Přehled o publikaci

Certain physically existing places, as Pierre Nora stated, are crucial when it comes to commemoration of significant events (or people) from the past. Events that are important for construction and consolidation of cultural memory (sites of memory). Some of them are changing their value and significance. Some are transforming according to the political situation and prevailing ideology. At the same time, every place is a part of someone’s personal memory, creates the memorial landscape influencing one’s live (Dylan Trigg’s memory of place). Silesia, former Sudetenland, is full of places with memory, while some of them are functioning as commemoration of those sites of memory (lieux de mémoire), some have lost their value in that respect. But all of them once were (and still are nowadays) creating someone's personal memorial landscape The lecture will try to show the reality of contemporary Silesia through the story of an unexpected finding. In the time of covid-pandemic, the renovation of an old building in the centre of a small Silesian town of Vrbno pod Pradědem took place, during which three wooden boxes hidden under the floor were uncovered. The lecture will focus on the fantastic journey that led to the finding of former owners of the old books and documents and the circumstances under which the boxes were hidden in 1946 and discovered almost eighty years later. The emphasis will be placed on the importance of such a story, its analysis and presentation, and the need to fill in the blanks in the region's history and in personal (family) memory.