Heritage Planning in Selected Cities of Central Europe

Old cities, new pasts: Heritage planning in selected cities of Central Europe

G.J. Ashworth1 and J.E. Tunbridge2 1University of Groningen, Department Planning, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands 2Carleton University, Department of Geography, Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Canada

Received 3 October 1998; accepted in revised form 5 April 1999

Key words: heritage planning, heritage tourism, historic preservation, urban landscape

Abstract Heritage is the contemporary usage of a past and is consciously shaped from history, its survivals and memories, in response to current needs for it. If these needs and consequent roles of heritage, whether for the political legitimacy of governments, for social and ethnic cohesion, for individual identiﬁcation with places and groups, or for the provision of economic resources in heritage industries change rapidly, then clearly we expect the content and management of that heritage to do likewise. The cities of Central Europe have long been the heritage showcases that reﬂected the complex historical and geographical patterns of the region’s changing governments and ideologies. The abrupt economic and political transition and reorientation of the countries of Central Europe has thus, unsurprisingly, led to many equally abrupt changes in the content and management of urban heritage throughout the region. The uses made of heritage are clearly drastically changing but so also is the way that heritage is currently managed. What is happening, as well as how, is however uncertain and investigated here. The revolutionary eradication of a rejected past, a return to some previous pasts or the beginnings of a new past in the service of a new present are all possibilities. Answers are sought to these questions through the examination of a selection of cases of types of heritage city and their management in the region. These include an archetypical European gem city (Eger, Hungary), a tourist-historic honey-pot (Ceskyˇ Krumlov, Czechia), a medium-sized multifunctional city (Gdansk, Poland), a major metropolis (Budapest, Hungary), the relict anomaly (Kaliningrad/ Königsberg, Russia) and the national cultural centre of Weimar.

Pasts and presents ism do not need convincing that among these contemporary needs, and consequent roles of heritage, is the political le- It may seem perverse to include an article concerned with gitimation of governments and governing ideologies. It is, the pasts of the cities of Central Europe in a special issue perhaps, less obvious to argue that such need for legitimacy that focuses upon their drastically changing present and un- is not confined to totalitarian regimes but is just as neces- certain futures. However, a central part of the transition now sary, although more multifaceted, in pluralist democracies underway is a rejection of many aspects of an immediate with liberal free market economic systems. Thus the rapid past, a resuscitation of other, previously suppressed, pasts changes now being experienced are having a profound effect and a reconstruction of a new past in the service of the newly upon the content and management of heritage in the cities of envisaged futures. Almost all revolutions begin with the idea Central Europe as new demands for identification, legitima- of year zero: a new beginning founded upon the eradication tion and commodification are being made upon the heritage of what went before. Equally almost all find this collective resources. voluntary amnesia an ultimately untenable position and re- The focus here will be upon the built environment as the turn either to conciliated versions of old pasts or feel the most visible of such heritage resources and the point where need to create a new past in support of new identities and the link between a conserved past and more general planning aspirations. and management aspects of cities is most obvious. The argument here is based upon the definition of her- Despite its historical and geographical differences, the itage as the contemporary uses of the past. The interpretation region shares, however, a number of common characteristics of the past in history, the surviving relict buildings and relevant to the management of its heritage. Its geopolitical artefacts and collective and individual memories are all position between German-Hapsburg and Russian–Slavonic harnessed in response to current needs which include the realms and subsequent history has created a social and eth- identification of individuals with social, ethnic and territorial nic spatial complexity. The survival of dynastic states was entities and the provision of economic resources for com- associated with relatively late development of nationalism modification within heritage industries, of which tourism and the nation state, has left ethnic enclaves and exclaves, is the most apparent. Citizens of countries with 50 years’ national minorities and irredentist possibilities. There was an experience of the operation of Marxist historical determin- abrupt post-Second World War suppression of nationalism 106

sector responsibility, the direct impact of this change has been less than in other spheres of public responsibility such as housing, industry or transport. The role of the state in the designation and care of architectural monuments or in the management of museums has remained largely intact: little of the national responsibility was a suitable candidate for direct privatisation or was attractive to private investors. Similarly commercialisation, in the sense of a wholesale shifting of financial responsibility from government subsidy to direct commercial sales, was just not possible for much of the conserved built environment which retained the characteristics of a freely accessible, zero-priced public good. However the relative reduction in financial support for such facilities, evident throughout Central Europe, has prompted a search for additional sources of revenue. These may be through commercial sponsorship or returns from consumers through the sale of services both, more significant perhaps, were underpinned by a change in managerial approach.

Changes in public planning systems

The change in political ideology led inevitably and rapidly to a dismantling of much of the apparatus of the directive state and has left a legacy of a distrust of planning systems. The abolition of some existing planning structures and their replacement by others, as the need for some forms of regulation became obvious, has created uncertainty. A more subtle change is in the attitudes towards and acceptance of public planning itself. The reliance of the previous Figure 1. Gdansk. centralised regimes on state direction has tended to asso- ciate all planning with the discarded past and contrary to the new concepts of free markets. Local planning has therefore and ethnic regionalism within the Soviet political hegemony, had to reestablish itself, with a new, no longer self-evident, and finally a sudden economic and political transition in the justification for its operation as well as a new set of in- 1990s, consequent upon the collapse of that hegemony and struments that were less directive and prohibitory but more the rise of new national self-awareness and new international stipulatory and coordinating (Rehnicer, 1997). There is an orientations. All of this raises questions about the objectives, additional simple point that much of the preservation of her- content and method of management of the heritage of the itage resources whether monuments or museums has been, conserved built environment of the cities of Central Europe. and remains, a public sector responsibility. It is managed by public sector employees at a time when enormous discrep- ancies have opened up between incomes, and also esteem, in Change in the management of the past the private and public sectors, which seriously threatens the recruitment and retention of skilled personnel. Clearly changes in the management of heritage cannot be di- vorced from the many other changes that have impacted on, Changes in property ownership or are just reflected and amplified by, the cities of the region in their functions as national or regional symbols, show- Attempts to correct currently perceived injustices of previ- cases or experimental archetypes. From the myriad of possi- ous regimes have focused upon the return of dispossessed ble changes likely to affect the management of the conserved properties to former individual or collective owners. Such built environment, three are of general importance. ostensibly natural justice has however a number of largely unforeseen consequences for the management of heritage. Changes in the role of the state As much of such property consists of buildings, which almost by definition are at least 50 years old, uncertainty about One of the most noticeable consequences of the change in present and future ownership is a major cause of planning economic philosophy, and almost symbolic of it, is the shift blight. The rehabilitation or even maintenance of occupied in emphasis from public to private responsibility: from the buildings is discouraged as individuals or state agencies are nationalisation in the collective interest to privatisation and reluctant to invest where their title is doubtful and the im- commercialisation. Although a large part of the preserva- provement could accrue to some, as yet untraced, heir of the tion and presentation of heritage has always been a public original owners. Buildings may be even left vacant for long 107

