Monuments and space : exercises in political imagination

The monument to the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz, erected in 1898 inKraków’s Main Market Square, is one of the most dynamic spots within the spaceof the Old Town, in its physical, symbolic, and social aspects. This article discusseshistorical and contemporary usages of the monument. Its beginnings are analysedin terms of proto-patrimonial practices associated with the emergence of the canonof national heritage, understood as specific, existing cultural assets, either materialor symbolic, which a given community inherited from previous generations andfeels obliged to preserve. Dedicated to a poet whose oeuvre was recognised as apriceless national treasure shortly after his death, the monument transformed thespace around it, imbuing the very centre of Kraków with new semantic codes, as-sociated with the idea of a nation as an autonomous cultural and political commu-nity. The statue’s annihilation during the Nazi occupation of Poland and its post-war reconstruction led to a major revaluation of its essential form. The monumentchanged its patrimonial status and became a kind of a secular relic. Well-integratedinto the urban landscape, the Mickiewicz Monument is regarded as one ofKraków’s landmarks, continuously entering interactions with various peoplearound it.

Spomenik poljskemu romantičnemu pesniku Adamu Mickiewiczu, postavljen leta1898 na glavnem trgu v Krakovu, je v svojem fizičnem, simbolnem in družbenemvidiku eno najbolj dinamičnih mest v starem mestnem jedru. Članek govori ozgodovinski in sodobni rabi spomenika. Njihovi začetki so analizirani z vidika pro-to-dediščinskih praks, povezanih z nastankom kanona nacionalne dediščine, ki serazume kot specifična, obstoječa kulturna dobrina, bodisi materialna bodisi sim-bolna, ki jo je neka skupnost podedovala od prejšnjih generacij in jo čuti dolžnaohranjati. Posvečen pesniku, čigar opus je bil kmalu po njegovi smrti prepoznankot neprecenljivo nacionalno bogastvo, je preoblikoval prostor okoli sebe insredišče Krakova nasičil z novimi pomenskimi kodami, povezanimi z idejo narodakot avtonomne kulturne in politične skupnosti. Uničenje kipa med nacistično oku-pacijo Poljske in njegova povojna obnova je privedlo do velikega prevrednotenjanjegove bistvene oblike. Spomenik je spremenil svoj dediščinski status in postalnekakšna posvetna relikvija. Spomenik Mickiewiczu, ki je dobro integriran v ur-bano krajino, velja za eno od znamenitosti Krakova, ki nenehno vstopa v stike zrazličnimi ljudmi okoli sebe