Polish historians in exile and the idea of East-Central Europe after 1945

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, historians have been increasingly interested in East-Central Europe. The purpose of the article is to analyse different ways of understanding the concept of East-Central Europe by Polish historians in exile after the Second World War. The author focuses attention mainly on the interpretations advanced by Oskar Halecki and Piotr S. Wandycz and, to a lesser degree, by Anna Cienciała and Marian K. Dziewanowski. All of these historians have been instrumental in making American historiographers see the history of the lands between Russia and Germany as distinct from Russian studies. Developed by P. S. Wandycz, the metaphor of a “laboratory where one tests different political systems” can be regarded as a fair representation of these historians’ understanding of the concept of East-Central Europe.