Figure 2. Kaliningrad/Königsberg. periods as ownership is just unknown and attempts are made made upon heritage at just the moment when such systems to trace previous ownership, which is unlikely, given the his- are generally at their weakest and most uncertain. tory of dispossession, to now reside within the city or even country. Whole area renovation plans may be delayed as the future of key buildings remains to be resolved. Small wonder Change in the uses of the past that a number of Central European countries are considering Not only has the way that heritage is managed been changed, imposing some statute of limitations on future ownership so also have the uses made of it and thus the content of this claims to release many urban historic districts from this form heritage. There are many such uses but the focus here is of paralysis. upon the interactions and contradictions posed by two broad The largest institutional dispossessed owner in some categories of use, namely the political and the economic. parts of Central Europe was the Catholic church. The return of properties, many of which in this case are major historic Political uses buildings, not only is a form of privatisation of a collective past, but in practical terms presents an enormous financial The change in uses of the past most obvious to both residents cost of maintenance, as well as management of potential and casual visitors has been in its ideological component. major tourism resources, to an organisation lacking, at least All new governing ideologies recast heritage: and commu- within these jurisdictions, both the appropriate financial and nism had left an enormous legacy of monuments, street managerial resources. names and public iconography. The removal, renaming, In terms of heritage there is also a positive side of the rededication or just reuse (as the Warsaw Communist party balance sheet in that communist stewardship of the past was headquarters building became the new stock exchange) of guilty of much neglect, especially in the later period of eco- the symbolic heritage of a discredited regime was, in itself, nomic stringency, and especially when the heritage was a simple enough, “a new onomatology of places” (Weclawow- reminder of previous dynastic or religious allegiances. How- icz, 1997). However, this process of creation, but raises two ever it also resulted in much attention being paid to post-war more complex questions which in some cases qualified or reconstruction of damaged and even completely razed his- slowed the process. “What exactly, and how much, of such toric cities, most notably in Poland, where the ‘Polish heritage should be removed?” and, even less certain, “With Conservation School’ (Milobedzki, 1995) became renowned what should it be replaced?”. for its state sponsored, thorough, historical reconstructions. Answers to the first question necessitate separating cur- There are thus various general changes in economic and rently undesirable from other messages. For example lib- governmental philosophy whose effects are being felt upon eration war memorials commemorate not only the triumph the management of the conserved built environment but of communism but also the sacrifice of ordinary Soviet sol- whose actual impact remains unpredictable. The paradox is diers in the welcome defeat of a fascist tyranny. The options if course that the need for some form of planning and man- range from total or partial removal of monuments to their agement is becoming apparent and new demands are being de-dedication or even rededication. 108

Figure 3. Entrance gate, Buchenwald.

Figure 4. Northern bastion (formerly Dohnaturm) Kaliningrad/Königsberg. Now housing the Amber Museum.

More generally, the question is raised as to whether a past Changes in political uses of heritage involve more than should and could be publicly ignored. There are many argu- just the negative removal of past commemorations. They ments in favour of an official policy of collective amnesia. It also involve new interpretations in support of the new state may aid recovery from past trauma and also permit the heal- structures. The easiest option would be to return to pre- ing of social divisions, especially when those who benefitted communist nationalist interpretations and to use the heritage from, and those who suffered under, the old regime must co- of the built environment principally to support and foster a exist in the new. Against this is the argument that it has never sense of national identity: historically in Western as well as proved possible in practice to eradicate a past through coer- Central Europe its dominant and generally most success- cion in the long term: it tends to return at some future date, ful function. There are a number of arguments in favour as has been the experience of a number of Western European of promoting an explicitly nationalist heritage. There are countries with their Second World War heritage (Tunbridge many new and fragile nationalisms to be fostered (includ- and Ashworth, 1996). The historic interlude of communist ing the two parts of former Czechoslovakia and the five government existed and there are arguments for its continued successor states to the former Yugoslavia), most of which commemoration in some form. A pluralist heritage would are in states with no previous experience of a sovereign include such strands and there is also the simple condition national existence. Equally their are new territories to be ab- of increasing rarity as what was once commonplace becomes sorbed into existing states (most obviously the DDR into the more exceptional and thus valued. BRD), new conquests to be consolidated (Croatian Kraijina 109

Figure 5. Statue of Kalinin, Kaliningrad/Königsberg, with typical Soviet era city scape.

