Rycerze,nacjonaliści i historycy. Obraz średniowiecznych Prus w okresie od oświecenia po 1945 rok
The Knights, Nationalists and the Historians: Images of Medieval Prussia from the Enlightenment to 1945

Summary/Abstract: The history of the Teutonic Order has long inspired not only historians, but also poets, painters, journalists and filmmakers. In Germany, however, after 1945 the circle of those interested in the history of the Order diminished to a narrow group of professional medievalists whose names are obviously not commonly known. This decline in interest was observed both in Western and Eastern Germany. In Poland the situation was altogether different, as the authorities considered supporting the interest in the Teutonic Knights an element of a wider plan of steering social emotions, memory and awareness. At various times the history of the Order, or rather its symbolic version, was exploited to legitimize a range of very different political goals. In the article forwards the claim that the shape of the present largely determines the way of writing about the past. The article provides a compact review of the subject matter from the Enlightenment to the present times, highlighting several aspects of the “posthumous” ideological life of the Teutonic Order.

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