This article discusses recently published conference papers Memory and Politics of History. Expeciemed by Poland and her Neighbors.

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.

In this interview, conducted at the XXIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Poznan, Antoon De Baets (emeritus professor of History, Ethics and Human Rights at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands) addresses key issues for historians and other produ-cers of history. His remarks about the scientific status of historiography and the range of different threats to history seem particularly important. He talks not only about the most direct crimes against historians and history, but also about issues like hindsight bias and fake news. The professional duties of historians and the issue of ethical codes for historians are also discussed.

The article is the first presentation of Professor Gabriele De Rosa and his view of Italian socio-religious history. As it is the very first article about De Rosa to appear in Poland, it contains basic biographic information and an overview of the most important of his ideas.

Hayden White did not directly examine the issue of the independence of history as a discipline of knowledge in his theoretical reflection. He did not ask about the subject of historical studies, the specificity of the methods used in it, the difference between history and other fields, or the economic and social conditions of historical discourse. In this article, I revise White’s writing and reconfigure the extant research using the concept of autonomy.
White — primarily in his works from the 1970s and 1980s — devoted much attention to exposing and describing cultural compulsions resulting in historical practices and violating their autonomy. These actions also brought unexpected results. At first, the use of structuralism in these practices, and then poststructuralist concepts of “the death of the author” and textualism, suggested claims that freed historiography from its links with an author’s biography and world-view, and with the social context in which a given work is produced. Using Foucault’s descrip-tion of the order of discourse, in turn, brought the image of a strict rigor of historical discipline, which, however, is not equal to the strong autonomy of history.
A stronger delimitation of the field of history appears in his — already in the twenty‑first century — offer to use Michael Oakeshott’s division into the practical past and the historical past. Whilst censuring academic historical writing as sterile and rejected by readers because it fails to answer contemporary existential, social and political questions, White, most likely unintentionally, described the independence of historians’ actions from the demands of the societies to which they belong. According to commentators, his remarks can be a productive inspiration for reflection upon the distinctiveness of the discipline of history.

The goal of the article is to propose a different approach to – and therefore a new concept of – the history of thinking. Reflecting on the history of philosophy, it suggests a broader understanding of the latter. Yet traditional studies in the history of philosophy are not to be rejected; they need to be reformed, and such a reform could be performed basing on the experiences of the discipline of historiography. Thus conceived, the history of thinking could open us to a different future.

The main aim of the article was to present two emerging discourses of contemporary historiography in the field of digital media. In the first example, the authors present the thought of Niels Brügger, called the Web History and Web-minded historiography, which concentrates upon the digital source itself. The other school is marked by the works of Friedrich Kittler and Wolfgang Ernst, and called media archaeology. It underlines the concept of the medium itself as a primary object of research.

The article is a review of the book by Natalie Zemon Davis Slaves on Screen. Film and Historical Vzsion, Cambridge Mass. 2000.

This paper aims to open the discussion about historian’s emotions during the research process that has mostly been covered up. It does not pretend to be a thorough account of the topic but a modest essay that might encourage other researcher to reflect on their experiences. Firstly, we briefly describe the current situation in a few neighboring disciplines. Secondly, we explain how we understand emotions and use the terms emotion, feeling and sentiment. Thirdly, we discuss the reasons why most historians keep silent about their feelings. Fourthly, with two examples, we illustrate how historians have written about their emotions. Fifthly, we present a model of emotional phases of research by the Danish social psychologist Steinar Kvale and evaluate its relevance to historical research. Then we look at the causes and/or objects of feelings of students or beginning scholars in cultural history. Finally, we suggest some ways we historians could make our scholarly community emotionally a more supportive one. It might be good to remember that our discussion concerns primarily the Finnish academic world, and the situation in other countries might be slightly different.

Philip Sabin points out that modern wargames not only contain substantial amounts of historical information but also arrange it into interactive models which depict historical processes in a simplified manner. Such models can be used in historical research as well, complementing the discourse through more holistic and mathematically strict accounts, and providing tools that impose some discipline on counter- factual speculation.

The Author presents the core of the idea of microhistory as developed in the works of Giovanni Levi and the group of Italian historians connected with the periodical "Quaderni Storici".