Figure 6. Solidarity monument outside former Lenin shipyard, Gdansk. and Eastern Slavonia), a new nationality to be aggregated German markets. Politically the Soviet successor regimes from diverse exiting groups (Macedonia), ethnic minorities require legitimation and supportive acceptance not only from to be absorbed, contained or reconciled (Slovakia, Romania, their own citizens but also from their Western role-models. Serbia) and even remaining irredentist claims from neigh- This dependence in turn requires at least the absence of pub- bouring states to be countered and upon neighbouring states lic tensions that might disturb a stable investment climate to be furthered. Therefore a return to a purely nationalist and at best some positive demonstration of an acceptance of heritage could fulﬁl many contemporary functions. political pluralism, a tolerance of cultural diversity and some However, merely to turn the clock back, replacing one at least ostensible attempts at furthering regional harmony iconography with its predecessor, is rarely possible or, given and cooperation. the political character of most of the pre-1940 regimes, con- The two states least encumbered with embarrassing and sidered desirable. Limits on the stridency of the rediscovered distracting internal minorities and external claims are post- nationalist heritage are imposed by the economic aspirations Trianon Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which expelled of almost all the new states of Central Europe for improved its German minority, and more recently shed its minorities in relationships with the West. The new westward orientation Slovakia. Post-1945 Poland is similarly much more cultur- in inward investment, technology import and markets focus ally homogeneous than the post-1919 state, having largely upon the European Union and especially on Germany. Even lost its Ukrainian, Lithuanian, German and Jewish minori- foreign tourism is likely to be dependent principally upon ties. Its claims to the East, especially on Lwow (Martyn, 110

