TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE POLISH-GERMAN-CZECH BORDER AREA IN 1938-1945 IN THE LOCAL COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND SOCIAL AWARENESS OF THE INHABITANTS OF BIELAWA AND THE OWL MOUNTAINS AREA

Th e local community of Bielawa and the areas in the region of the Owl Mountains is an interesting object for studies of sites of memory represented in local consciousness. Like most of similar communities on the so-called Recovered Territories, it started to form aft er 1945 on “raw roots” aft er the German inhabitants of the area were removed. Th ey were replaced with people moved from the former eastern provinces of the Second Republic, among others from Kołomyja, but also from regions of central Poland. Also Poles returning from Germany, France and Romania sett led there. Th e area taken over by new sett lers had not been a cultural desert. The remains of material culture, mainly German, and the traditions of weaving and textile industry, reaching back to the Middle Ages, formed a huge potential for creating a vision of local cultural heritage for the newly forming community. Th ey also brought, however, their own notions of cultural heritage to the new area and, in addition, became subject to political pressure of recognising its “Piast” character as the “Recovered Territories”. Th e present research is an att empt to fi nd out to what extent that potential was utilised by new sett lers, who were carriers of various regional (or even national) cultures, for their creation of visions of the future, as well as how the dynamics of those transformations evolved

HISTORIOGRAFIA NAUKI POLSKIEJ I JEJ MIEJSCE W POLSKIEJ HISTORIOGRAFII

In this article, the author analyzes the reception the reception of world standards in the field of research in the history of science by Polish researchers in the history of science. Th e author presents the growing crisis in the Polish history of science related to presentism and to dependence of research programs on myths. In addition, the author criticizes Polish policy in the field of the history of science.In this article, the author analyzes the reception the reception of world standards in the field of research in the history of science by Polish researchers in the history of science. Th e author presents the growing crisis in the Polish history of science related to presentism and to dependence of research programs on myths. In addition, the author criticizes Polish policy in the field of the history of science

Scientific societies and universities in the Yearbook of Józef Mianowski Fund “Polish Science. Its Needs, Organization and Development” (1918-1947)

The author analyzes the relations between scientific societies and universities in Poland in the interwar period. The source material is the Yearbook “Polish Science. Its Needs, Organization, and Development” published by the Józef Mianowski Fund in the years 1918-1947. An investigation of the relationships between scientific societies and universities offers excellent opportunities for interpreting the scientific activity in the Second Polish Republic. The connections between scientific societies and universities involved the centers for propelling scientific thought, where university chairs or scientific society committees played the leading role. Sometimes the works of non-university experts were important. The analysis of the material collected in the “Polish Science” also points to many other professional organizations (associations of professors, associate professors, or assistants). Many universities had societies supporting them. Gaining social support for universities was extremely important at the time

The researcher and their interpretative perspectives in the studies on the history of science

A historian (also of medicine) should accept the values and canons of the studied culture, including medical ones, as their own. As Florian Znaniecki pointed out in his works, they should be the researcher’s highest authority. This means that the researcher should deviate from evaluating the ideas and practices of the studied culture from their own perspective. The category of minimal cultural imputation developed by Wojciech Wrzosek shows that it is not an easy process. However, the application of the subjective-rational perspective to the interpretation has already become an obvious approach. An open and much less obvious problem is the role of the historian of science when they venture to make comparisons between past and present scientifi c cultures. By doing so, do they still remain a historian, or - by undertaking such comparisons and evaluations - do they abandon the role, assuming the position of, for example, methodologist? The author of the article outlines the possibilities of separating these roles, presenting the attitude of a ‘methodologist’ who searches in the past for the roots and theoretical justifi cations for contemporary paradigms of their discipline, using the latter to evaluate the past. However, the possibility of a non-evaluative dialogue between the cognizing culture and the cognized culture is also shown, where the former also includes the specialist knowledge of a contemporary researcher interested in the past of their discipline. The historiography of a given science appears here as a record of the self-knowledge of a given generation of researchers - as their self-refl ection. As Jan Pomorski calls it, a researcher assuming such a role appears as homo metahistoricus in their field of study

Concepts of Sickness in Historical Narrative Structures

The defi nition of disease differs in various cultural and historical environments and is a part of the “vision of the world and of man”. In the modern era, one can speak about the successive changes in the ideals of science, including the medical sciences, designing subsequent modifi cations of the understanding of disease. Different possible approaches, cultural, anthropological, and medical, use distinct language and metaphors to present the concept of illness