Czech and Polish Sound Memories of the Second World War

Museums, Literature, Sound Art
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-90749-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Cultural History

This book investigates the crucial yet often overlooked role of sound in shaping the memory of the Second World War.

Through an interdisciplinary and transnational approach, this volume addresses a notable gap in memory studies and argues that auditory experiences are central to how war is remembered, commemorated, and narrated. By placing sound at the heart of collective remembrance, this book reveals how sonic elements influence public discourse, shape collective identities, and contribute to the evolving transformation of war memory. Bringing together scholars from the Czech Republic and Poland, it examines how the Second World War has been remembered through sound since the 1990s across three distinct media: museum exhibitions, prose fiction, and sound art – including soundwalks and field recordings. This innovative framework underscores the importance of exploring how different media evoke and reproduce sound to grasp the complexity and diversity of wartime memory in Central Europe. Focusing on Czech and Polish memory cultures, the book demonstrates that sound may function in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways: as a means of reinforcing national narratives, as a tool for critical engagement, or as a medium for experimental and marginal perspectives.

This volume is essential reading for scholars in memory studies, sound studies, cultural and public history, museology, literary theory, and musicology, as well as for museum professionals and anyone interested in how the past resonates – literally and metaphorically – through sound.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hanackova, Andrea

Švarícková Slabáková, Radmila

Lisak-Gebala, Dobrawa

Filipowicz, Marcin

Hanácková, Andrea

Svarickova Slabakova, Radmila

Wieczorek, Slawomir

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PART 1: Museums

1 Museums as the Medium of War Sounds

Radmila Švarícková Slabáková

2 Weapon Sounds and Sirens in Czech and Polish Museums and Memorials

Radmila Švarícková Slabáková

3 Voices in Czech and Polish Museums and Memorials

Radmila Švarícková Slabáková

PART 2: Literature

4 Literature as the Medium of War Sounds

Marcin Filipowicz

Dobrawa Lisak-Gebala

5 Thanatosonics Scarcity, Silence and Sounds of German in Contemporary Czech Prose Fiction

Marcin Filipowicz

6 Voices, Weapon Sounds and Machine Noises in Polish Postmemorial Prose Fiction

Dobrawa Lisak-Gebala

PART 3: Sound Art

7 Czech Soundwalk Production on the Second World War

Andrea Hanácková

8 Toward and Beyond Sound Memories: Field Recordings at Holocaust Memorial Sites in Poland

Slawomir Wieczorek

Über Autor(innen)

Marcin Filipowicz is Professor of Gender and Literary Studies at Charles University in Prague and at the University of Warsaw. He is the author of numerous articles and several monographs, including Configuring Memory in Czech Family Sagas: The Art of Forgetting in Generic Tradition (2022).

Andrea Hanácková is Associate Professor of Theatre and Radio Studies at Palacký University Olomouc. She recently published Autorský rozhlasový dokument (2022), which charts three decades of independent Czech documentary production since the fall of communism.

Dobrawa Lisak-Gebala is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Polish Studies, University of Wroclaw. She is the author of the monograph Poetycka tanatosonika. Dzwieki przemocy zbrojnej w wierszach z lat 1939–1945 2025).

Radmila Švarícková Slabáková is Professor of History at Palacký University Olomouc. She is editor of Family Memory: Practices, Transmission and Uses in a Global Perspective (Routledge 2021).

Slawomir Wieczorek is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Musicology, University of Wroclaw. He is the author of On the Musical Front: Socialist Realist Discourse on Music in Poland, 1948–1955 (2020) and co-editor of Sounds of War and Peace: Soundscapes of European Cities in 1945 (2018) and Sensitive Sound Recordings (2022).