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History of Poland in an International Perspective

Poster in shades of grey with the name and date of the event.

03.12.2015-04.12.2015

History of Poland in an International Perspective

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The two-day conference attended by historians was an opportunity to compare various interpretations of Polish history. The debate was initiated with a lecture (“Poland – a country on the moon”) by Adam Zamoyski, an historian and essayist of Polish origin who is the author of many books written in English about the history and culture of Poland, including the bestseller “The Polish Way – A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and their Culture”. “Speaking in Westminster Parliament, the parliamentarian Edmund Burke lamented on the disappearance of Poland from the map of Europe, but he admitted that when it came down to concrete consequences as a result of this disappearance, nothing had actually changed. It’s as if this country was on the moon,” the historian said. He also stressed that it was common practice for a country to create its own historical narrative, its own “mythology.” Throughout the 19th century, Poland did not have the chance to do so, it could not promote its own national symbols. Meanwhile, its neighbours-cum-oppressors created their own historical narratives. “As a young man, when I used to pick up an Anglo-Saxon or French book on the “History of Europe” and scan through the book’s index looking for mentions of Poland, I would see two, maybe three, references. Sometimes Sobieski would pop up, other times Kosciuszko. And that was it,” Zamoyski said.

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Galerie

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Polska – Kraj na księżycu. Wykład Adama Zamoyskiego.

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