Heritage route as pilgrimage. Visiting the battlefield in Ossów

Bibliographic Data

ID5700523
AuthorsK Baraniecka-Olszewska (0000-0002-9560-3167, Polish Academy of Sciences, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume31
Issue2
Pages229-242
Publication date2025-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13527258.2024.2417058
OpenAlexW4403416744
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited50

Scholars have recently been paying more attention to the relationship between religion and heritage, which has brought a deeper focus to processes of ‘sacralisation of heritage’ and ‘heritagisation of religion’. I take this reflection in the direction of discerning how religious practice often underpins the creation of heritage. The case study I tackle here centres on the anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Warsaw fought during the Polish-Soviet war of 1920. Its heritage combines military and religious aspects with a pilgrimage on a section of the Camino de Santiago leading to the battlefield in Ossów to form one of the commemorative events. Drawing from the scholarship on pilgrimages to battlefields and dark heritage, I investigate how heritage is bodily performed during this pilgrimage. I organise my argument around the notion of ‘caminoisation’ to demonstrate how global heritage contexts can be transplanted onto local planes, and how religious and heritage-making processes are entangled. Perceiving pilgrimage through the lens of ‘sensational form’, I explore how heritage and religion are framed ‘on the way’. Placing an emphasis on the embodiment allows for an ethnographic description of participants’ interactions with heritage and religion and for research into how these categories are performed in practice

Ancient history · Archaeology · Battlefield · Geography · Pilgrimage · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · History · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Urban Development and Cultural Heritage

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Open DOI