Two Dimensions of History: An Opening Sketch
Two Dimensions of History: An Opening Sketch

Summary/Abstract: This article summarises recent disputes on politics in the face of history. The first of its three sections discusses the historical background of the Polish debate on memory. The second section presents politics confronting the history of the period 2004/5 – 2007 and what its alternative options were. In his conclusion the author considers, in the context of the phenomena presented above, how to define politics facing history, but so as to avoid the trap of ideologisation. The article’s core part describes and criticises the so-called new historical politics (2004/5–2007), which was and is still an instance of a unilateral affirmation of national history. An alternative option to such a type of politics is to approach history in terms of social dialogue. In internal discussions, what this stands for is a tolerance for the polyphony of memory, whilst externally it is about the primacy of cross-border policies with regards to memory.

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