Flags in the city. The case of Gdynia

Abstract

The article discusses flags in respect of their different forms (kind or type of occurrence) and functions served (role and meaning). The author raised the following research questions about the current use of flags in the city: when, what flags and why they are flown along the city streets? The following thesis was put forward that flags hung by Gdynia City Hall are a reflection of its development policy. The paper is based on data obtained from the City Hall of the Baltic city of Gdynia (Poland) and semi-structured interviews conducted in September 2015 with two clerks responsible for flag display in the city. The distribution of flags along the streets in Gdynia varies in time and in space. The ancient invention which is the flag is currently used in Gdynia in two forms (traditional flags and promotional banners) and it fulfils two functions: signalisation and identification. Flags have become a visual sign of the eventification and festivalisation of urban politics and, at the same time, of the public space of Gdynia.     

Landscape Sacralisation in Post-communist Poland

Landscape sacralisation is the process of filling the cultural landscape with religious phenomena and giving it a sacred character with elements of ritualised devotion. This paper examines this process in Poland during and since the communist era (1945–1989), and with a particular emphasis on late communist and post-communist times (1980–2013). It is argued that faith, politics, economy and religious ‘traditions of place’ are the most important factors shaping landscape sacralisation in Poland, particularly since 1980. Three types of landscape sacralisation are identified – architectural, linguistic and seasonal – and this paper discusses recent trends in these processes of landscape sacralisation with respect to their prevailing religious and non-religious dimensions. In recent decades, the Polish landscape has been filled with diverse religious objects and forms (churches, crosses, monuments, public processions, annual festivals and rural and urban nomenclature) associated chiefly with the Roman Catholic Church, the dominant denomination in the country. It is argued that scholarly appreciation of landscape sacralisation is a vital means of identifying the religiosity of Polish people during and since the communist era.