What Would Happen, if Danzig… ? Dialogues About Alternative Local History

Abstract

The text discusses in the form of dialogues different possible alternative histories of Danzig / Gdańsk. The two characters in those dialogues are an optimistic voice (“Opto”) and a pessimistic one (“Peso”), who are speaking about a variety of topics, i.e.: What would be, if Danzig were Danish, if the Teutonic Order wouldn’t have lost the town, if Napoleon had won against Russia, if the town got Polish after the First World War, if it wouldn’t have been rebuilt after 1945, if there were no Solidarność and no well -known writers writing novels about Danzig. Through its mildly ironic form the text critically comments the importance, which urban history is often given in public life, and attempts to throw some new light on the local past. It was written as a speech for the Fourth World Meeting of people from Danzig / Gdańsk in 2014 and first published in its original Polish version in 2015.