Page 592 [592]
OCR
590 Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska Historical Reenactment in Photography: Familiarizing with the Otherness of the Past? The historical reenactment movement! is related to photography in multiple ways. One way is that the photography is a kind of self-representation of historical reenactment itself. Almost all reenactment events are captured in photographs. The photos serve as documentation of an event or a particular test of the quality of reenactment in terms of historical accuracy. Thus photos that demonstrate proficiency in re-creating the past are especially valued among reenactors. Such photos are often posted on the internet, their content is discussed by reenactors (directly or online), and the details of replicas of clothes, armour, and equipment become points of interest. The photos become a reminder of an event or even a form of advertisement of the reenactment movement or of a particular group within it. Yet, there is one more kind of photography related to the historical reenactment event, one that is a subject of re-creation itself: such photographs can serve as reminders of events, can constitute a subject of discussion on historical accuracy, but above all, taking them is perceived as reenactment practice itself. In this chapter, I will focus on the question of reenacting photography dealing with WWI. The context for my study is the Polish reenactment movement’ (Kwiatkowski 2008; Szlendak et al. 2012). War photography is the most visible branch of this field, whereas there are significantly fewer pictures representing civilian life. Thus the re-created reality of the discussed photos is wartime military his ' Research for the present article was financed by the grant of the National Science Centre, Poland (project no. UMO-2011/03/B/HS3/04686). 2 The historical reenactment movement in Poland dates back to the 1970s. It started with knights’ tournaments and also Indians’ villages reenactment. Over time, Indian reenactment separated from historical reenactment and the second phenomenon began to develop rapidly. Simultaneously various branches of historical reenactment appeared: from representations of ancient times, the Romans and barbarians, through the early middle ages with Slavic and Viking tribes; the high middle ages with knights, tournaments, and quasi-sport combat leagues; the 17 century with Polish gentlefolk; the 19% century with Napoleonic battles and Polish uprisings; and finally the extremely complex 20" century reenactment with both World Wars and the Polish-Soviet war between them, with anti-Communist opposition, and reenactments of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Piotr Kwiatkowski, who tried to count the number of reenactors in Poland, boldly states that every fifth person has an acquaintance that belongs to a reenactment group (2008: 113), but it is difficult to verify his estimations. Today the historical reenactment movement in Poland is a very popular phenomenon, visible in the public sphere; however, it is also severely criticized for oversimplifying history. The potential of encountering the past present in historical reenactment is acknowledged very rarely. It is perceived mostly as a kind of entertainment. This is partially true since reenactors undertake this activity for pleasure and their own satisfaction, but it is also a way of touching the past (see Gapps 2009; Johnson 2015; Schneider 2011).
