This contribution characterises the stratigraphic schemes of the Quaternary as constructed and published by Leszek Lindner in 1967–2019. The oldest schemes assume the subdivision of the Pleistocene into three glaciations (i.e., Cracow, Middle-Polish and Baltic) separated by two interglacials (Great and Eemian). The scheme published in 1992 comprises eight glacial and seven interglacial units. The most recent scheme for the Quaternary contains seven advances of the Scandinavian ice-sheet on the area of Poland during the Nidanian (MIS 22), Sanian 1 (MIS 16), Sanian 2 (MIS 12), Liviecian (MIS 10), Krznanian (MIS 8), Odranian (MIS 6), and Vistulian (MIS 2–5d) glaciations. They are separated by six interglacials: Podlasian, Ferdynandovian, Mazovian, Zbójnian, Lublinian and Eemian. The ranges of glacial transgressions, and key interglacial and preglacial sites are assembled in a cumulative scheme for the area of Poland. We review the main study methods on which the subsequent versions of the stratigraphic scheme were based. These include Prof. Lindner’s own detailed field research in glaciated and extraglacial areas, and paleofloristic, paleontological and paleomagnetic studies of major interglacial sites carried out by numerous researchers, as well as thorough literature studies.

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.

The authors discuss possibilities and limits for applying a research model of the study of memory politics, originally developed by them with the aim to research the Polish case only, to other countries of East Central Europe which after the WW II formed the sphere of the Soviet domination. They pose a question whether it should be appropriate to combine it with the so called transnational approach.

The paper presents results of studies focused on occurrence and correlation of four main horizons of Younger Loesses: Lowest Younger Loess (LMn – after Maruszczak, 2001), Lower Younger Loess (LMd), Middle Younger Loess (LMs), and Upper Younger Loess (LMg) recorded in five sections (Politów, Wąchock, Nietulisko Małe, Komorniki and Bodzechów) in the Holy Cross Mountains area. All analysed loesses were accumulated during the Vistulian Glaciation (Weichselian). The horizons were distinguished based on separating interstadial tundra soils, coupled with thermoluminescence dating, and correlated with marine oxygen-isotope stages MIS 5d−2. The Lowermost Younger Loess (LMn) covers the Nietulisko I soil complex (Jersak, 1973), developed on deposits of the Odranian Glaciation (MIS 6) and representing a forest soil of the Eemian Interglacial (MIS 5e) and the Brørup warming (MIS 5c). A thin horizon of the Oldest Younger Loess and a thin sandy horizon, both probably corresponding to the Herning cooling phase (MIS 5d) at the boundary with the Eemian Interglacial, were distinguished within this complex. Based on previously performed grain-size and heavy mineral analysis of the Upper Younger Loess (LMg) and a topographic position of the loesses in four loessy islands of diverse regional extent, accumulation of this loess in the Holy Cross Mountains area is found to have been stimulated by the western winds. The proposed model of loess accumulation takes into account the influence of the topography of the area and its geological structure.

Oskar Halecki’s reception in French historiography is one of the interesting examples of diffi-culties in understanding Polish historical thought in France. As one of the leading authors of the concept of East‑Central Europe in world historiography, a descendant of the Viennese aristoc-racy and an ambassador of Polish humanities in the League of Nations Committee on Intellec-tual Cooperation, he promoted the history of the countries of the region, considering their independent of Russia cultural specificity, deeply connected with the values of the Christian Europe. Meanwhile, after the Second World War, the socio‑economically oriented historiogra-phy of “Annales” was gaining more and more popularity in Paris – and in Warsaw itself ...