Love of Wide Open Waters. The Polish Maritime Programme according to the Baltic and Western Institutes in the Aftermath of the Second World War (1945–ca. 1950)

Abstract

This article analyses the Polish maritime programme after the Second World War, as expressed in scholarship of two main Polish research institutions: the Baltic Institute and the Western Institute. Given the considerable border changes at the end of the war, which incorporated a long coastline and three major ports on the Baltic Sea (Danzig/Gdańsk, Stettin/Szczecin and Gdynia) into post-war Poland, the maritime programmes gained a new basis for operations in comparison to the interwar period, and thus had to be adapted accordingly. They contained both continuities and modifications: in ideological terms they were based on the prewar premises of Poland’s origins as a Baltic Sea country, and had a strong anti-German dimension. On the other hand, they were more pragmatic and concentrated on the organization of the maritime economy and education. Similarly as in the interwar period, they were also seen as a modernizing project: the maritime economy and education were supposed to connect the Polish nation with the whole world, and thus assure its equal status as part of the Western world.