Historia gospodarcza Polski przedrozbiorowej – porzucone terytorium?

Abstrakt

The Economic History of Pre-partition Poland – an Abandoned Territory?

(Summary)

The economic history of the pre-industrial epoch flourished in Poland from the 1950s to the 1970s. On the basis of extensive archival research, and influenced by the Western Marxist approach as much as by the Annales school, it developed several interpretations of the relative backwardness of Polish lands in a broader European context. In the 1970s and later on, many economic historians turned to other fields, particularly social history. The reasons for this departure include, on the one hand, Marxist and the Annales paradigms, and, on the other hand, the Polish historians’ low familiarity with the most recent theoretical and methodological trends in economic history as practiced in the West. Nowadays, the economic dimension is present in research mostly insofar as it plays a supportive role in an analysis of social and political institutions, with particular importance attached to studies on the clientele system within the nobility. What is visibly lacking – in comparison with recent interests in economic history in the West – is research into long-term economic growth and its institutional determinants.