The ethnography of historiography developed in the Polish People’s Republic: a historiographic and methodological case study of Karol Górski

Translated by Barbara Komorowska

The ethnography of historiography developed in communist Poland is a consequence of the ‘anthropological turn’ in historiographic and methodological studies and an aspect of the ethnography of modern thought in the field of history. This is a proposal of an anthropological view of history as a field of culture. The ethnography of modern thought in the field of history combines reflections classically preserved for the history of historiography, methodology of history and cultural anthropology. Dealing with the case of Górski and reconstructing his vision of the world and man allows for an interpretive reconstruction of the cultural ‘piece’ of historiography developed in the Polish People’s Republic and sketching a fragment of its ‘cartographic image’ and diagnosis. The diagnosis concerns the phenomenon of anthropologising history, whose local variants can be observed in historiography developed in communist Poland.