National Memory as Heterodoxy

This chapter shifts focus from state-imposed doxa to instances where national commemorative projects collide with local narratives, producing a heterodox backlash. I open with the contested erection of a Józef Piłsudski monument in Sztum—an episode that illuminates how local elders, schoolteachers, and veteran associations mobilized their own moral capital to resist top-down memory interventions. Combining participant observation at commemoration ceremonies, press coverage analysis, and expert interviews, I show how these actors redefined what counts as “legitimate” public history. The chapter argues that in saturated postmigration memory fields, official memory can become heterodox, exposing the contingent boundaries of collective identity.