Nad brzegiem morza. Notatki na marginesie 1. Tomu „Historii sztuki filmowej 1895-1918” Jerzego Toeplitza
At the Seaside: Notes on the Margins of Volume 1 of Jerzy Toeplitz’s “Historia sztuki filmowej 1895-1918” [“History of Film Art 1895-1918”]

Summary/Abstract: The author revisits Volume 1 of Jerzy Toeplitz’s Historia sztuki filmowej 1895-1918 [History of Film Art 1895-1918] (1955) in light of new film history and the revisions made by the author thirty years after its publication. As a starting point, she outlines his professional standing in the mid-1950s and 1980s, as well as the purpose of the revision: first, the historiographical stakes of the doctoral dissertation at the time of its Polish publication; second, the foreign editions (Russian and German); and finally, the revisions introduced in the second half of the 1980s. The concept of historiographical stakes is drawn from François Alber’s analysis of Georges Sadoul’s Histoire générale du cinéma. In the case of Toeplitz’s work, the historiographical stakes concern a patriotic issue – the inclusion of Polish pioneers in the narrative of world cinema, an academic discipline – situating film history within the framework of art and cultural history, and a personal stance – that of the “Sadoul of the Eastern Bloc.” Neither the 1978 FIAF Congress in Brighton nor the crisis of Marxism at the twilight of real socialism significantly influenced his film-historical perspective.

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