PI: dr Piotr Kubkowski
Co-investigators: dr Stephanie Weismann (Center for Transdisciplinary Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna); dr Sabine Stach (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe)
Funding body: Excellence Initiative Research University, University of Warsaw (IDUB)
Project time-span: 2023–2024
At the end of the 19th century, hiking clubs began to explore the Sudetes, following similar movements in the Tatras and lowlands across Central Europe (i.e country lore—krajoznawstwo). Walking—whether along mountain ridges, through valleys, or in historic towns—became a cultural practice of sensory engagement with landscapes and a means of appropriating territory. In the interwar period, national states canonized these landscapes as symbols of identity, while walking also encompassed military marches, pastoral migrations, smuggling routes, and nature protection patrols. After World War II, socialist states again inscribed the Sudetes with new walking practices, a process repeated after the political transformations of the 1990s. Today, in the European Union, the region is shaped by memory practices that connect both displaced communities and newcomers, with walking serving as a key to understanding the multilayered history of the borderlands. This project proposes a study of the cultural meanings and functions of walking as a form of embodied knowledge and as a practice of producing and preserving sensory memory of the landscape. It aims to test the usefulness of this conceptual approach and to establish a foundation for future research on walking as a mode of territorial belonging in the Polish-Czech-German borderlands. The study covers the period from the 1880s—when mountain clubs and health resorts flourished—through the complexities of the 20th century, to contemporary walking practices.