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

1990) and Vilnius, and the claims made upon it in Silesia and Europe have nonnational minorities with no territorial di- the Baltic by a resurgent German nationalism, are however mensions: the most obvious are the Gypsies and the Jews. dormant rather than defunct. These three countries receive The history of the two are somewhat similar but their present the bulk of investment and governmental support from the circumstances are not, as the former still exist in the region West and are nearest the front of the queue for full accep- while the latter largely do not but it is their very non- tance into the western clubs such as NATO and the EU. existence that creates much of the dissonance. It is foreign While other factors are involved there is none the less a clear visitors who search, still largely in vain, for the ‘Wallenberg lesson for others that the avoidance of heritage dissonance ghetto’ in Budapest, and foreign money that has restored the (Tunbridge and Ashworth, 1996), or, more cynically, the large and distinctive synagogue on the Károly Körút in Bu- avoidance of the publicity of such difficulties in the western dapest or most of Jewish Kazimierz in Kraków (Ashworth, media, is rewarded economically and politically. 1997). Thus, it is overseas voices, largely from Israel and All national heritage interpretations face the problem the US who question the ownership of heritage property or of managing the heritage of nonconforming socio-cultural the appropriateness of adaptive reuse. The destiny of Cen- groups. These may threaten the integrity of the national nar- tral European heritage can no longer be determined without rative by presenting an alternative competing nationalism or reference to the distant claimants of the absent dispossessed just by their presence raise distracting and possibly discor- Heritage thus has the multiple task of supporting a re- dant heritage messages. Most of the countries of Central emergent but constrained nationalism, promoting social co- 111 hesion, as well as projecting new international perspectives needs exemplifying in specific cities. The choice of cities in the region and beyond. for consideration is inevitably somewhat arbitrary and each is necessarily unique in both its endowment and the demands Economic uses made upon it. However the following brief description is intended to focus upon some aspect of the problems and The discovery of the potential functions of heritage in local possibilities as outlined above and in particular how the economic development has been encouraged by the example political, social and economic objectives and impacts can of western role-models in which heritage, and more broadly become inextricably related. culture, has been an integral part of development strategies. For example the publications of the International Cultural 1. Eger: national symbol or European resource? Centre in Krakow (Zuziak, 1992, 1993; Purchla, 1997) are full of expositions of just such role models. If cities such This small town in Hungary can stand as the archetypical as Edinburgh or Florence can be seen to successfully base sacralised historic city whose symbolic importance far out- their development upon cultural resources, and even cities weighs any other function. Its history is easy to sketch. Its with few previous cultural pretensions such as Frankfurt am medieval development as a market town between the moun- Main, Lille or Glasgow are investing in aspects of culture for tains (‘Matras/Bükk’) and the great plains (‘Puszta’) was its perceived economic benefits, then the temptation for the interrupted by its conquest by the Turks in 1552, subjugation Central European cities to follow such examples is almost and subsequent liberation in 1687. The Hapsburg renais- irresistible. One of the few comparative advantages that they sance created from 1762 to 1799 what amounted to a new possess are relatively heritage-rich cities and high quality Baroque city around the small medieval core with episcopal cultural industries, often cosseted by the previous regime palace, proto-university, library and numerous ecclesiastical and now in search of new financial support. Necessity and administrative buildings. The end of the eighteenth cen- opportunity are powerfully combined. tury marked an abrupt end to these developments and the However, there are three already apparent, but as yet im- pretensions of the town. No longer an administrative and measurable, difficulties. The first is that although policies ecclesiastical centre on the frontier of a resurgent Hapsburg for high quality environmental and cultural amenity have Christendom, it was bypassed by the major east-west road become important in the competition between established and later railway links and quietly stagnated. western cities for economic enterprises (see the cases in Its heritage role however can be dated to the last decades Bianchini and Parkinson, 1993), it is not self-evident that of the nineteenth century corresponding to the burst of self- such strategies alone can initiate development. Secondly, conscious Hungarian nation-building that was released by new economic impulses, however generated, are as likely the Imperial ‘compromise’ of 1867 and which culminated to require new building much of it in the central historic in the celebration of the millennium of the Magyar state in districts, as to provide new uses for old structures. His- 1896. The critical role for Eger was played by the novel- toric Bratislava has been ‘invaded’ by new developments for ist Géza Gárdonyi whose account of the heroic siege and the burgeoning financial sector (Bucek and Pitonak, 1997) its hero in commandant István Dobó, in the book Stars and new real estate investments in Leipzig has stressed of Eger, became the best-known children’s story in Hun- new building rather than rehabilitation (Schmidt, 1997). gary. The epic tale of desperate Christian resistance to the Thirdly the ‘discovery’ of the heritage tourism potential of Asiatic hordes has a unique symbolic significance to the the previously inaccessible cities of Central Europe by the identity of the Hungarian nation and justification for the ex- expanding, profitable tourism markets especially of neigh- istence and westward orientation of the Hungarian state. The bouring Western Europe has revealed new problems as well mythologising of the sixteenth-century siege became linked as new opportunities (see Hammersley and Westlake, 1994, to the eighteenth-century architecture in a powerful synergy on the case of Prague). Especially relevant to the argument to which was also added the local wine (Egri Bikavér), skil- here is the difficulty of securing the benefits and minimis- fully marketed under the ‘Bull’s Blood’ label that links it ing the costs to heritage when it is used as a resource in with acts of heroism. The already existing spa tourism was the tourism industry. Western cities broadly have recognised thus extended to pilgrimage tourism, to the reconstructed this problem and have devised, with varying success, diverse castle and millennium statues of the now legendary national organisational and instrumental solutions to it. However the heroes, with the addition also of gastronomy. need for planning and management setting overall objec- The post-Second World War period witnessed the imple- tives, coordinating levels in the governmental hierarchy as mentation of systematic preservational measures, but also well as public and private interests, and equitably balanc- some major threats to the resource. On the one hand the ing costs and benefits is becoming obvious at precisely the new communist government had a programme of planned moment when, as argued above, it is weakest. industrialisation and extensive social housing provision for a rapidly growing population, which rose from 38,000 in 1960 to 60,000 in 1980: both led to unsightly high-rise in- Cases trusions in both the Medieval and Baroque towns. On the other hand, while having little official interest in monuments Such changes in the content and method of heritage man- to either bourgeois nationalism or baroque Catholicism, both agement and in the demands made upon urban