Józef Ignacy Kraszewski and the Concurrency of Polish Heritages in Dresden, 1960 to the Present

This study examines how the exiled Polish author Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1812–1887) has served as the center of cumulative processes of Polish heritage fashioning in Dresden since the founding of the Kraszewski Museum in 1960. The museum ostensibly commemorates Kraszewski, who resided in Dresden between 1863 and 1883, as a symbol of Dresden's history of Polish-German encounters. However, this study argues that the discarding, eliding, and forgetting of historical details about Kraszewski's life in Dresden, including his conviction for treason in 1884, have contributed to the formation of concurrent Polish heritages in Dresden, each tied to specific motivations of particular eras.