Zielona plama Polski. Naturalizowanie krajobrazu mazurskiego w narracjach turystycznych

Abstract

The article discusses the process of naturalization of Masuria in Polish contemporary culture through the paradoxical naturalization of vegetation, and more broadly the nature of the region, understood as the construction of its naturalniess, timelessness and non-intrusion into historical and geopolitical processes. This process is referred to earlier Polonization efforts of the Masurian landscape. The author pays attention to the main changes in the attitude towards the Masurian greenery and the natural landscape on the example of the walking path around Lake Ołów in Ryn. Nature is presented as an element determining the identity of the place in the face of effective erosion of the Masurian identity in the course of geopolitical processes, supporting, from the second half of the twentieth century, the erasure of the memory of Prussian or German identity of these areas and sometimes deliberately used for it, and at the same time sometimes constituting the only trace of this identity.