The Italian issues, especially in relation to the modern era in the context of historical research, poses an extremely interdisciplinary character. Therefore, the outline of these issues must include research related not only to the political or military history of the countries located on the Apennine Peninsula but also to the concerns of the history of culture and science as well as the history of legal and political doctrines or historiographic reflection. These examinations should be also conducted in the areas of history of culture, legal and political history, and the history of the Church, and to a much lesser extent in the area of socio‑economic history and the history of wars. In the research carried out in all these fields, one also finds issues concerning Italy and Poland’s relations with the Italian states with parti-cular emphasis put on the Holy See and the Republic of Venice. Józef Andrzej Gierowski was the author of the only Polish synthesis of Italian history. This scholar and his academic output discussing the Italian issues (including the issue of an “early Enlightenment”) held a high position in the traditions of the research on the general history of the Apennine Peninsula in the modern era. The conclusions presented in his writings indicate research perspectives which still remain valid.
The following paper presents recollections of a seminar by Professor Józef Andrzej Gierowski 1965–1967 by Kazimierz Przyboś.
In this interview, Professor Edoardo Tortarolo discusses his intellectual trajectory and reflections on historiographical practice. Influenced by historians Franco Venturi and Reinhart Koselleck, Tortarolo shares his fascination with the philosophical approach to history. He explores the shifting paradigms in historiography, from nation‑state‑centred perspectives to embracing global history and the evolving relationship between history and other sciences. Looking ahead, Tor-tarolo envisions a changing landscape for historical studies, influenced by gamification, evol-ving mass media, and the merging of factual and fictional historical accounts. Despite the emergence of diverse narratives, he stresses the significance of traditional, veracious historical accounts. Expressing optimism, he believes the past holds a future with new possibilities.
The present text is the first attempt in historiography to evaluate the scientific output of Józef Andrzej Gierowski from the perspective of research into the parliamentarism of the Polish-‑Lithuanian Commonwealth. Out of the 482 publications written by him between 1946 and 2006, 20 were selected which were directly or significantly devoted to parliamentarism. The influence of Gierowski's on the study of parliamentarism was not limited to publications, but included the shaping of successive generations of historians of political history and political systems (including parliamentarism), through the promotion of master's and doctoral theses and numerous reviews in promotion proceedings and publishing procedures. A key role in promoting the results of his own research, as well as his profound reflections on the function-ing of parliamentarism, its role in the former Republic, and its significance on against the backdropground of the processes of change of the political systems of Europe at that time, is occupied by the extremely widely read syntheses of Polish history by Gierowski. He should therefore be regarded as one of the key figures in the field of research into Polish‑Lithuanian parliamentarism.
Correspondence was an essential form of communication in the world of the humanities in the 1960s and 1970s. The letters exchanged between Józef Andrzej Gierowski and Jacek Staszewski exemplify the scholars’ discussion of Saxon times. This collection is at the same time a reflection of the main currents of research on political history and cultural history of the 18th century. Simultaneously, it is a testimony to the struggle of historians with the black legend of the reign of August II and August III. The article presents the nature of these conversations and the topics discussed by the scholars: an exchange of views on resources in European archives, the reigns of August II and August III, a discussion of the Enlightenment, reviews of subsequent monographs and doctoral theses prepared at seminars in Kraków and Toruń. The correspondence between the two scholars is evidence not only of a shared passion, an interest in the Saxon era, neglected for many decades and marked by a black legend, but also of an intellectual exchange between the two humanists, which in time developed into a friendship.
narzucają się same 3 , ale jednocześnie napotykają wiele trudności.Sytuacja Polski, Europy, nauki w ogóle i historii jako dyscypliny akademickiej
In this interview, conducted during the XXIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Poznań (2022), Olufunke Adeboye (Professor of Social History at the University of Lagos, Nigeria) discusses the problems of decolonisation of African history, the relations between academic historiography and popular history, new trends in historical writing, the importance of theory for historical research, and the problems of historical education in Nigeria.
The interview with Michele Salzman, a renowned scholar of Late Antiquity at the University of California, Riverside, focuses on issues of reinterpreting the methods of the historian of anti-quity in the face of new research developments. Here Salzman outlines the importance and possibilities of interdisciplinary studies and the global dimension of Late Antiquity, outlining the possible research horizons of the coming decades. Referring to the case of the decline of the Roman Empire, the conversation deals with the ways in which the interpretation of the past can be understood as a reflection of the current desires or fears of societies in times of crisis. Special attention in the conversation was given to the issues of resilience and the role of women in the period of Late Antiquity.
In this interview, conducted during the XXIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Poznan, Verónica Tozzi Thompson (professor of Philosophy of History at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina) discusses historiography in Argentina and recent trends in historical theory, in particular the epistemology of the witness. She addresses important issues concerning key concepts for the philosophy and sociology of history: truth and trust. In addition, Tozzi Thompson discusses the differences and connections between analytic and narrativist philoso-phy of history and recommends some further readings.
