One of the main purposes of historical education at post-secondary school is to present to students history of Europe understood as a common civilisation. According to their opinion, the fact thatKievan Rus’ had received the Christian faith from Byzantium—in contrast to its western and northern neighbours—made the country enter the circle of Eastern Christianity. At the same time the authors present their opinion that the formal cleavage of Christian civilisation took place only in the 11th century, and a civilizational separation of Kievan Rus’ was forced by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. As a result, the culture of the Grand Duchy of Moscow—and its successor, Russia—differed immensely and was isolated from Europe. Russia preserved its specificity both after the reforms of Peter the Great and in the 19th century, when it was a great European power playing a key role in the political arena of contemporary Europe....
Nieinwazyjne badania twierdzy Apsaros, wykonane w dniach 15–30 czerwca 2012 roku, miały na celu uzyskanie informacji pozwalających na odpowiednie przygotowanie dalszych pracy badawczych (wskazanie lokalizacji wykopów) na tym stanowisku, zaplanowanych przez Centrum Archeologii Śródziemnomorskiej UW. W ramach podjętych działań wykonano zdjęcia z powietrza, pomiary topograficzne i rozpoznanie geofizyczne z zastosowaniem metody magnetycznej. Pozyskane dane opracowano w postaci ortofotomap, trójwymiarowych modeli rozkładu rejestrowanych wartości parametrów fizycznych gruntu, kolorowych i czarno-białych map zmian wartości wektora całkowitego natężenia pola magnetycznego i wartości pseudogradientu jego składowej poziomej hz. Umieszczenie danych w ujednoliconym systemie koordynat geograficznych (UTM strefa 37 T) pozwala na lokalizację wydzielonych anomalii geofizycznych w terenie i zaplanowanie koniecznych sondaży wykopaliskowych w miejscach prawdopodobnego występowania pozostałości zabudowy wewnątrz twierdzy....
Ceremonial has always played a great role among European and Middle Eastern societies, reflecting the value systems cherished by their elites. Embassy instructions and envoys' reports provide valuable material concerning codes of behavior in early modern diplomacy. What was considered "proper," and how was an envoy expected to behave in order to stress his sovereign's dignity and power? Oriental courts in Istanbul and Bahçesaray developed elaborate ceremonials for foreign envoys. Forced into a deep prostration before the Muslim ruler, sometimes even threatened with physical violence, Polish envoys deeply resented their humiliation. Some of them sought comfort in alcohol, others produced fabulous reports of their imaginary altercations with Ottoman and Crimean dignitaries, and others found pleasure and revenge in contemptuous descriptions of their hosts' "barbarous" habits. Until recently, such diplomatic reports have been used in Polish historiography almost uncritically. Yet such reports often tell us more about their authors' mentalities than about the world they pretend to describe....
This is a paper presented at the meeting organized at Paris in 2012 to commemorate the 50 years of activity of the Center of Polish Culture at Sorbonne. The Center was organized by Bronislaw Geremek, an eminent Polish historian who played an important political role in the anti-communist movement many years later, and who became the Minister of Foreign Aff airs after the communism. Both Universities established the Center to facilitate contacts of Polish and French social scientists, difficult at the time of communism. The Polish communist government encouraged this endeavour to smooth the contacts with France, which seemed more independent from the United States than other Western countries. Polish social scientists used this political conjuncture to built contacts with their French colleagues, especially from the “Annales” school. Fernand Braudel wanted to know the Marxist historians
from the East and he appreciated the Polish historical school. The Poles seemed him more reasonable than Marxists from most other communist countries. Quai d’Orsay looked with relative optimism to changes in Poland after 1956, so they facilitated the implementation of Braudel’s ideas. Most probably, Warsaw University was the unique University in the Eastern bloc to have such a center in Paris already in 1962.
After the fall of communism the Polish-French contacts are not as important for Polish social scientists as they were before—for the simple reason that the contacts with most other countries are easy today. Let’s hope nevertheless that the Polish French common programs will continue....