Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere has provoked a massive reaction in European historiography in the last thirty years. However, methodological debates driven by the new questions that it inspired in Germany, England, or France had no equivalent in Poland and more broadly in Eastern Europe. This essay suggests why this might have been the case and argues for the deeper engagement of Polish historians with the Habermasian theory. In the text, I reintro-duce the aims of the theory of the public sphere and look for the possible roots of its lacklustre reception among Polish historians in the idea about the Polish case’s supposed incompatibility with the course of modern history assumed by Habermas. I argue against this view, emphasising the flexibility and open‑endedness of the main Habermasian concepts, as well as underlining the necessity for a specifically Polish answer to Habermas’ theoretical enterprise. In the final part, I present the opportunities brought by adapting the theory to the Polish case, claiming that the original history of the Polish public sphere could be a prospective topic for both Polish historians and other historians of the public sphere.

The evaluation of a resercher`s life work often does not include, or underestimates, articles written for the Polish Biographical Dictionary. To compensate for this gap, I wish to introduce a short outline of the issues discussed by Józef Andrzej Gierowski in his biographical work, supplemented by a list of the 52 biographies he was aurhor author of. This article`s aim is to highlighting his contributions to the research of the history of the local and central elites of the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth, both by examples and the by listing.

The category of historical thinking has a rather unique status. On the one hand, it is widely used; on the other, its exact meaning is very rarely defined. All uses of the term agree on at least two elements: it is treated as central to the study and teaching of history, and it is treated affirma-tively. This article attempts to review the history of the concept within the German tradition of historicism and humanism. It also tries to highlight the role of crisis in the evolution of historical thinking and reconsider its utility and possible future transformation.

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.

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.

The article offers a critical insight into the social history of ideas as a research trend that has been dynamically developing within French academic circles since 2010. Methodologically, the social history of ideas attempts to apply sociological tools to study the diffusion and embedding of political ideas within specific groups. After presenting the general directions of this trend's development, the author focuses on its critics, offering their own reflections on the difficulties one might encounter when applying its principles to research on Central‑Eastern Europe. To tackle this task, the author provides a methodological exercise to verify the extent to which the principles of social history of ideas can be applied to the study of (semi)peripheral ideas. In conclusion, the author emphasises the invigorating nature and critical tasks that social history of ideas can fulfill within Polish historiography as well.

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.

The aim of the article is to reflect on the phenomenon of great art exhibitions, gathering exhibits, mainly paintings, exceptional from the perspective of national cultural heritage, which collectively represent a defined generational message. The reflection included the best‑known exhibitions of recent decades, being an expression of the historical culture of a time of great changes in the life of Polish society at the turn of the 21st century. These are two exhibitions at the National Museum in Kraków, the first exhibition ever by Marek Rostworowski, “Polish self‑portrait” (1979); the second is an exhibition of Marek Szczerski’s work entitled #dziedzictwo/heritage (2017); a jubilee exhibition organised by the National Museum in Warsaw in collaboration with the Louvre‑Lens Museum, the National Museum in Poznan and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute on the centennial of regaining independence, entitled “Poland. The power of the image” (2019‑2021). This reflection also includes the monumental exhibition organised collectively by the Royal Castle in Warsaw and the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, with the participation of the curator Anda Rottenberg, entitled “Side by side. Germany‑Poland 1000 years of history in art.” (2012).

Ludowa historia Polski. Historia wyzysku i oporu. Mitologia panowania (A People's History of Poland. A history of exploitation and resistance. The mythology of reign) (2020) by Adam Leszc-zyński, met with great interest, both in the academic community and wider reading circles. Re-viewed many times, it was the subject of discussion in scientific periodicals, opinion‑forming press, and on the Internet. In this article, based on published and shared online reviews, debates, discus-sions, etc., I will consider the reasons for the social resonance of the book. I will look at how it was received by members of the Academy (primarily historians and sociologists). Was Did the “new” approach to folk history proposed by Leszczyński meet with their acceptance? How did they evaluate the manner and degree of achievement of the goals set by the author? I will also be interested in assessments of methodological competences, scientific workshop technique and opi-nions on the benefits that science (mainly the humanities) has gained thanks to the author's findings.

The history of literature and art history were not included in the programme of my historical studies (1960–1965). Naturally, all history professors would usually include something about art and literature in their lectures on “their” historical period, but not as a key element. Efforts were made to separate history and belles‑lettres (in its various manifestations). A strongly positivist vision of research and transferring its results to the general public was cultivated – which had its advantages in the face of ideological pressure on science in the People's Republic of Poland. Today, the function of both historical sources and statements on history are frequently taken on by literature, which I define very broadly: literary texts (sometimes even of clearly inferior quality), political texts, diaries and journals, journalistic reports, petitions, defence speeches, sometimes letters. Also interesting for the historian is the route these texts take to the reading or listening public, as well as their reception, sometimes their renaissance after many years. There is no need to add that with such an approach, the people who are the authors of even outstanding historical works are not necessarily those who are professional historians.

From 20th to 28th August 2022, the 26th ICOM General Conference took place in Prague. Its main theme was “The Power of Museums”. The conference was the product of a long discussion about defining the contemporary role of museums and their obligations to the past, present, and future. In the article titled: The Humans and their History in Museums. A few Reflections about the 26th ICOM General Conference in Prague the author discusses the course of proceedings and asks questions about the character and nature of the museum’s work in the field of history as an academic discipline. Some of the most important questions discussed in the paper include those on: museums’ aspirations in the field of sensual depiction of history; the relationship between the tangible and intangible heritage within museums’ method of work; the role of heritage interpretation as the basic tool of contact with the audience; and the urgent issue of neutrality and institutions’ engagement in the face of contemporary challenges. The source materials used in order to find answers to these questions are the legal acts about museums; the resolutions of the 1st Congress of Polish Museum Professionals (April 2015 in Łódź); and the definitions that constitute museums, both through legal acts on the state level and those passed by the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

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.

The article presents the image of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Catholic press of the Second Polish Republic. Attention was paid to both his socio‑political and military achievements, as well as a general assessment of the character. The source basis is mainly the texts that appeared on this subject in periodicals dealing most often with socio‑political and historical‑political issues. They were compared with the findings of both contemporaneous and contemporary historians. The aspect of the then political propaganda in Poland, emphasising the importance of the Polish-‑French alliance, as well as the former importance of Napoleonic policy for the “Polish cause” was taken into account. The power of the solemn celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Napoleon's death, together with its patriotic connotations, as well as the issue of his religiosity, influencing the nature of the then state‑Church relations, are particularly exposed. The text is intended by the author to fit into the categories of the history of historiography and have a comparative character in relation to the historiography of the Napoleonic era in interwar Poland.

I have been asked to give a thought on the University. It is arranged in a sequence of “past – yesterday – today”, to which I will occasionally refer. It will not, however, constitute a rigid scheme governing this talk. The inspiration for these thoughts was specified by the question “what perception of the University I imbibed in my family home, how I later confronted this with my own practice or «experience» of the University, how I look at it from the perspective of the experience I have had and from observing the changes taking place.”

The author addresses the comprehensive presentation of his conception of the epistemology of history and the idea of historiographical metaphor by philosopher of culture Artur Dobosz, indicating the areas where their views converge and diverge. He introduces into the discussion the lines which Dobosz omitted, yet which significantly supplement the problem field of the epistemology of history that the author has been developing since the early 1990s.