In this interview conducted at the XXIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Po-znan, Q. Edward Wang (Professor of History at Rowan University in the US and Changjiang Professor of History at Beijing University in China) addresses the main problems in global and comparative historiography. Elaborating upon the background and impact of his scientific con-tributions, Prof. Wang discusses the modernization of Chinese historical writing, the challenges of comparative historiography, the status of historical studies today, and the future of historical theory. In addition, he refers to his recent studies in culinary history as instances of a new model of global historiography.
In this interview, Professor Estêvão de Rezende Martins, an emeritus professor at the University of Brasilia, discusses his intellectual journey and research interests in the theory, philosophy, and methodology of history and historiography. The conversation delves into the development of historical thinking and consciousness, exploring how human existence is inherently historical and how individuals relate to their experiences through cognitive operations and historical culture. Moreover, the interview explores the evolution of the theory of history in Brazil, emphasising the shift from the speculative reflections of the philosophy of history to the meth-odological rigour of the theory of history or epistemology of history. The role of academic historiography in the face of contemporary challenges, such as the recognition of non‑human or post‑human planetary agencies, is also addressed. Martins discusses the diversification of his-toriography and its autonomy in exploring previously neglected topics, along with the need for historical education to empower individuals to think independently and critically in our border-less, globalised world. Ultimately, the interview sheds light on the ongoing theoretical experi-mentation in the field of history and the potential impact on historiographical practice in the future.
The prolific life of this eminent scholar has confidently aroused interest in his person and aimed at multiplying efforts to benefit from his wisdom and rich experience. Likewise, I also bury in my memory this kind of inner feelings, of which I have accumulated no small number while building a world of historical interest. The name of Professor Józef A. Gierowski had already sunk into my memory several decades ago. I reached for his publications when I had not yet crystallised a clear direction of interest. Nevertheless, I persistently reached for his texts to “taste” the problems of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The interview provides a record of a conversation held during the XXIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Poznan, with late antiquity scholar and epigraphic specialist Ignazio Tantillo (professor at the Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”). The conversation revolves around the matter of understanding the peculiarities of Late Antiquity in terms of an autonomous period in history, the temporal and spatial framework of which remains the subject of deliberations to this day. In the article, Ignazio Tantillo discusses the role of new challenges and hopes for scholars of Late Antiquity in the coming decades. The conversation also includes a reflection upon the nature of the historian's involvement in the public sphere, the (paradigm of public history), especially in the context of the “cancel culture” phenomenon.
The author analyses the history of scientific and public discourses growing around the phenom-enon of Głuchoniemcy (Deaf‑Germans) in Poland. In the literature, this term refers to the des-cendants of the German‑speaking colonists who settled in the Polish‑Ruthenian border in the mid‑fourteenth century. The history of interest in this phenomenon from the eighteenth to the twentieth century reflects the cultural changes and social tensions over time. These descendants of the German‑speaking colonists living in the Carpathian Foothills were mentioned for the first time in the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century as a regional phenomenon of cultural diversity. In the era of Romanticism, when the importance of national identity in Europe grew, so‑called Deaf Germans were portrayed as fully assimilated Polish settlers with only relics refer-ring to German culture. At the end of the nineteenth century, after the publication of Józef Szujski, they became the subject of a political debate and were placed in the context of peasant history. Finally, the socio‑political situation of the interwar period led to the term “Głuchoniemcy” being removed from scientific and public discourses for many decades. After World War II, the absence of the topic became permanent, still directly related to the Polish‑German antagonism that set the directions of scientific interests of ethnographers and historians in Poland. The article tries to answer the question about the course of these changes in the perception of Deaf Germans by looking for external causes as well as those resulting from the nature of the subject of interest.
Józef Andrzej Gierowski’s academic profile is presented in the light of his interest in the problems of universal history in relation to events, but above all to phenomena which allow for a better knowledge and understanding of the mentality of the people of the time, their activities and their consequences. Gierowski’s studies on the history of Europe were closely linked to the history of the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth (especially the period of the Saxon Wettin dynasty on the Polish throne), highlighting its international position and associations, and the resulting foreign policy of its rulers. Among the questions raised, there was no shortage of issues relating to the culture and ideology of the Baroque and the Enlightenment and, of primary interest to the researcher, the problem‑laden, not fully deciphered transition period between the two currents. The second ‘part’ of the article emphasises Józef Andrzej Gierowski’s understanding of Europe as a certain whole, encompassing not only political history, social or economic affairs, but also cultural patterns and phenomena to which he was particularly sensitive.
