Vidurio (Rytų) Europos koncepcija Lenkijos ir Lietuvos nacionaliniuose istoriniuose naratyvuose po 1989 metų

LTXX a. paskutiniojo dešimtmečio pradžia tapo lūžio tašku regiono šalių nacionalinių istoriografijų raidai. Sovietinės sistemos griūtis atvėrė galimybes laisvai humanitarinės minties raiškai, nevaržomų akademinių ryšių atkūrimui ir idėjų apytakai. Politinės ir visuomeninės reformos, eurointegracijos procesai ir jiems atliepiantys visuomenės lūkesčiai buvusio sovietinio bloko šalių istorikus ne tik paskatino permąstyti ankstesnes praeities įvykių interpretacijas, bet ir iškėlė naujus uždavinius, visų pirma susijusius su istorinės erdvinės tapatybės problema, su savosios valstybės istorine vieta Europoje. Tradicinis Europos padalijimas į Vakarus ir Rytus ir buvusių sovietinio bloko šalių priskyrimas pastarajai žemyno daliai neatitiko naujų nacionalinės istoriografijos interesų. Ieškant kitų istorinės erdvinės tapatybės apibrėžčių buvo sugrįžta prie XX a. pirmojoje pusėje lenkų, čekų, vengrų ir kitų šalių istorikų pradėtų svarstymų apie tarpinį regiono tarp Rytų ir Vakarų modelį. [Iš straipsnio, p. 29]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Vidurio Rytų Europa; Tautiniai naratyvai; Nacionalinės istorijos; Tarpdisciplininiai tyrimai; Central Eastern Europe; National Narratives; National Histories; Interdisciplinary Researches.

ENPolitical and social reforms, European integration processes and changing social expectations urged the historians of the former Soviet Union countries to rethink the previous interpretations of the past events and to address the issues of historical-spatial identity and historical place of the states in Europe. The traditional division of Europe into West and East and the attribution of the former Soviet Union countries to the Eastern Europe did not comply with the new interests of the national historiographies. By searching for definitions of the historical-spatial identity, historians focused their attention on the debates about the intermediate model of the region between East and West initiated by Polish and other historians during the first half of the twentieth century. Most commonly, this intermediate region was identified as Central (Eastern) Europe. This study analyses the understanding and development of this specific historical and spatial construct in Polish and Lithuanian historiographies after 1989. Both in Lithuania and Poland the questions of historical positioning of the country were most intensively addressed by researchers of medieval and early modern periods. Specifically their theoretical insights and models of the historical region are the major source of the current analysis. The tasks of the research are to analyse the changes of political, cultural and academic aspirations associated with the conceptions of the Central (Eastern) Europe during the last decades and to discuss the changing understanding of the topicality of this model. These tasks are related to another research aim: to examine the specific modeling strategies of the historical region and interpretational schemes of historical development.The aim is achieved by discussing which historical phenomena, processes and trends of historical development are chosen by Lithuanian and Polish historians as the structural markers for the spatial model of historical narrative, as support for the Europeanism of the country and as evidence in finding the place of the country in the common European historical map. A significant number of research focuses on the early understanding of the intermediate region. Therefore, the first part of this work introduces the most influential developers of the Central (Eastern) European concept of the twentieth century: specifically, the ideas of Oskar Halecki and Jeno Szűcs which had a significant impact on the Polish historiography. This is supported by research on political, cultural and academic attitudes associated with the understanding of historical region presented in the second part of the work. Because of the adoption of the early attitudes, the regional conception retained the politicized nature in the post-soviet historiographic discourse. Political, societal and cultural aspirations varying from the period of separation from the Soviet Union to the European integration processes supported the viability of the concept of intermediary historical space in the Polish national historical narrative. These trends have been taken over by the Lithuanian historiography which did not have its own debates on the meso-region concept, but aimed to argue the country’s “return to Europe” and discuss the historical image of the state. The dominant political engagement had negative consequences for the further development of the regional conception: the loss of political aspirations significantly diminished attention of the historians to regional problems.This revisionist nature was strongly criticized by the historians of the region who together with researchers of other countries urged to depoliticize the conception of intermediary region or reject it by choosing alternative schemes of historical-spatial modelling. The features of the concept of historical region determined a number of issues which are in the focus of the third part of the book: the modelling of historical space; decisions of historians which territories, political structures and lands should be assigned to “our Europe” and which should be left behind the borders of the region; the application of interpretational schemes of historical processes and phenomena supporting these solutions. The socioeconomic and cultural processes which replicated the western development in the countries of the region became the most important criteria for the historical region modeling. These processes are regarded as the key signs of Europeanism. A clear orientation to the Western Europe as a model region allowed the Polish historians to draw the geographical boundaries of the Central (Eastern) Europe in the broad areas “between Germany and Russia”. The nucleus of the region became Poland, Czechia and Hungary as they best suited the regional features defined by the Polish historians. The “problematic countries” as Croatia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and part of Romania (Transylvania) as well as Slovenia, Latvia and Estonia entered the regional periphery zone. The merging of rather different countries into one space on the basis of the universal criteria of Western development evoked the problem of heterogeneity of the historical region which was constantly emphasized by the critics of regional conception. [...]. [From the publication]