ethnographic methods and the theoretical framework of hauntology, I will examine the transformations of local collective memory, the contexts in which it functions, and the entanglements it has experienced over the past 80 years.