The main purpose of the article is to present the achievements of J.A. Gierowski in his research into the Saxon times, i.e., the period of the reigns of August II and August III Wettin in the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth (1697‑1763). For a long time, this period was assessed negatively in historiography. There was a widespread view that both for the Polish‑Lithuanian state and for Saxony, those years meant decline and catastrophe. Gierowski, who began his scientific work after World War II, carefully analysing Polish and German archival sources, created his own paradigm of research on Saxon times. After rejecting extreme assessments, Gierowski focused on the following elements of this paradigm: 1. the problem of internal reforms 2. a general assessment of the importance of the Polish‑Saxon union and its conse-quences 3. the problem of the place in Europe, i.e., diplomatic activity, and 4. the economic and social situation combined by the “one‑person rulers” of states. This model of research proce-dure has been accepted by historians.
This article concludes a series of three articles. The first two, published in 2022, were divided into time periods; 1) until 1989, and 2) since the 1990s. The present one discusses the issue of the fate of police officers after September 1, 1939, and includes a summary and research postulates. The timelines used in the series are not accidental, of course, as they had a significant impact on the way historiography devoted to public security organs was conducted in the interwar period. The literature that deals with pre‑war police is relatively rich in terms of quantity. However, it is worth examining it more carefully as several works raise a number of questions and doubts. Next to very good ones there are some that should not have been published. If we take a closer look at the style of narration in particular publications, we will notice that the authors in the vast majority limit themselves to describing and reporting facts, avoiding factual analysis. Many of the publications deviate from scientific standards, focusing their attention exclusively on creat-ing the preferred image of the public security organisation in a given period of time. Unfortu-nately, this is noticeable not only before 1989, but also later, when the negative image of the pre‑war police was replaced by its excessive glorification or even mythologisation. Despite the fact that more and more issues are raised and some of them are further developed, we still cannot consider the state of research that I am interested in as being satisfactory. The following issues still need to be highlighted and thoroughly investigated: 1) police biography; 2) issues of formation, socialisation and mentality; 3) the state of morale of the police corps; 4) participation in the Polish‑Soviet war; 5) participation in ensuring the internal security of the state; 6) police‑society relations, including the creation of the image of the police in culture texts; 7) police participation in the protection of state dignitaries; 8) international police co-operation; 9) the history of the police in the individual provinces; 10) women’s police service; 11) the functioning of police associations and cultural and educational activities; 12) war pre-parations; 13) the fate of police officers after September 1, 1939.
Among the several crises that occurred in the 16th century, the famine crisis and high prices in the years 1569–1574 had exceptional significance, as its intensity, scope and duration far out-weighed other economic collapses of the century. Despite this, the course of events and the consequences have been of virtually no interest to historians over the years, which begs the question: why? As it seems, the events connected with the crises in question were overshadowed in Western historiography by other numerous and significant political events at the time, such as the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and the Night of St. Bartholomew in France (1572). In the Polish-‑Lithuanian state, in contrast, between 1569 and 1574, the famine and high prices coincided with a crisis of royal power and the state. This, indeed, drew the attention of historians, but only to political issues, among them the Polish‑Lithuanian union of 1569, the succession to the throne after the heirless Sigismund Augustus died, the first free election, religious disputes, the flight of King Henryk Walezy (Henry III), and the neighbouring wars, rather than to the social problems connected with the mass death of the poorest in the state, and the resulting economic problems. Therefore, in this article, the author synthesises the course of the famine crisis of 1569–1574 in the Polish‑Lithuanian state and hypothesises that the events and implications of this crisis largely preserved the mentality of the nobility in the following centuries and their dominance in the economic and political life of the Commonwealth. This crisis also influenced a choice of different path for development of the Commonwealth compared to other European countries. To clarify, the author does not claim to have exhausted the subject, and the article is intended to spur a discussion and further detailed research.
In this article, the authors confront the thesis found in historical discourse about the dominance of male figures in historical narratives present in the public sphere. In order to do so, they analyse the new research field that is the social networking site YouTube and the most popular channels on historical topics contained therein. The main research question is whether women are marginalised in the narratives contained in the sources discussed, in which contexts they appear and what is the reception of the films in which they appear. In addition, the authors look at the question of the form of historical narratives. The study combines quantitative methods (descriptive statistics, correspondence analysis) as well as qualitative methods (Northrop Frye’s typology of story motifs. For this purpose, 551 films were analysed, which were then annotated using seven groups of tags corresponding to the content of the sources ‑ concerning the func-tioning of female characters and the subject matter of the films. As a result of the analyses carried out, it was observed that the thesis of the absolute dominance of male characters in historical narratives does not fully hold true under the conditions of Web 2.0 sources in terms of quantity, while in terms of content it cannot be accepted unreservedly in the context of the very diverse use of female themes in social media resources.
