The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of the Forest Germans’ region in present-day southern Poland. Until c. the 1920s-1930s the term ‘Forest Germans’ (Polish: Gluchoniemcy, Niemcy z Gluszy; German: Walddeutsche, Taubdeutsche) was referred to the heterogeneous groups of Polonized, originally German-speaking settlers who came to the Carpathian Foothills in the 14th century. They did not create a spatially compact settlement structure and remained a conglomerate of local communities (areas of Lancut and Krosno as well as the Ciezkowicko-Roznowskie Foothills), undergoing Polonization until the 18th century. Depending on complex historical processes, traces of original settler culture are rare and non-obvious, but knowledge of family/local past is being transmitted here in unique ways. Field research conducted in season 2021 confirmed that today’s local identities are based on the transgenerational knowledge and vernacular, bottom-up interpretation of archival sources that are being made available and circulating to the public as a result of the democratization of history, and some external factors. Collected materials show the level of self-awareness of inhabitants in light of their complex identities. The paper will outline some key problems that emerged during this part of the research, ie: 1. the issue of differences in local discourses of collective memory, especially in the regional literature and locals’ self-presentation within the three main concentrations of Forest Germans’ settlements; 2. local strategies for defining and perceiving (valorizing, interpreting, transforming, etc.) elements of identity considered as Forest German, ie. attitudes presented by regionalists, genealogists, amateur historians, keepers of memory chambers and other social actors) and 3. ways of experiencing the region through memory or oblivion of the medieval colonization among people interested in the regional history, and those rather uninterested in the past as well.
Mots clés : Walddeutsche|collective memory|heritage|carpathian foothills|local identity
A103601MR