Migrujące rzeczy. Pamiątki po zmarłych w doświadczeniu polskich emigrantów

Abstract

Migrating things: Souvenirs of the deceased in the experience of Polish emigrants

The paper focuses on a special category of objects — the stuff of the deceased a kind of mem­orabilia brought from the homeland by migrants. These are both ethnic and family memorabilia, evoking the lost homeland and the dead from the family, constituting a kind of bridge over space and time at the same time. Therefore, we are talking about objects that migrate between different orders of reality — spatial, temporal, social and cultural ones. The stuff of the deceased are “mi­grating objects” because they have changed their functions, meanings and functionalities. I treat the memorabilia as speaking objects that always have something to say about themselves, about us, about reality. On the basis of partially structured interviews with Polish emigrants in the USA carried out in 2017, an inventory of significant and valuable items for respondents was selected. It was used for the analysis of the semiotic and axiological status and experiencing of the indicated objects and their functions and meanings.