This paper aims to open the discussion about historian's emotions during the research process that has mostly been covered up. It does not pretend to be a thorough account of the topic but a modest essay that might encourage other researcher to reflect on their experiences. Firstly, we briefly describe the current situation in a few neighboring disciplines. Secondly, we explain how we understand emotions and use the terms emotion, feeling and sentiment. Thirdly, we discuss the reasons why most historians keep silent about their feelings. Fourthly, with two examples, we illustrate how historians have written about their emotions. Fifthly, we present a model of emotional phases of research by the Danish social psychologist Steinar Kvale and evaluate its relevance to historical research. Then we look at the causes and/or objects offeelings of students or beginning scholars incultural history. Finally, we suggest some ways we historians could make our scholarly community emotionally a more supportive one. - It might be good to remember that our discussion concerns primarily the Finnish academic world, and the situation in other countries might be slightly different

In the article the author discusses the practice associated with name-giving among the residents of Łódź (only Catholics of Polish origin) during the period from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century. The material was collected from official documents. Habits associated with the first names were treated as a kind of linguistic behaviour that implements a specific communication need of the given community. Observations of these habits show that they oscillate — like any linguistic behaviour — between automatism (and convention) and spontaneity. Conventional measures that should be considered: the use of a limited collection of names that indicate a high degree of stability in subsequent periods and against the background of habits of name-giving in the region and other territories of the former Poland (especially the most popular names of women, e.g. Marianna, Katarzyna, Agnieszka and names of men, e.g. Józef, Jan, Franciszek) and inheritance of names. In contrast, a large number of rare names (names of women, e.g. Idalia, Jokasta, Kasylda, and of men, e.g. Bonawentura, Wit, Witalis) and a visible preference in some families for the usage of rare names, e.g. Damazy, Feliks, Lubomira (including Slavic first names, e.g. Bolesław, Władysław, Bronisław) were included as spontaneous factors. Analysis of the material reveals a tendency to differentiate names depending on the social status of the inhabitants (the representatives of the noble families often used rare names). The author also draws attention to the problem of the diversity of names in Łódź (both in the context of different collections of names and different practices) depending on parameters such as the religion (Catholics, Protestants, Jews) and nationality (Poles, Germans, Czechs) of residents of the city.

Will intellectual dignity and the ideal of knowledge ever lose their importance as values?

Could the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth have been rescued in the eighteenth century? If certain social strata had not been so excluded, might the partitions of Poland never have come to pass?

The Bible is an example of long-term textual transmission in which “contaminations” result, in part, from the unique role of the text itself.

We value the things we own, create hierarchies of them, exchange them for others. However, there are some things whose loss we would never forget, because they are our inalienable possessions.

Seen from today’s perspective, the oceans seem to be a permanent and unchanging element of the Earth’s landscape. Yet various oceans have been formed and “consumed” in the planet’s ancient history.

Historical reenactors are not merely mad eccentrics; they are also earnest history aficionados eager for us to learn from the past – says Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska from the PAS Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology in Warsaw.

A review of Ewa Wipszycka’s Polish-language book Chrześcijaństwo starożytnego Egiptu ( Christianity in Ancient Egypt).

This article deals with the problem of the knowledge’s utility. This issue is considered from three perspectives. The dualistic perspective is based on the two-component structure: knowledge–reality; the subject–the object. In this regard, the knowledge’s utility is measured by the measure of the power that can be obtained over the world. From the monistic perspective knowledge is useful if it allows the internal improvement of the bearer of the knowledge. Knowledge in terms of the emergent system arises in the fluid cognitive relationship between components of changing system. Relations between the system (whole) and units (part of ) are variable and undetermined by the specificity of the individual components which are also reciprocal and mutually forming.

The Author discussed in his article the problem of ethic foundations of promoters of psychohistory. He argues that psychotherapeutic inclinations of scholars resulted in the alienation of this approach within historical sciences, what — in the end — did not prevent psychohistorians from becoming active outside the closed circle of the discipline.

The article presents the issue of researching emotions in international history. It has been noticed that the development of the research on emotions within other sub‑disciplines of history, humanities, social sciences and neuroscience, provides an international historian with many outcomes enabling further research opportunities. At the same time, it was indicated that the tools traditionally used by historians (i.e., internal and external critique of the sources, and the intuitive approach) may be useful in conducting such research. A historian who decides to deal with the problem of emotions, is, however, forced to pay special attention to the context in which the people whose lives he examines functioned. Therefore, the research on emotions, also in the international context, requires greater awareness of the achievements of other academic disciplines from the historian. This task is difficult and perhaps demands from the historian that they be more sensitive and intuitive than in case of other studies. Nevertheless, by approaching the issue of emotions, international historians have a chance to obtain a more credible image of the past.