heritage local and national governments had a considerable interest in 112 legitimating their rule and associating themselves with Hun- the heritage can only be saved by sacrificing some part of its garian self-identity as purveyed through the state-building quality to tourism support facilities is compounded in this mythologies. Significantly, they also had the authority to case by the symbolic nature of the heritage itself. A Czech introduce protective measures, including quite detailed reg- town is presenting a built environment, substantially created ulations about material use and colour schemes in the main by ethnic Germans or Jews, a part of a Czech national her- Baroque thoroughfares (Széchenyi and Kossuth Avenues). itage to foreign visitors many of which are German, some Also notable was the preservation and even reconstruction of of whom are personally associated with previous dispos- some relics of the Turkish period; no doubt as a reminder of sessed owners. Much of the investment needed in tourism conquest and reconquest. These include the most northerly development is also likely to be largely from Germany minaret in Europe, now crowned symbolically with a cross. The third difficulty stems from the consequences of the The post-1990 period opened up many such towns as this problem of the ‘right of return’. A high proportion of the throughout Central Europe to Western tourists eager to ex- building stock especially in the central areas, was previously pand new horizons and attracted to the remarkable ensemble owned by either Germans, expelled by the Benes decrees of Baroque buildings of international importance. The task of 1945, or Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Much of the of interpreting a romantic Magyar ethnic nationalism as well property was nationalised with the state taking responsibility as a Baroque counter reformation to a much wider public for its maintenance. The return of property to the previ- raises the question, whose heritage, or more accurately her- ous Jewish owners is theoretically possible, but practically itages, can be sold here. This has led to an increased local unlikely given their fate, while return to expelled German appreciation of the economic value of the historic resource, owners is potentially easier because their descendants are but also to its commercialisation. The potential tragedy il- largely known but is, as yet, not generally legally or polit- lustrated by Eger is that this has occurred at precisely the ically permissible. As part of the reduction in the role and moment when local planning has been largely dismantled, expenditure of the central government responsibility for un- property privatised and most of the detailed management claimed property was devolved to local authorities in 1992. controls, mentioned above, either relaxed or just no longer These however lack the financial resources, or expertise to enforced. The gem created by historic accident, the fortu- maintain historic properties and have attempted to dispose itous existence of individuals and the popularity of a novelist of their burden to the private sector which so far has proved is in very real danger of destruction by an equally chance to be either legally or politically difficult (Brasier, 1993). combination of circumstances at this moment in its history. Uncertainty about ownership discourages both investment by present occupiers and purchase and rehabilitation by 2. Ceskyˇ Krumlov: a future in tourism? new owners. This leaves the problem of the maintenance of the resources the tourists are coming to use unsolved ˇ The small Czech town of Cesky Krumlov, 160 km south with the added twist that the most important foreign mar- of Prague is a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site ket, Germany, is also the country of the largest group of on the basis of the quality and intact integrity of its built dispossessed. environmental heritage. All three difficulties can be related in that German invest- It is typical of many such small towns, which in Western ment may be dependent upon some solution to the dispos- Europe have fostered a considerable and profitable tourism session issue perhaps within wider discussions of accession industry and which in Central Europe are awaiting immi- to the European Union. Similarly tourism development for nent mass discovery by heritage tourists with a mixture of a dominantly German market will influence the interpreta- over-optimistic expectations and over-pessimistic forebod- tion of that heritage. Thus the heritage can only be saved by ing. The heritage resource was created by historical accident adapting it to such uses. and was preserved by being bypassed by modern pressures for re-development. There has been some state investment 3. Budapest: The reinterpretation of contradictions in a in the conservation of the larger buildings but a benign ne- major metropolis glect of the rest (Hammersley and Westlake, 1994). The ‘discovery’ of the heritage tourism potential of the cities of Heritage in Budapest reflects the oscillation between na- Central Europe was not surprisingly concentrated initially in tional and supra-national roles: between the exclusive her- the major metropolitan centres such as Prague, but then dif- itage of a distinct ethnic group, being used to define fused outwards as successive waves of visitors searched for and separate Hungarians from neighbouring peoples, and additional heritage experiences which towns such as Ceskyˇ the more all-inclusive heritage of a multi-ethnic imperium Krumlov appeared to offer. which places Hungary within much wider ideological and The simple economic equation is to use the profits from cultural European contexts. These two contradictory trends heritage tourism to provide the support for the maintenance are so intertwined that they have usually coexisted. Both the and restoration of the heritage resource. There are three main heritage of Árpád, the archetypical tribal Magyar warrior, difficulties in achieving this balance of tourism production and of Stephen, the equally stereotypical European Hungar- and heritage resource. The first two are more widely applica- ian Christian saint, have survived through the vicissitudes of ble, namely; the equitable distribution of tourism’s economic governments and ideologies. costs and benefits and the potential dissonance in the her- The idea of Hungary as the eastern bastion of western itage product itself. The, by no means unique, paradox that Christendom against the Turk created a single consistent 113 race enemy which could be used in two different ways. Turks, Germanic Habsburgs, Slavs and Rumanians, is re- The post-Mohács (1526) Turkish conquest, occupation and membered at the grandiose monument at ‘Heroes Square’, subsequent liberation, provides an interpretive theme un- erected in 1896 to commemorate the millennium of Mag- complicated by any surviving Turkish or convert Islamic yar settlement. The theme of heroic resistance is insistently cultural group (as in Bulgaria or Bosnia) or by any notable replayed through the 31 sieges of the city and numerous surviving physical structures. The Hungarian state of the en- revolts. Such a theme was exploited equally through the Hor- lightened Mátyás Corvinus is brutally extinguished by the thy inter-war regency, the period of communist government Turks and the ensuing cultural void lasts until liberation by a and the post-communist democracy. All in various ways and combination of internal resistance and external western help. with differing stress used not only resistance to the Turks Although all the Eastern European and Balkan states but also to the Habsburgs to support the legitimacy of an make some use of the ‘eastern barbarian hordes’, it has ethnically distinct Magyar nation-state. The same historical been of particular value in Hungarian state building. Turks events have featured prominently in the interpretations of can be replaced on occasion by Tartars (thirteenth century), governments of widely different ideology. The numerous and later by Russians (1849), Romanians (1919) and Sovi- peasant revolts of the eighteenth century, the 1848–1849 ets (1945). This straightforward narrative with its obvious ‘war of national liberation’; the First World War, viewed heroes and villains was of inestimable value to the creation as the gallant Hungarian ‘Honved’ holding the Carpathian of both a self-conscious Magyar and European identity. In bastion of Europe against the Slav hordes; the post-war Ru- the light of the central political importance of this narra- manian incursions (seen as either the ‘red terror’ of 1919 or tive, it would seem unlikely that its clarity would have the ‘white terror’ of 1920); and even the legacy of ‘the events been clouded by any revisionist dissonance, let alone any of 1956’ (the pock-marked buildings, the Corvin cinema wholesale rehabilitation of the Turkish occupation of Buda complex and the Kilian barracks) were all the raw material (1541–1686). However, there are indications that this is what of an assertively national heritage regardless of the ideology has been occurring. The major physical relics of the Turkish of successive governments. period did not survive the reconquest; the city therefore lacks Thus, Budapest illustrates both the potential contradic- the central mosque, now church, of Pécs or the distinctive tions between national and European heritage and flexibility minarets that have become the urban symbols of Pécs and in heritage policy that can resolve these. A distinctive na- Eger. It does however have four hamams (baths) which are tional Hungarian heritage (with the crown of St Stephen, not only carefully preserved but the Király Fürdö in par- returned from exile in the US, in the national museum as its ticular is prominently positioned in tourist literature and in central icon) can be supplemented with a ‘Roman Budapest’ urban symbolic promotion. To these have been added more (notably the ‘Aquincum’ excavations) that predates the first recently the tomb and gardens of Gül Baba, an inoffensive Magyar settler by a thousand years and German, Jewish, mystic and rose breeder, and, most remarkably, a monument Slavonic and perhaps even Turkish legacies, appropriate for to the last Turkish commander of Buda has been erected on a ‘European’ capital. The economic and political advantages the citadel he unsuccessfully defended. of placing Budapest within the commercial and cultural con- To these contradictions from the sixteenth and sev- text of a wider Europe are reflected in a certain rehabilitation enteenth centuries can be added those deriving from the of the Hapsburg connection (especially in place names) and, subsequent Hapsburg liberators/conquerors. As an Imper- the most daunting in terms of scale, a restoration of its man- ial capital Budapest participated in the nineteenth century ifestation in the late nineteenth century buildings of the Pest urban-industrial development of the empire. In Buda the rings. prominent Hapsburg presence in the palace on the Vár was supplemented not only by new government buildings, stat- 4. Gdansk: compositing a multi-cultural heritage ues and place names but by one of the strangest and most incongruous examples of late nineteenth century Gothic ro- The ambiguity of the heritage of Gdansk reflects its position manticism, the ‘Fisherman’s Bastion’, built in 1890–1905 between Germany and Poland. Historically a Polish foun- and probably the part of ‘old Budapest’ most photographed dation, it was germanised by a combination of military and by tourists. In Pest the Vienna ‘ring’ was imitated by the economic conquest in the fourteenth century. It subsequently inner and outer rings (‘kis/nagy körut’) lined by the distinc- oscillated between Polish and German rule, culminating in tive fin de siècle/art nouveau apartments, hotels and offices the ‘Free City of Danzig’ of 1919, the German reoccupation of the burgeoning commercial heart of the Danube Basin. In in 1939, the physical destruction, expulsion of the German addition, especially after the 1867 ‘Compromise’, the capital population and reincorporation into Poland in 1945, and the of the Magyar state also became the capital of a polyglot meticulous post-war reconstruction following the practice of imperium mirroring in its own population the ethnic mix of the ‘Polish School’ of conservation (Milobedzki, 1995). the Dual Monarchy. The obvious heritage question therefore is what and The heritage of Hungarian ethnic nationalism stands in whose heritage have the Poles reconstructed and reinter- stark contradiction to the imperial heritage. The numerically preted in Gdansk since 1945 and how have the reorientations small, culturally distinct, Magyar identity is seen as threat- since 1990 affected this heritage? ened from both strangers within and enemies without. A Despite the political changes and military disasters, cen- pantheon of ‘resistance’ heroes, resisting at various times turies of mercantile wealth have contributed a streetscape of outstanding buildings in the historic core which have asso- 114 ciations with both the Hansa period for Germans and with one. It is a product of two main cultures, with minority the Polish nobility for Poles. Symbolism with respect to contributions from Jews and others (notably Flemish/Dutch the Second World War, which began here, is also sharply architectural styles). Its distinctive Hanseatic identity, while important to both Poles and Germans. Additionally, and of Germanic origin, is nonetheless a multinational Northern more recently there is the heritage of the Gdansk shipyards European regional idiom that does not in itself carry over- (the shipyard workers monument and the nearby St.Brigide’s tones of nationalistic oppression and is generally recognised church) as the focus of the Solidarity movement and thus the in the tourism industry. Its centuries of wealth drew Euro- rallying point of opposition which eventually overturned the pean cultural luminaries to it and enabled the city to make Communist system. a continent-wide cultural imprint. Conversely it marks the Each of these themes could be interpreted as either the outbreak point of the worst European, indeed global, war. It national heritage of resistance and eventual overthrow of is one of few cities to have possessed an international ‘Free alien political and cultural domination or, conversely, as City’ identity. Finally it performed a catalytic role in the the composite heritage of German/Polish historical interac- disintegration of the Cold War European order. Its heritage tion or as a more general European heritage commemorating can therefore be projected as either Polish, a Polish-German major European, even world, themes and events. conglomerate or European but whether as all three simulta- The reconstruction of Gdansk accordingly raises particu- neously remains a challenge to its management as to many larly delicate issues of heritage identity. However, sufficient other similarly composite heritage cities in Central Europe. continuity of architectural and mercantile tradition persisted throughout the city’s political vicissitudes that the Poles 5. Kaliningrad: the ghost at the feast had no difficulty identifying with the results of their reconstruction. Medieval and Renaissance architectural styles Kaliningrad/Königsberg is the only major German city to in Gdansk have wide currency in Europe and also have a have fallen to direct Soviet annexation in 1945; as such local accent which, although associated with the Hansa tra- it presents a unique heritage problem, only superficially ditions emanating from Northern Germany and Flanders, comparable to that of Gdansk. has Baltic regional rather than nationalistic overtones. Fur- Königsberg was a thirteenth century Teutonic Knights thermore Polish iconographic elements persisted into the foundation and thus of unambiguous Germanic origin. Un- twentieth century, although subject to some Nazi removal. like Danzig/Gdansk, however, it remained in essentially Naturally all specifically German streetscape iconography continuous German occupance until 1945, when this 700- has now disappeared (Dybowski, 1991), providing scope year identity was terminated and its population, function for some selective reversion to the city’s Polish Renaissance and even name was abruptly changed and the city became period. Furthermore, official tourist literature unsurprisingly a monofunctional