Warsaw's Ulica Nowy Świat (New World Street) is certainly one of the most recognisable streets in the city, if not the whole of Poland. As part of the Royal Route (Trakt Królewski), which runs from the Royal Castle in Warsaw to the royal summer residence in Wilanów, it has always held enormous symbolic significance in political, social, and economic terms. By the turn of the 20th century, Nowy Świat had become one of Warsaw's main business and leisure streets, lined with shops and restaurants. However, even before WWII, it was a symbol of a capitalist city, with dense buildings creating an impression of visual chaos and numerous small, dark courtyards providing poor living conditions.

The street's near-total destruction during WWII enabled the new communist authorities to exploit it in the creation of a new symbolic space. Restoring the street to its classical, pre-mid-19th-century appearance was decisive for the character of the city; it also demonstratively got rid of the 'capitalist' architecture of the turn of the century as 'worthless' and 'anti-humanitarian'.

The incorporation of the street into the communist symbolic revolution continued with the construction of the People's United Workers Party Central Committee building at the intersection of Nowy Świat and Aleje Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Avenue), which was officially completed on May 1st 1952. Its location in the city's most elite and prestigious area was significant in itself. A historical, symbolic background was also systematically constructed around the party headquarters, based on the activities of communist troops during the occupation.

Immediately after the 1989 breakthrough, apart from the demolition of the Feliks Dzierżyński monument on the site of the present-day Plac Bankowy in November 1989, New World Street and its immediate vicinity underwent the most rapid, varied and sometimes surprising symbolic transformations. Examples include the conversion of a former Party House into a stock exchange in 1991; the installation of an artificial dactyl palm tree by the artist Joanna Rajkowska in 2002; and the replacement of the original term "hitlerowcy" ("Hitlerites") with "niemcy" ("Germans") on Karol Tchorek memorial plaques by the far-right group "Clubs of Gazeta Polska" in 2021, who argued that this was a "fight for historical truth". These few examples alone demonstrate the constant competition between different interpretations and uses of the past. Which will prevail: historical politics or symbolic violence?

The Warsaw Nowy Świat (New World) Street 1945-2024. Politics of history or symbolic violence?
Prof. Dr. Jerzy Kochanowski (Warszawa / Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena)

Donnerstag, 3. Juli 2025, 18:00 Uhr
SR 385, Carl-Zeiss-Straße 3, 07743 Jena

Ein Vortrag in der Reihe 80 Jahre danach. Polnische Perspektiven auf den Zweiten Weltkrieg. Mehr Informationen dazu gibt es hier.