Nation and History: Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the Second World War

Brendan F.R. Edwards is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History
at the University of Saskatchewan.

Nation and History provides a historiography of Poland from the
Enlightenment until World War II, a period when the Polish state was
partitioned between its neighbours, Russia, Prussia, and
Austria-Hungary. Aimed at non-Polish readers, the volume seeks to
provide a balanced starting point for scholars and laypersons who are
interested in Polish and central European history.

Working from the premise that the discipline and profession of history
have dramatically shaped Poland’s political and cultural development,
the book’s contributors examine the role that scholars like
Naruszewicz and Lelewel took in calling on the nation to reform itself,
while at the same time introducing new ideas into Polish intellectual
life. The authors stress that few peoples in the world are so conscious
of their past as are the Poles, noting that the nation’s history has
for centuries been used to understand the present.

All of the historians discussed in this volume worked during a period
of unparalleled changes in their country. The Polish Enlightenment
fostered incredible political, cultural, and intellectual development,
but shortly afterwards Poland was erased from the map of Europe and
divided among its neighbours. The 20-plus contributions that make up
Nation and History are united by the strongly expressed notion that
Polish historians from the Enlightenment until the beginning of World
War II assured Poland’s intellectual survival—a feat accomplished in
the face of political occupation, cultural oppression, and inconsistent
economic development.