Museums, Monuments, and Memory in Poland

Name: Museums, Monuments, and Memory in Poland
Price: 138.24 AUD
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ISBN: 9781648251290

Collecting Stories

Dr Anna Krakus

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Hardback

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English

University of Rochester Press
19 May 2026

Exhibition catalogues & specific collections; Public buildings: civic, commercial, industrial; Museums & museology; Cultural studies; Political ideologies

Series: Rochester Studies in East and Central Europe

Demonstrates how museums, public monuments and private collections in Poland generate competing interpretations of the past-particularly the Holocaust. Highlights political tensions and offers universal insights into the power of curated memory.

Even before the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk opened its doors to the public in 2017, its exhibits sparked fierce political debate in the Polish parliament. It was attacked for being ""cosmopolitan"" and for lacking ""a Polish point of view.""

Museums, Monuments, and Memory in Poland offers a wide-ranging examination of how contemporary Poland uses collections-public museums, monuments arranged as archives of memory, and private accumulations-to shape ideological narratives. The book argues that such collections, whether state-curated or deeply personal, reveal how historical memory is constructed, contested, and deployed in today's polarized political landscape. Rooted in intellectual history, this work engages with Polish history and ongoing debates about the memory of the Holocaust. It also offers a universal reflection on how museums, public spaces, objects, and narratives carry ideological potential far beyond Poland's borders.

Beginning with the first museum created on Polish soil and ending with the newest, the book examines museums and monuments as narratives and the possibility that objects speak independently of curatorial intent. It finally turns to the psychology of collecting, from private art collections to filmmakers' personal archives.

The study reveals both elements of Polish exceptionalism and broader truths about how societies tell their stories through the collections they curate.

By: Dr Anna Krakus
Imprint: University of Rochester Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781648251290
ISBN 10: 1648251293
Series: Rochester Studies in East and Central Europe
Pages: 262
Publication Date: 19 May 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Prologue Introduction: Collecting History Chapter 1: Background, or A Story of Polish Populism and Political History Chapter 2: Museum Narratives Chapter 3: Things Talk Chapter 4: Monuments and Memory Chapter 5: Compulsive Collectors Conclusion Bibliography Index

ANNA KRAKUS is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Reviews for Museums, Monuments, and Memory in Poland: Collecting Stories

This book compellingly weaves together objects, museums, and collectors to reveal how collections shape ideological narratives in contemporary Poland, providing a nuanced analysis of contested narratives, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of history, memory, and identity. Written against the backdrop of post-1989 transformations and renewed struggles over history in the era of rising illiberalism, this book offers essential insights for scholars of Holocaust and memory studies, museum and heritage studies, East-Central European history, and anyone interested in how societies remember and misremember -and fight over-the past. -- Prof. Joanna B. Michlic, Historian, Author, and Co-editor of the Journal of Holocaust Research.