The author examines the theoretical aspects of analyzing the Polish nobility in a period of history in which they were slowly being transformed into a new social group of noble landowners.

The article deals with the philosophical, epistemological and methodological issues of the contemporary debate on historical policy which has taken place in recent years in Poland between historians, philosophers, politicians and columnists.

The major part of the paper is describing practice of using oral history method in the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theater” Center in Lublin. This cultural center started collecting testimonies in 1995 and formally created the Oral History Program in 1998. Educational and artistic exemplars include most of activities there: using oral history as a background in exhibitions, artistic celebrations and long-term programs, commemorations (about Righteous Among the Nations, Holocaust Survivors etc.).

In Vnutri mysliashchikh mirov, Łotman claims that there is a connection between cultural memory and the nature of culture itself. In this article I attempt to respond to this hypothesis in regards to the relationship between cultural memory and the idea of culture, while in the context of writings by Jurij Łotman and Boris Uspienski. Based on their work on this subject, I conclude that culture could not exist if there would be no cultural memory, nor changes within the duration and fabric of said memory. As such, an analysis of cultural memory while utilizing the methadology of the Moscow-Tartu school may also answer lingering questions about culture in general. It follows, therefore, that if investigating the connection between the formation of culture and the construction of cultural memory is a fruitful means of analyzing cultural history, then this may also be a legimitate method for our analysis of history in general.

This text focuses on non-military aspects of Polish-Soviet relations in cinema before 1989. It offers an analysis of two melodramas, the Polish “Interrupted Flight (L. Buczkowski, 1964),” and the Soviet-Polish “Remember Your Name” (S. Kolosov, 1974). From a narrow ideological perspective, both fi lms show Polish-Soviet relations in a positive light. Yet, the author points to omissions and understatements that refl ect the ambiguities present in Polish-Soviet relations of the time. As a genre. melodrama complicates superfi cial statements of Polish-Soviet friendship.

The paper discusses Jerzy Passendorfer’s Day of Exculpation as movie about Polish-Soviet brotherhood of arms. By learning the history of its production and comparing various versions of its screenplay, shooting script and the fi lm itself one can see contexts and ways of creating an image of Polish-Soviet relations.

The action of Vladimir Khotinenko’s 1612 (2007) takes place in Time of Troubles (1605-1613). Polish hetman’s love affair with Tsarevna is shown in the context of the fi ght for power. Various genre patterns, among others the melodrama code. The historical myths serving the contemporary national propaganda. 1612 allows us to see how Russians use the pop culture to create the myths combining the history with the contemporary political needs.

The purpose of this article is to show the contribution of fi lm in shaping of social imagination of Katyń crime in Poles’ minds. Author places described fi lms in the background of today’s knowledge.

The key issue considered by the author is the category of “the present” that appears in the essays by Jan Kott and in the books and fi lms by Grigori Kozintsev. The director’s idea corresponds to Jan Kott’s attitude although startling similarities are accompanied here by signifi cant divergences. Such an analysis enables to identify the basic interpretative tracks that determined Shakespeare’s reading in the totalitarian times.

The title-opposition of the world of friends and of foes is the result of geopolitical strategies which defi ned the status of Poland in the twentieth-century history of the continent, the history full of crises. Several variants of the phenomenon can be distinguished: Revolution as anti-Christian and anti-Polish world; Revolution as a world of progress and the struggle for peace and internationalist order, Revolution as the work of Lenin, Revolution as a perpetrator of Polish independence and Revolution as one of the endless painful experiences of the Twentieth Century.

The article discusses a few fi lm portraits of Tadeusz Kościuszko and his fi ght against the tsar’s Russia.

In the article, basing on quotes from Polish fi lms made after 1990, author reconstructs a linguistic picture of Russia and Russians. In all analysed fi lms, regardless of their artistic value, picture of our eastern neighbours is mostly simplifi ed and stereotypised. We observe “secondary stereotypisation of stereotype”. These actions are taken to strengthen autostereotype of Poland and Pole, they are used in national psychotherapy.