JACEK KOWALEWSKI. KREACJE PRZESZŁOŚCI Szkice z antropologii historii

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1 JACEK KOWALEWSKI KREACJE PRZESZŁOŚCI Szkice z antropologii historii

2 BIBLIOTEKA CENTRUM BADAŃ ANTROPOLOGII HISTORII Chronos/Anthropos NR 1 RADA NAUKOWA SERII Marcin Brocki Jacek Kowalewski Andrzej P. Kowalski Marta Kurkowska-Budzan Wojciech Piasek (przewodniczący) Rafał Kleśta-Nawrocki Paweł Żmudzki

3 Recenzent PROF. DR HAB. WOJCIECH J. BURSZTA Korekta JUSTYNA BRYLEWSKA Projekt okładki PIOTR KORONA Na okładce alegoria Rozmyślanie, Cesare Ripa, Ikonologia Publikacja dofinansowana przez: WYDZIAŁ HUMANISTYCZNY UWM W OLSZTYNIE INSTYTUT HISTORII I STOSUNKÓW MIĘDZYNARODOWYCH UWM W OLSZTYNIE Copyright by Author Toruń 2012 ISBN ISSN Wydawca INSTYTUT HISTORII I STOSUNKÓW MIĘDZYNARODOWYCH UWM POLSKIE TOWARZYSTWO HISTORYCZNE Przygotowanie komputerowe FIRET IWONA I PAWEŁ BANASIAKOWIE Druk i oprawa ZAKŁAD POLIGRAFICZNY UNIWERSYTETU WARMIŃSKO-MAZURSKIEGO W OLSZTYNIE

4 SPIS TREŚCI Kreacje przeszłości... 9 (META)HISTORIE Sym-bolon historii Przeszłość jako znaczenie O dyscyplinarności humanistyki (przykład historiografii) ZBLIŻENIA Antropologizowanie historiografii O społecznym zaangażowaniu historii Codzienność lokalność styl życia W stronę humanistycznej historii kultury materialnej AFIRMACJE Materialne wyznaczniki płci w dyskursie archeologii Rzeczy do muzeum O początkach pieniądza Homo ludens w gestach wymiany Obraz w kulturze ludowej wczesnego średniowiecza Zaczęli po prostu ci ludzie, ci starzy, po prostu zaczęli historię Przypisy Nota edytorska Wykaz skrótów Bibliografia Indeks osób Summary

5 CREATIONS OF THE PAST Sketches on The Anthropology of History (SUMMARY) The semantic field of the word creation in the Dictionary of Polish Language is defined by semantic relations that can be classified into three basic, closely connected, groups. The first group is related to creative activity and describes both creating something (usually a work of art) and the product of this activity. The second group is related to an actor s rendition of a role. The third group denotes a costume, an elegant, original outfit, particularly in reference to women s fashion. These three metaphorically interpreted fields of meanings are a good reflection of the basic angles from which I look at history in this book. Knowledge of the past is a product of the culturally established local practice of its professional and non-professional supporters. The image of the past is a derivative of historically shaped networks of meaning, fundamental metaphors which vary over time, locally accepted narrative strategies. In such a context of reference, one may follow sources and find the cultural contexts of creating and using historical knowledge. Using the tools of anthropological analysis, one may also attempt to design an emploi of anthropological history both at the level of theoretical conclusions and interpreting specific problems or topics. The strategy of subject as well as metalinguistic analysis of the past is the foundation of the anthropology of history. It is, therefore, the basis on which this work is built. The texts collected in the book, which combine, at various levels, the angles mentioned above, have been arranged into three separate parts: (Meta)Histories, Close-Ups and Affirmations. In the first part, I operate at the level of meta-reflections on history as a practice founded on specific cultural beliefs. I touch on important, in my opinion, elements of the identity of contemporary historiography, which is built on the special imperative of the link between the present and the past (the sketch entitled The Sym-bolon of History),

6 336 CREATIONS OF THE PAST (SUMMARY) epistemological, contemporary conclusions with regard to cultural sources of historiography (the essay entitled The Past as Meaning) and notional sources of its former distinction as a discipline and present decay of it s borders (the part entitled On the Disciplinary Nature of the Humanities [the Case of Historiography]). In the second part, I examine the domain of history in a more concrete context. On the one hand, I analyse professional selfdescriptions of a group of historians, revealing the myth-making behind them (the essays entitled The Anthropologisation of Historiography and On the Social Involvement of History). On the other hand, I attempt to outline an anthropological model of historical studies with regard to studying everyday life and materiality in the past, seen in the context of hitherto research projects undertaken by Polish historiography and archaeology (the sketches entitled Everyday Life Localness Lifestyle and Towards a Humanistic History of Material Culture ). In the third, thematically most diverse part, I deal, in various contexts, with concrete subject interpretations regarding the notions of both fragments of the past and the present operating in the context of what is past. Firstly, I address the issue of the changeable ways of understanding the category of material indicators of gender in archaeological studies, as well as methods of using them in processes of interpreting field data (the text entitled Material Indicators of Gender in Archaeological Discourse). I also address the symbolic interpretation of the process of creating historic objects in archaeology (the sketch entitled Things for Museums). Then, I present attempts at an anthropological interpretation of possible ways of understanding the process of introducing money in early medieval exchange in the sphere of European Barbaricum, arguing against long accepted interpretations of this phenomenon (the essay entitled On the Beginnings of Money). I also present an interpretation of the possible ways of valorising practices of goods exchanges in rural Slavonic communities in the early Middle Ages, which I build on the basis of the categories of play and games in the spirit of Johan Huizinga (the unit entitled Homo Ludens in Gestures of Exchange). In the next sketch, I analyse the issue of status and attitude to images (graphic representations of figures) among model representatives of early medieval folk culture (the text entitled Images in Folk Culture of the Early Middle Ages). In the last unit, entitled Those People, Those Old People, Simply Started History, I present an anthropological interpretation of the debate about the

7 CREATIONS OF THE PAST (SUMMARY) 337 obelisk commemorating Otto von Bismarck, which was accidently dug up in one of the villages in what is now the Polish territory of Warmia and Masuria. Based on the materials obtained from field work, I present a reconstruction of the ways of using elements of historiographical discourse and elements of social memory in shaping local and supra-local (media, officials) representations of the conflict which erupted after the obelisk was restored and re-erected in the centre of the village. Tłumaczenie: Anna Sosenko