This article analyzes the reorganization of public memory space in postsocialist
Poland and how the state and municipal councils use it to legitimate
themselves. Drawing on research conducted in Gdańsk, the birthplace of the social
movement (Solidarność) that questioned the legitimacy of the socialist state
in the 1980s, it examines the proposed redevelopment of the shipyard where the
movement was formed. While the redevelopment sets out to create a public memory
space, it is rife with contradictions, for it involves demolishing many buildings
associated with the movement. What legitimated the municipal council’s authority
over its memorial landscapes was not so much its rediscovery of complex local
histories as it was its ability to define the local past in “material” terms.
Redeveloping history in postsocialist Poland