Między mitem a polityczną racjonalnością. Myśl historyczna Pawła Jasienicy i jej recepcja w dobie Polski Ludowej

Between Myth and Political Rationality. Paweł Jasienica’s Interpretation of Polish History and its Reception in the Era of the Polish People’s RepublicKnown for writing popular books on the history of Poland, Paweł Jasienica (1909–1970) established himself as one of the most distinguished, non-fiction authors of his era. Looked upon as an history writer who exercised his craft in defiance of the Marxist paradigm, he gained much popularity in the Polish People’s Republic, reaching bestseller status. It would probably be difficult to find a history-lover – at least during the Communist era – who never read one of his books. The paper presented here deals with Jasienica’s historical thought. It has been divided into two parts. The first one aims at offering some insight into key elements of his vision of Polish history, while the second one deals with the reception of his books in the period of the Polish People’s Republic. The author advances the thesis that the interpretation of Polish history put forward by Jasienica had the foundation myth at its core. It was already unknown predecessors of Mieszko the First whom Jasienica wanted to give credit for establishing a code of political action to be followed by future generations of the Polish people. Following the code was necessary to keep the country on the right track. It included abandonment of imperialistic tendencies in what – for want of a better word – can be referred to as foreign policy. Founding fathers of Poland were perspicacious enough to know that they should confine themselves to uniting the so-called “core” Polish lands. Not only were they prepared to drop any plans for territorial expansion but they also fostered the policy of religious toleration, which went hand in hand with their willingness to forge alliances with Pagan rulers whenever it was found necessary for the protection of the country.Jasienica was unstinting in his praise of almost all historical rulers of the Piast dynasty for their adherence to the code just mentioned. Their attitude allowed Poland to survive all historical storms. Unlike the Piast monarchs, however, those of the Jagiellonian dynasty failed – argued Jasienica in the first phase of his writing career – to rely for the conduct of their policy on the ancient principles, inculcating into the Polish politics standards and habits which compared highly unfavorably with those once established by legendary rulers of Poland. With the conclusion of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, the country embarked on a policy clearly out of tune with what Jasienica considered to have been the real Polish ways, veering sharply off its right European track.However, in his last books he changed his views to a surprising extent. The union which at first seemed to be a source of most problems Poland was supposed to struggle with for years to come, now, in the trilogy written in the second phase of his career and dealing with the history of Poland from 1572 to 1795 was glorified as a great historic achievement worth copying by other European nations. The most important conclusion arrived at in the second part of the paper is that critical remarks to be found in the reviews of his books tended to fracture the aforementioned mythical framework of Jasienica’s interpretation of Polish history.