Absent Culture : The Case of Polish Livonia

Abstract

The book forms a monograph of the local culture of the old Polish Livonia, practically absent in contemporary humanistic research. It includes historical and anthropological recapitulation of the phenomenon, but it also tries to describe cultural mechanisms characteristic in the so-called border situations, on a specific example. An important part of the description is an attempt to capture the phenomenon of local Polish-Livonian identity, enshrined in the literary and scientific projects of Polish Livonians. They form a misguided, unsuccessful representation the land in the discourse of Polish humanities. The book treats Polish Livonia in two ways: as an example of a dispersed, multi-cultural Polish borderland identity and as a unique phenomenon, grown up on the outskirts of the old Republic of Poland.