Magic in the Social Construction of the Past:
the Case of Teschen Silesia
More details
Hide details
1
University of Silesia in Katowice
Publication date: 2013-09-24
Polish Sociological Review 2013;183(3):351-368
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
The aim of the paper is to consider such ethnolinguistic categories as magic, connotation, and
cognitive blending as possible keys to the following questions: How is it possible that we can perfectly
adopt different representations of the past and internalize them as our past? How can we reconcile
different representations of the past and how is it possible that diverse representations of the past merge
in one social memory? Such amalgamations of various forms of representations and diverse scales of
objectification can be clarified by means of the theory of magic, by means of the law of resemblance, and
the law of contiguity. Such considerations are supported here by empirical study of the construction of
social memories in Teschen Silesia, which was divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1920. On
both sides of the new border different state institutions emerged and influenced local memories.