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Dagnostaw Demski
ence of the secretary in the region. Below, I present two examples: the secretary’s
visit to Silesia in 1946” and the celebration of Sports Day in Warsaw in 1952.
In the photograph, on the parade stand, we see President Bolestaw Bierut
(Fig. 4), Polish generals, and a general of the Soviet Army (Figs 2, 3). The stand is
decorated with the Polish flag and national emblem. At the foot of the stand, there
is a single Soviet soldier, ready for intervention. The other photographs from the
series show a stage separated from the crowd of listeners who are holding banners
that support the new government.
‘The aim was to testify to the presence of the highest authorities at these celebra¬
tions. At the same time, an account by the participant reinforces something other
than credibility. Here is confirmed the reality of the fact of accession of Opolian
Silesia, actually creating a territorial oneness, but also of Polish-Soviet cooperation.
It is, in a way, a stamp on and a legitimization of the act. The year is 1946 and the
fact that such a ceremony is taking place is confirmed. The mediator showed the
moment when all the participants of the ceremony stood side by side, yet what
was going on behind the scenes we do not know and will not learn from these
photographs. We encounter the real participants of the event, and the photograph
was taken as the event was happening. The participants might have arrived at the
event not entirely of their own free will. Some attributes—for instance, propa¬
ganda slogans—were probably held by common workers or activists. The process
of merging the territory of the state is reflected in the symbolic ceremony. In the
photos (Fig. 2), the boundary between the authorities and the people, representing
both sides, is visible. They are divided by a wide stretch of sidewalk, and looking
closely, we will notice soldiers armed with guns on both sides of the gathering. The
differentiating criterion is power, power of foundation, and the photographs’ mes¬
sage suggests the inclusion of a diverse group into the whole, integration, building
a new community. The distance between the observer and the observed is presented
as two halves of the same entity.
We do not know the author of these photographs, but in this particular case
it is of no importance. The photos, as the medium, serve an idea and they have
a documentary character, as they confirm the fact of the event and of party lead¬
ers’ participation in it. Neither does the quality of the photographs matter; what
matters is that they were placed in the album—that is, representing a new order of
things, a new political deal, and bearing witness of the making of history. Follow¬
ing Van Alphen we can state that their original order is lost; they no longer cling
to the spatial context that linked them with an original event out of which the
memory image was selected. But if the remnants of nature are not oriented toward
Tn the album we can find this dedication: “To commemorate the historical act of uniting Opolian
Silesia with the Slasko-Dabrowskie Voivodeship, the act which is a military achievement of the allied Red
Army, Polish Army and the only right policy of the Provisional Government of the Polish Republic. To
the President of the Provisional Government of the Polish Republic, cit. Bierut.”