This book focuses on various manifestations of history in public spaces: in the physical ones of various historical times and geographical places, as well as in the virtual world.
It discusses how the spaces have been shaped and re-shaped, by whom and for what (not always laudable) purposes and raises pragmatical and ethical questions for both research and practical activities in the field. By combining both micro and global perspectives, the universal role that history plays in spaces created by and for, as well as the factors determining its usages, is revealed. The authors are rooted in specific national contexts: Canadian or American, Ukrainian or Polish, British or Irish, German or Luxembourgish, Korean or Brazilian, and the case studies are varied including large cities and small towns, city centers and godforsaken cemeteries, but the narratives built on these cases go beyond when they deal with issues such as decoding history and its meanings in public spaces, doing history in public spaces and observing changes in manifestations of history in public spaces.
This volume is an essential resource for anyone interested in the relationship between history and public space in a global perspective.
Introduction: Crossroads, Meeting Places, Battlefields. History Discussed and Contested by and for Public Space
Przemysław Wiszewski
Part 1: Reading History in Public Space
1. History and Memory in the Public Spaces of a Pre-industrial Central European City: Warsaw in the Long Eighteenth Century
Dorota Wiśniewska
2. Chicago, Public History, and Historical Discourse
Dominic A. Pacyga
3. Using Public Spaces to Forge National Unity in North Korea
Seung Hwan Ryu
Part 2: Doing History in Public Space
4. Lights of Innovation: Interpreting History through Art in Country Houses
Violeta Tsenova
5. Transforming Workspaces into Sites of Public History: Former Mineworkers as Stakeholders and Creators at Museal Institutions in Poland and England
Marta Kurkowska-Budzan and Grace Simpson
6. Be Where the People Are: Public Historical Engagement in the Public Space
Joëlla van Donkersgoed
7. The “História ao Ar Livre” (“History in the Open”) Project and the Making of Public History in Recife, Brazil
Luiz Paulo Ferraz
Part 3: Changing Public Space
9. Negotiating of “Bottom-up” Public History in Post-Transition Cambodia
Corin Sweeny Deinhart
10. Decommunization of Public Space in East-Central Europe
Łukasz Kamiński
11. Cemeteries as Manifestations of History in Public Space
Katarzyna Witek-Dryjańska
Part 4: "Unreal" Space and History
12. Revealing Narratives about National Identity in East Prussia’s State Museum. On Reconstructing past Public History Spaces
Christina Flöhr
13. History in Transnational Virtual Public Spaces of Videogames
Joanna Wojdon and Anastasiia Kolomeitseva
Conclusion: “Pop-Up History”: Taking History to the Streets in Canada’s Capital City
David Dean
Biography
Joanna Wojdon is a professor of history at the University of Wrocław, Poland. Her research interests include public history, Polish American history, history education, and history of communist propaganda. She edited Public History in Poland (2022) and authored Textbooks as Propaganda. Poland under Communist Rule (2018); Communist Propaganda at School: The World of the Reading Primers from the Soviet bloc, 1949–1989 (2021); and Polish American History after 1939 (2024).
Dorota Wiśniewska is an assistant professor at the Institute of History, University of Wrocław, Poland. Her research concentrates on women’s history, history didactics, and public history. Initiator of International Public History Summer School in Wrocław (since 2018). Co-editor (with Joanna Wojdon) of Public in Public History, Routledge, 2021.
