Former Soviet Military Bases from the Perspective of Thirty Years: An Ethnographic Mise-en-scene

Abstract

The site of the former Soviet military base changed after the withdrawal of the Soviet army in 1991–1993 is discussed in the article. The analysis concerns the third former military bases in Borne Sulinowo (Poland), Milovice (Czech Republic) and the former missile bases near Gulbene (Latvia) and three fieldworks have been taken in the 2005–2020 and finished because of the coronavirus pandemic. Transformation of these places and adaptation of the old infrastructure to the new situation in cities inhabited by civilians from the “exhibitionary” position is considered. My assumption is that after the departure of Russian the key decisions on the future belonged to the local population of cities (Borne Sulinowo, Milovice). As a result of these decision, development went in different directions – various goals, direction, attitude to the difficult past, historical, geographical, political contexts – are the subject of analysis. We can observe a clash between long-term state strategies with the tactic used by individuals, including everyday practice. Comparing the activities and changes in these three localities, I pay attention to the so-called mise-en-scene, a concept named in the sphere of theater and film, but also in ethnography, understood as delineating the area. Such practices formed a separate ‘microcosm’, which later served as attraction for visitors. The juxtaposition showed that each place carried different story emerging in a different context, and thus given a specific message: a modern city opened to the future, although using its unique (both German and Soviet) military past (Borne Sulinowo), a city focused on entertainment and using extensive former military spaces like airfield, buildings (Milovice), or blurring the traces of not very distant past (Gulbene area). Each of these places struggles with its troubled and unwanted past, however over time gaining distance it is manifested in various ways (through entertainment, museums, attempts to present memory, war vehicle festival etc.).