Zarys niemieckiego krajobrazu upamiętnienia Współczesne konteksty i wyzwania
Outline of the German Landscape of Commemoration Contemporary Contexts and Challenges

Summary/Abstract: This paper seeks to investigate contemporary memory culture in Germany within the context ofsocio-political developments of the past four years, as well as the post-migrant and post-socialist natureof German society. Public discourse often portrays memory cultures as monolithic constructs basedon symbols and activities legitimised by the state. However, the formation of Germany’s memory cul-ture suggests that it is more accurately described as an amalgam of diverse factors, shaped less by stateinstitutions and more by the actions of individual participants, situated in a specific “here and now.”Furthermore, transformations in memory culture are also driven by factors such as local governance,funding mechanisms, and technological availability.The author puts forward two hypotheses. The first posits that German memory culture is under-going a process of “glocalization”, shaped not only by the country’s historical experience of division, butmore significantly by decisions and actions taken at the local level. The second hypothesis relates to theupdating of memory content in response to ongoing social, political, and technological changes. Basedon these assumptions, the author poses several key research questions: What factors shape the currentcommemorative landscape? Are these factors unique to Germany? How are paradigms of memory cul-ture evolving, and what are the potential consequences?To address these questions, the author employs discourse analysis to investigate news stories in in-fluential press outlets, alongside a historical approach enriched with elements of decision-making analy-sis. This methodological framework enables the reconstruction of selected institution-building processesand the interrelations among various actors involved in memory culture. In conclusion, the article un-derscores the complexity of influences shaping contemporary German memory culture, i.e. a heteroge-neous society or emerging domains of historical inquiry, such as the history of immigrant communities,which have thus far played only a marginal role in the Polish context of memory culture.

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