Abstract
The present article addresses the complexity of memories in post-socialist Poland by raising two essential questions: how is it possible to reconsider individual experiences and lives in former socialist countries regarding utopia building, and what kind of new meanings and potentialities could this reconsideration offer for contemporary post-socialist times? To answer these questions, this article considers the case of a former Polish ideal “utopian city” in the communist era, namely Nowa Huta, now a district of Kraków.
The construction of Nowa Huta (New Steelwork) as the “first socialist city in Poland” began in 1949. Although Nowa Huta was once considered an ideal utopian socialist city, since the collapse of socialism, it has often been criticized as a “dirty” and “shameful” city strongly associated with the former communist regime. On the other hand, local residents recalled numerous positive memories associated with Nowa Huta from the socialist times, including stable and secure lives as well as personal promotion. Given these positive memories, one can venture to say that Nowa Huta illustrates well the complexity of memories in post-socialist Poland.
The purpose of this article is two-fold. First, in order to reconsider the experiences of those who lived under the utopian project of the former socialist regime, this article analyzes the discourses and memories of those in Nowa Huta in the 1950s and 1960s. Second, it analyzes representative politics of Nowa Huta in contemporary post-socialist Poland. Accordingly, this article attempts to explore the potential creativity in rethinking the socialist “past” in a post-socialist world.
