Euroentuzjastyczni demarkatorzy, czyli o najnowszych strategiach politycznego kształtowania pamięci o Śląsku Cieszyńskim

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to proove that the local Euroregional policies of memory in contemporary Cieszyn (Teschen) Silesia are dominated by unconscious conceptual nationalism. It is a tacit tendency to subordinate all contemporary reproduced images of the past concerning the times before 1920 (division of the former Duchy of Teschen between Poland and Czechoslovakia) to the current Polish-Czech border. The consequences of such a projection of the current political division on the institutionally reproduced popular representations of the past and present are the following: 1. the role of German language and culture in the past of Cieszyn (Teschen) Silesia is strongly underestimated; 2. the contemporary Czech part of the devided region is regarded as Czech always (in linguistical, cultural and political sense), while the contemporary Polish part of the region is regarded as Polish always (in linguistical, cultural and political sense); 3. contemporary local Euroregional institutions usually avoid narratives and representations of the past and present if they are linked with any concepts of Polish language or Polish identity on the Czech side of the current border. This is a kind of conceptual demarcation of “everything” in Cieszyn (Teschen) Silesia which can be regarded as a result of local Euroregional political correctness.