Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2026, 27 (1): 178-186 | DOI: 10.13060/gav.2026.010

‘Mielno, Our Polish Lesbos’

Rita Müller ORCID...
Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw

The article examines two cases: a 1988 camping trip to the Polish seaside town of Mielno – known as ‘the first lesbian convention’ – and the 2023 play Lesbian Sunset, directed by Olga Ciężkowska2, which re-enacts this event. Staging recent queer herstory in the theatre can be considered a form of engaged research that – as Maria Kobielska has written – can illuminate ‘a grey area’ of memory culture. The example of Mielno offers an opportunity to revisit the history of the final years of the Polish People’s Republic and the period of political transformation from the perspective of non-heteronormative women, whose experiences have remained largely absent from the dominant historical narratives. An analysis of the contemporary performance demonstrates how taking a queer position can be a starting point for reimagining a fragment of late 20th-century local history.

Keywords: recent Polish queer herstory, engaged memory studies, theatrical re-enactment, lesbian performance

Received: December 10, 2025; Revised: July 11, 2026; Accepted: July 13, 2026; Prepublished online: September 8, 2026; Published: September 9, 2026  Show citation

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Müller, Rita. 2026. "‘Mielno, Our Polish Lesbos’." Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 27(1):178-186.
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