The preparations of the Lectorium group had usually taken place in Krasnogruda, but this time the main focus of attention was on the recently taken path of collecting interviews and testimonies related to the Polish post 1989-transformation. For the last month the participants of the project have been meeting their teachers, neighbours, grandparents and parents in order to register their childhood recollections, what they remember from the 1989 period and how they see it now. Our meeting was begun by Weronika Czyżewska-Poncyljusz, who put the work of the young participants into the context of the whole branch of the studies on what is called ‘’oral history”. As for this relatively new source of knowledge, there has been a tension between those who consider it subjective and not really serious when compared to the grand historical narratives and those who treat it as a particular kind of the narrative about the past, a polyphonic and sometimes unique way to have access to history beyond major centres, the key to many homes of real people and their fates.
Weronika’s explanation about the development of such studies, major centres and figures connected with oral history introduced the group to the precise discussion on the interviews prepared by the group. The interviews which were watched by the participants varied as not only was each of the interviewees characterized by a distinctive memory but also the ways to discover it were very varied and different. Everything was a starting point to think about the form of the interviews, the relationship that emerges between the interlocutors, the space where they are and the kind of the narrative that is shaped by the origin, age or the personality of the narrator. The transformation,which is the main issue of the interviews, is becoming the historical narrative at the moment and is known primarily from the dominant narratives, which are often profoundly black and white. Even such a tiny collection of narratives as the one prepared by the project participants shows the lives of the people far from the centre of historical events which went their own ways, and thus belonged to a different reality became a fascinating source of knowledge about the past. The vision of transformation, made of the voices which are less known and less certain, contributes to the image which is richer and richer, full of tensions, disillusions, lost chances and often the life that has gone by with its own rhythm beyond the time of crises and transformation.
The end of the busy day in Krasnogruda was spent getting ready for the visit. Piotr Myszczyński introduced the participants to the Silesian issues which are ahead of the group before the visit. A difficult history of the Silesian borderland is the history of the multiplicity of SIlesian dialects shifting maps and borders and, finally, the problem of the ‘’regained territories” and repatriation without which you can’t think of Upper Silesia and its identity.
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