military base, closed to foreigners for 45 magnifies Polish associations at the expense of German. years. However no city has been more immediately desta- The pressures against developing an exclusively Polish bilised by the end of the Cold War. Not only has its military national heritage relate to both the demand for and sup- significance become almost redundant and unaffordable, it ply of heritage products. On the demand side Germany has also become strategically untenable since the Kalin- is the most obvious tourism market for formerly German ingrad Oblast (region) is now severed from Russia by the cities in Poland. Such tourists relate to this history and have independence of Lithuania and Belarus, through which tran- both proximity and the means to visit it. On the supply sit fees are high. Accordingly Kaliningrad has been seeking side, the need for foreign investment in the historical re- both a new purpose and a new identity. sources and the facilities for heritage tourism again suggests The questions arise as to not only whose heritage, but close involvement with German capital, enterprise and even what heritage, recognisable in tourist terms, may be sold. gestures of reconciliation. More broadly, Poland’s mem- The German built environment has largely vanished; how- bership of NATO and candidature for the European Union ever the Russian inhabitants imported in 1945 have created favours a European rather than exclusively Polish heritage an environment which could in theory constitute a saleable development. heritage. However, in this respect a fundamental problem In practice, however, some market segmentation is oc- has arisen: the collective heritage identity useful to tourism curring both in the heritage sold and the medium of its sale. and essential to sociopolitical stability is disintegrating, as a In the historic core, the Germans are the dominant market result of the failure of the Soviet state, the discrediting of the and official Polish tourism perspectives are available to them city’s Stalinist name, and the physical severance from a post- in German brochures. There is also a private sector willing to Soviet Russia which in any case has other priorities than accept Deutschmarks, sell maps and mementoes of German the reconstruction of Kaliningrad. In addition the post-1945 -even Nazi- Danzig, increasingly to speak German, and to physical reconstruction of the city is an improbable basis for provide tours to other places of interest to Germans. On the a generally satisfactory sense of place and there is a wide- other hand, the marking of the streetscape is ‘cleansed’ and spread desire to connect with a residual urban and regional the official literature slanted for the consumption of Poles environment which is clearly not Russian. As a consequence and non-German tourists. a significant heritage resurrection and appropriation has been Gdansk is peculiarly well equipped to project a recast occurring, of the only credible option: that of the departed European heritage identity rather than a Polish nationalist Germans. This has created a very unusual heritage dissonance problem. Local interests are becoming consonant with 115 the formerly very dissonant heritage of the Germans and to able and that of Königsberg is the only one available, as well this extent aligned with the principal tourism market, but by as the only possibility for heritage-based tourism. seeking to assume themselves the identity they are selling The process of resurrecting the heritage of Königsberg back to visitors, generating a dissonance with their own past is multifaceted involving voluntary organisations; entrepre- and the Soviet iconography still around them, and potentially neurs renovating old buildings for Western consular offices so with their future identity within the Russian state. The and companies (Montaigne, 1993); and the Kaliningrad Mu- desire, so far frustrated, of most citizens to restore the name seum, the Museum of Capitulation, and the Amber Museum. Königsberg (Meyer, 1991) is the ultimate expression of this The German government has contributed to the reconstruc- problem. tion of the cathedral and help has been received from private The material basis for the reconstruction of the German German interests with Königsberg roots. heritage of Königsberg is thin. The central focus of such Thus a tentative Königsberg heritage is re-emerging. The reclaimed heritage identity is the internationally renowned ultimate demise of the Soviet iconography, as elsewhere in philosopher Immanuel Kant who has a human significance Russia, will remove an obvious dissonance; although per- devoid of hostility and transcending purely German her- haps qualified by the survival of such patriotic symbolism itage and is also intrinsic to the regional sense of place. as the naval war memorial, close to the cathedral. The city While his reclamation does not therefore depend upon Ger- was opened to tourism, largely German, only in 1990. Its man identity (least of all that in local living memory) it has overall attractiveness to tourism may remain limited, and been conducive, along with the hope for German invest- confused by such survivals, but it shares the post-Cold War ment, to a more general ‘Teutomania’ (Benjamin, 1994). accessibility of the rest of Central Europe with considerable Kant’s material heritage is primarily his tomb, adjacent to improvements in its train, hydrofoil and road access (Hall, the ruined cathedral. From this his presence has diffused 1992). Whether and how it might attempt (with external to other marking, notably a German-funded replacement of support) to reconstruct other components of Königsberg’s a statue lost in 1945; also an international Kant society is inner city, as in Dresden (Soane, 1994), and thereby re- based in Kaliningrad and a Kant Museum in the cathedral is duce the vacuum which presently exists in the centre, is proposed. an interesting question of central importance to any large- However the historic core of Königsberg, on and around scale tourism generation. Meanwhile it is noteworthy that the island in the Pregel (Pregolya), was destroyed in 1945; makeshift tourism services have been quick to appear in the leaving only the shell of the cathedral, which now shares central area. the central island with formally designed parkland con- The apparent similarity with Gdansk is therefore quite taining Soviet/Russian statuary. This amounted to a near- misleading, most fundamentally in the relationship between annihilation of the image-forming city core, eradicating the the two cultural heritages involved. Kaliningrad was a case castle and the university which had overlooked the northern of attempted total displacement of an entirely German her- bank of the Pregel. itage, now paradoxically showing aspirations towards a total The castle had carried particularly hostile symbolism to reversion. In practice, however, a complete denial of the non-Germans, as the anchor of German eastward colonisa- heritage of Kaliningrad, inseparable as it is from victory tion and coronation site of the kings of Prussia. Its ruins in a brutal war, seems neither plausible nor attainable; the were removed during 1960s redevelopment, no doubt with city’s identity may become inexorably hybrid and to this ex- contemporary satisfaction (Rostovtsev, 1970). Nevertheless tent akin to Gdansk. However the difficulties of the Russian various disconnected elements of Königsberg’s material her- economy in the late 1990s casts a pall over any heritage itage survive outside the immediate city core, in a variety planning expectations in a Russian city. of conditions between restoration and ruin, and different degrees of reuse from governmental to makeshift. These 6. Weimar: mirror of national culture and contradiction include one surviving church, and various eighteenth to twentieth-century buildings. The street plan generally re- The final example is Weimar, a special case in that it is only mained, as did the late nineteenth-century fortifications one of this largely German-impacted set of cities remain- surrounding the inner city, including the city gates with ing in contemporary germany, having been reabsorbed in obviously Germanic motifs and vestigial statuary. 