The work discusses the image of the medieval architectural heritage in the Polish public discourse of the nineteenth century. The author uses a corpus of texts published in academic journals and books to analyze the attitudes towards historical buildings in a period marked by intense development of the national cause and Romanticism, and later by the growing competition between the empires of Central Europe in the field of culture. The analysis shows growing esteem for the Gothic style, which was seen as having great potential for the future of architecture, as the well as general pessimistic attitude towards culture prevalent in the 1880s.
PL
Artykuł omawia obraz dziedzictwa architektury średniowiecznej w XIX w. (do lat osiemdziesiątych) w polskim dyskursie publicznym. Na podstawie korpusu tekstów z czasopism naukowych oraz książek autor analizuje stosunek do budowli historycznych w dobie rozwijania się idei narodowej i romantyzmu, a potem rosnącej rywalizacji imperiów środkowej Europy na polu kultury. Przedmiotem opisu jest rosnące uznanie dla stylu gotyckiego, z którym wiązano duże nadzieje na przyszłość oraz stan pesymizmu kulturowego lat osiemdziesiątych XIX w.
Within the Range of Salons and Visits. The Social Life in Middle Class Homes in Warsaw during the 1864–1914 PeriodThe article discusses mass-scale social life in Warsaw during the second half of the nineteenth century. Social life was one of the official forms of establishing contacts between unrelated persons and as such was subjected to multiple conventions. One of its forms – next to paying visits – was the salon. In the course of the nineteenth century the custom of holding salons permeated from the upper strata to the middles classes, in particular the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie. Salons were held in specially designated “public” space within the home, arranged even in confined accommodation. The configuration of Warsaw homes hindered a consistent separation of such space, even in large residences located in parts of buildings facing the street. Naturally, in certain cases the salon (comprehended as part of a home) had to be used also as a dining room and a bedroom, thus negating its supposed sacrosanct character known from numerous sources.
This article explores the urban elites of Lviv during its autonomous era under Habsburg rule. The elites included not only state and municipal officials but also ‘self-proclaimed’ groups of local patriots, whose main point of reference was their city and maintaining its respectability. The issue of the preservation of secular monuments in the city (mainly the Old Town) is dealt with, as well as the history of selected grassroots associations, like the Society of the Friends of Old Lviv and the Society for the Embellishment of the City of Lviv and Its Surroundings. The author argues that by investigating the institutions which took care of the physical space of the city and its buildings, it is possible to delve into the identity of the elites in question. He further argues that it was not only the imperial and national identity that was reflected in the sources, but also a purely local one, which points to the issue of localness as an important category of research.
The paper ponders over the issue of memory and urban space. It shows how these categories have been discussed in the literature and how they are connected to the problem of place identity. The paper also highlights the need to appreciate and assess the physical aspect of objects, which act as memory markers in the urban space. The author argues that what is being memorialised and conveyed as meaning is the past lived experience. As a case in point, two memory acts are analysed in the paper, clearly showing the interdependence of various temporalities in the anniversary celebrations. In the festivities celebrating the 100th (in 1881) and 150th (in 1931/2) anniversaries of the consecration of the Lutheran church in Warsaw, the capital of the Kingdom of Poland in the Russian partition and later the capital of a resurrected independent Polish state after 1918, the different present-oriented needs were mirrored in the narratives and commemorations of the past. Idiosyncratic visions of the past help make the small and vulnerable community of Lutherans in an otherwise primarily Roman Catholic environment more coherent, as its members may lay claim to history and construct and stabilise their identification process as descendants of past generations. Moreover, the material fabric of the church seems to be an indispensable factor. The parishioners’ lived experience appears to be a crucial component of commemorations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Cztery prezentowane tu artykuły są pokłosiem konferencji pt. „Miasto i tradycja w XIX wieku: przestrzeń miasta i debaty”, która odbyła się w końcu listopada 2018 r. Była to trzecia konferencja z cyklu „Architektura w mieście, architektura dla miasta”, zorganizowana przez dr. Kamila Śmiechowskiego i piszącego te słowa w Instytucie Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Warszawie. Celem konferencji było przyjrzenie się potrzebie nawiązywania do przeszłości w myśli XIX i początku XX w., a w szczególności – ze względu na „miejski” charakter całego cyklu – próba odpowiedzi na pytanie, jak to uwikłanie w przeszłość wyglądało w rozwijających się dziewiętnastowiecznych miastach.