What is new in Polish historiography?

The paper discusses core issues of the Polish Historiography, focusing on main challenges. The author observes a process of its transformation, resulting among other from significant changes in a Polish social reality at the beginning of the 20th century. Main conclusion of this brief analysis is that Polish historiography differs from Western historiographical discussion, being less interdisciplinary and focusing on political history. The author diagnoses also a decreasing role of professional historians in explaining the past. On the other hand, Polish historiographical reflection differs also from former Soviet Bloc countries, with their ethnocentric historiographies avoiding discussion on crucial, yet often uneasy or even painful, issues.  This  text  was  first  published  in  German  under  the  title  Was  gibt  es  Neues  in  der  polnischen  Historiographie  zu  Beginn  des  21  Jahrhunderts?  in  “Historie  Jahrbuch  des  Zentrum für Historische ForschungBerlin der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften” 2007/2008,  vol .  1,  pp .  37–56 .  Updated  version  was  published  in  Polish  in  a  journal  “Przegląd Humanistyczny” 2010, vol . 5/6, pp . 49–65 with a title “Historiografia polska początków  XXI  wieku .  Próba  bilansu” .  Polish  version  is  translated  for  the  current  supplement of “Klio . Journal of Polish and World History” and that is why it only refers to the events prior 2009

Przez język ukrycia po słowo na „g”. Kim są bohaterowie czasów queer before gay?

Who (and what) was silent about the story told by heteronormative society? And how is the fragment of this story seen by “Others”? The article shows that the time of “queer before gay” includes (in Polish) not only well-known names such as: aunt or pedal, but also slang: ‘lala’ (doll), ‘przyjaciółki’ (friends), ‘siostry’ (sisters in Polish, girls in English), gays “from the outside of society”, as well as heterosexuals who got a ticket to the alternative world of the excluded. I tell this story from the perspective of the performative function of language (Althusser, Austin, Butler) and mechanisms of knowledge/power (Foucault). I focus on the activities of homosexual men encoded in their “hiding language” (sociopolitan gay). I show how the creation of the “homosexual” identity closed the community of aunts and pedals in a precisely defined form. And how camp and queering reality allowed them to function in this form. This article is thus another element of decoding the so-called language of concealment, so-called sociolect of Polish gays (aunts and pedals) and queering history of Poland (part of the queering history of Central and Eastern Europe).Who (and what) was silent about the story told by heteronormative society? And how is the fragment of this story seen by “Others”? The article shows that the time of “queer before gay” includes (in Polish) not only well-known names such as: aunt or pedal, but also slang: ‘lala’ (doll), ‘przyjaciółki’ (friends), ‘siostry’ (sisters in Polish, girls in English), gays “from the outside of society”, as well as heterosexuals who got a ticket to the alternative world of the excluded. I tell this story from the perspective of the performative function of language (Althusser, Austin, Butler) and mechanisms of knowledge/power (Foucault). I focus on the activities of homosexual men encoded in their “hiding language” (sociopolitan gay). I show how the creation of the “homosexual” identity closed the community of aunts and pedals in a precisely defined form. And how camp and queering reality allowed them to function in this form. This article is thus another element of decoding the so-called language of concealment, so-called sociolect of Polish gays (aunts and pedals) and queering history of Poland (part of the queering history of Central and Eastern Europe)

What is new in Polish historiography?

The paper discusses core issues of the Polish Historiography, focusing on main challenges. The author observes a process of its transformation, resulting among other from significant changes in a Polish social reality at the beginning of the 20th century. Main conclusion of this brief analysis is that Polish historiography differs from Western historiographical discussion, being less interdisciplinary and focusing on political history. The author diagnoses also a decreasing role of professional historians in explaining the past. On the other hand, Polish historiographical reflection differs also from former Soviet Bloc countries, with their ethnocentric historiographies avoiding discussion on crucial, yet often uneasy or even painful, issues.     This  text  was  first  published  in  German  under  the  title  Was  gibt  es  Neues  in  der  polnischen  Historiographie  zu  Beginn  des  21  Jahrhunderts?  in  “Historie  Jahrbuch  des  Zentrum für Historische ForschungBerlin der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften” 2007/2008,  vol .  1,  pp .  37–56 .  Updated  version  was  published  in  Polish  in  a  journal  “Przegląd Humanistyczny” 2010, vol . 5/6, pp . 49–65 with a title “Historiografia polska początków  XXI  wieku .  Próba  bilansu” .  Polish  version  is  translated  for  the  current  supplement of “Klio . Journal of Polish and World History” and that is why it only refers to the events prior 2009

Der polnische Kriminalroman

Vorliegende Diplomarbeit mit dem Titel „Der polnische Kriminalroman. Analysen und Beobachtungen 2000 – 2007” soll die Entwicklung des polnischen Kriminalromans im Rückblick auf das letzte Jahrhundert zeigen. Das Hauptaugenmerk ruht dabei jedoch auf den Tendenzen der Jahre 2000 bis 2007. Zu Beginn der Arbeit werden die Grundlagen der Gattung beleuchtet, Kriminalliteratur von Verbrechensliteratur unterschieden und die internationale Entwicklungsgeschichte des Kriminalromans aufgerissen. Im Anschluss folgt eine Gattungsbeschreibung, wobei die Einzelheiten der beiden wichtigsten Untergattungen des Kriminalromans erörtert werden. Klassifizierungsprobleme von polnischer gattungsspezifischer Literatur werden aufgezeigt und die Besonderheiten der polnischen Krimi-Variante Milizroman beschrieben. Schwerpunkt der Arbeit ist eine literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse von vier Romanen, die bisher mit dem Titel „bester polnischer Kriminalroman des Jahres” ausgezeichnet worden waren: Marek Krajewskis KONIEC ŚWIATA W BRESLAU (2003), Paweł Jaszczuks FORESTA UMBRA (2004), Marek Harnys PISMAK (2005) und Marcin Świetlickis DWANAŚCIE (2006). Alle Romane werden entsprechend den Kriterien - Autor, Handlung, Figuren, Protagonist, Antagonist, Setting (Zeit / Raum) und Stilistik - vorgestellt. Im Anschluss werden sie vergleichend gegenüber gestellt. Im Anhang enthält die Arbeit eine Literaturliste zu polnischen Kriminalromanen der Jahre 1999 bis 2008