1990. Its interest as a heritage city lies in its preeminence The alternative, namely the Stalinist architecture created in german national culture. This has involved sharp turns in largely on a tabula rasa on the principles of socialist plan- its heritage interpretation, as successively cultural icon for ning, is an improbable basis of heritage identity. It is mostly a small duchy, Imperial Germany, Weimar republic, Third in poor repair, repetitive of socialist modernist design across Reich, DDR and now united BRD; it has thereby sustained a the former Soviet Union, with uniform factory-produced nationalism variously opposed to or empathetic with, those apartments, and has specifically failed to replace the image- of the other cases discussed. Unlike those, however, its local forming city centre (Rugg, 1979; Bater et al., 1994). Further- planning structures and subsidies are now supported by a more the Soviet era and its monuments no longer provide a rich, powerful Western European country. generally acceptable basis for local heritage identity. In this Weimar has been associated with many famous artists unusual heritage vacuum, any alternative might be prefer- and musicians but reached its apogee in the classical ‘Goethezeit’ two centuries ago. Like the other tourist- historic gems it then experienced eclipse, material survival 116 and eventual iconic re-emergence for successive Germa- Central Europe is a compression into a short period of a nies. Having been the centre-piece of the Weimar republic, process which evolved more slowly elsewhere. This raises it became part of Nazi national aggrandisment, acquiring the interesting question as to whether the cities of Central nearby Buchenwald concentration camp, and subsequently Europe are destined or determined to pass through each of was appropriated by the DDR as a model of its humanist the development stages in the same sequence as the West pretensions. only more rapidly, or will they bypass some phases of devel- Under the DDR, Weimar suffered environmental blight opment? The complication with heritage is that the speed of (lignite and car emissions) and some material neglect, ulti- development may be faster than the growth in the realisation mately seeking UNESCO assistance. Reunification provided that deliberate management is essential, resulting in damage finance and technical help for building and infrastructure that may be difficult or impossible to reverse. renovation as well as surge of domestic and foreign tourism and private investment. The ‘Stiftung Weimarer Klassik’, an References autonomous foundation recast from an instrument of DDR cultural management, safeguards the main resources and co- Ashworth G.J., 1997: Jewish culture and holocaust tourism: the case of Krakow-Kazimierz. In: Robinson, M. (ed.), Culture and Tourism Centre sponsors cultural events, giving the city the confidence to for Tourism Studies. University of Northumbria, Newcastle. become European City of Culture 1999. Bater J.H., Amelin V.N. and Deglyarov A.A., 1994: Moscow in the 1990s: Weimar’s nemesis and enigma is Buchenwald, and the market reform and the central city. Post-Soviet Geography XXXV: 247– inescapable heritage of atrocity with which it is associated. 66. Benjamin D. 1994: My heart belongs to Emmanuel Kant. Globe and Mail Previously interpreted by the DDR as part of the anti-fascist Toronto, 20(8). struggle in which the BRD was demonised as the lega- Bianchini F. and Parkinson M. (eds), 1993 Cultural Policy and Urban Re- tee of the Nazi regime, its recent reconceptualisation has generation: The West European Experience. University of Manchester thus been a heritage minefield. It has been recast in an Press, Manchester. Brasier M., 1993: Czech heritage under the hammer. Times 5, 25. evolutionary framework in which the sequent identities of Bucek, J. and Pitonak D., 1997: City centre transformation in Bratislava: perpetrators and victims (whether under Nazi or communist modernisation and financial sector invasion. In: Kovács Z. and Wiessner control) are discussed. The national contradiction implicit in R. (eds), Prozesse und Perspektiven der Stadtentwichlung in Ostmittel the juxtaposition of Buchenwald and Weimar remains. Europa. Münchener Geografische Hefte 76, Passau, pp. 157–167. Dybowski J., 1991: Gdansk Since 1920: Archival and Contemporary Films. Heritage management and content has changed circum- Unitronic, DSopot, Gdansk. spectly rather than abruptly as elsewhere. In addition to the Hall C.M., 1992: Hallmark Tourist Events: Impacts, Management and ownership problems, discussed earlier, Weimar has been Planning. Wiley, London. committed to a pluralist interpretation which recognises var- Hammersley R. and Westlake T., 1994: Urban heritage in the Czech republic. In: Ashworth G.J. and Larkham P.J. (eds), Building a New Heritage: ious pasts (despite some early street renaming), which may Tourism, Culture and Identity in the New Europe. Routledge, London, be kept the more open and liberal by the warning of Buchen- pp. 178–200. wald. The most striking change is in heritage refurbishment Martyn P., 1990: Dispatch from Eastern Europe. Urban Morphology Newsletter 6 8–12. and use and in its appropriation by the wider German nation Meyer M., 1991: Kaliningrad: the old guard hangs on. Newsweek 16. and its value system. In all these respects the experience Milobedzki A., 1995: The Polish School of Conservation. of the former DDR differs significantly from the preceding Montaigne F., 1993: Kaliningrad wants to be Hong Kong on the Baltic cases; Weimar’s European significance is at least equally We/Wm, Moscow 22 March–11 April 6. Purchla J., 1997: Central European Metropolis; Hidden Potential. Interna- assured, however, by its eternal albatross, the heritage of tional Cultural Centre, Kraków. European atrocity. Rehnicer R., 1997: New Challenges for urban planning in central and Eastern Europe, In: Kovács, Z. and Wiessner R. (eds), Prozesse und Conclusions Perspektiven der Stadtentwichlung in Ostmittel Europa. Münchener Geografische Hefte 76, Passau, 63–73. It should not be concluded from the above brief account of Rostovstev M., 1970: The Land of Amber and Shale. Progress, Moscow. Rugg D.S., 1979: Spatial Foundations of Urbanism. W.C. Brown, Dubuque, difficulties, paradoxes and uncertainties of heritage planning Iowa. in the cities of Central Europe, that this is a completely Schmidt H., 1997: Veranderungen auf dem Ostdeustchen Wohnungsmarkt unique circumstance in time and place. Many similar prob- - das Beispel Leipzig, In: Kovács, Z. and Wiessner R. (eds), Prozesse und Perspektiven der Stadtentwichlung in Ostmittel Europa. Münchener lems exist, or have existed quite recently, in the cities of Geografische Hefte 76, Passau, pp. 171–186. Western Europe which have experienced similar, if less Soane J. 1994: The renaissance of cultural vernacularism in Germany. abrupt, periods of ideological reinterpretations; realign- In: Ashworth, G.J. and Larkham P.J. (eds), Building a New Heritage: ments of the importance of individual versus collective Tourism, Culture and Identity in the New Europe. Routledge, London, pp. 159–77. property rights over cultural heritage; and uncertainty in the Tunbridge J E. and Ashworth, G.J., 1996: Dissonant Heritage: Managing roles and operation of the public planning systems in its re- the Past as a Resource in Conflict. Wiley, Chichester. lation with free market commercial pressures. Also Europe Weclawowicz G., 1997: The changing socio-spatial pattern in Polish cities. does not operate in a global vacuum: many of the questions In: Kovács, Z. and Wiessner R. (eds), Prozesse und Perspektiven der Stadtentwichlung in Ostmittel Europa. Münchener Geografische Hefte discussed above are familiar in post-colonial contexts and 76, Passau, pp. 75–81. in conflicts between political and tourist-economic uses of Zuziak Z. (ed.), 1992: Managing Tourism in Historic Cities. International heritage (Tunbridge and Ashworth, 1996). It may be, how- Cultural Centre, Kraków. ever in the field of heritage management, as in other aspects Zuziak Z. (ed.), 1993: Managing Historic Cities. International Cultural Centre, Kraków. of urban management, all that is happening in the cities of