The Nation Should Come First

Front matter

WARSAW STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY 1

Maciej Gorny

The Nation Should Come First

Chapter II The Organisation of Historical Sciences and the Creation

of Early Postwar Narrattons nn ennne 31

Chapter IH

At the Dawn of Feudaltem nennen 88 The Anti-Feudal Social Revolution 0.0.0... ceeecseeeceseeeeceeeeeeeeseeceneeaeeaeens 105 The Impact of the Great Socialist October Revolution on the History of East Central Europe. 178

Chapter IV

The Marxist History of Historiograpbhn 189 Historiography and the Concept of the State — German Historical SCIENCES tra A A CAE Ee 190 GDR: Rather Treitschke than Banke. 246

Chapter V EI EE 263

TEX esi IN 297

List of Abbreviations

AK — Armia Krajowa (Home Army)

BUW -Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (Warsaw University Library)

CISH — Comité International des Sciences Historiques

CPSU -— Communist Party of the Soviet Union

ČAVU — Česká Akadémie Včd a Umění (Czech Academy for Sciences and Arts) CCH -Český Časopis Historický

ČMM -Časopis Matice Moravské

ČSAV — Československá Akademie Včd (Czechoslovak Academy of

Sciences)

ČSHS - Československá Historická Společnost (Czechoslovak Historical Society)

DAW -Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (German Academy of Sciences)

DHG ` — Deutsche Historiker-Gesellschaft (German Historians’ Society)

DN — Dzieje Najnowsze

FRG — Federal Republic of Germany

GDR -German Democratic Republic

GLP —Gromady Ludu Polskiego (Communes of the Polish People) GOSR -Great October Socialist Revolution

GWU - Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht

HCSAV — Historický Časopis Slovenskej Akademii Vied

HZ — Historische Zeitschrift

JEGO — —Jahrbiicher für Geschichte Osteuropas

KH — Kwartalnik Historyczny

KPD —Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany)

KSČ -Komunistická Strana Československa (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia)

NKVD -Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs

NSZ -Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces) PAN —Polska Akademia Nauk (Polish Academy of Sciences) PH — Przegląd Historyczny

PPR — Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers” Party) PPS — Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (Polish Socialist Party)

8 List of Abbreviations

PRL — Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa (People’s Republic of Poland)

PTH -Polskie Towarzystwo Historyczne (Polish Historical Society) PZPR -Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (Polish United Workers’ Party)

SAV — Slovenska Akadémie Vied (Slovak Academy of Sciences) SAVU -Slovenská Akademia Vied a Umeni

SD — Soudobé Déjiny

SED — —Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany)

SHS —Slovenská Historická Spoločnost (Slovak Historical Society)

SNP -Slovenské Národné Povstanie (Slovak National Uprising)

U.S. — United States (of America)

TDP — Towarzystwo Demokratyczne Polskie (Polish Democratic Society)

VHD — Verband der Historiker Deutschlands (Association of Germany s Historians)

VSPHV — Vysoká škola politických a hospodářských věd (School of Politics and Economy)

ZfG — Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft

ZfO — Zeitschrift fiir Ostforschung

ZfO-F - Zeitschrift fiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung

Introduction Writing Comparative Histories of Historiography

In her recently published, brilliant book about Romantic-era historiographies of Central and Eastern Europe, the Hungarian historian Monika Baar comes to the conclusion that the presumed differences between these historiographies and their supposed detachment from dominant Western European historiographies were not as compelling as had been heretofore believed. Similarities are so frequent, and so deeply ingrained, that “on closer inspection the historical narrative reveals the existence of a general template of national historiography in our era, which comprised a core story and numerous omnipresent tropes.” Not only do national historiographies share similar narrative patterns — they also relate to the same myths and images. For example, one of the things they share is the belief in the uniqueness of their own story.

Romantic-era historiography, which in Central and Eastern Europe is associated with founding father figures or innovators who reframed the task of the historian, shaped our ways of thinking about the past. In time, Romantic narratives came to be criticised and opposed, but the voices rejecting the domination of national historiography by the Romantic idea can often be seen singing the same tune. While taking positions similar to the ones chosen by Romantic historians, the critics also employed similar arguments. At first, Marxism served as an inspiration for a research attitude opposed to the early 19" century modes of historical thinking. Since the late 19" century, it has inspired social scientists. Its influence in Central and Eastern Europe peaked in the 1960s. Polish and Hungarian historians especially enjoyed success in using their methodological backgrounds and local competencies in cooperative work with the foremost scholars of France or the United States. In general, the encouraging climate for comparative research in economic and social history of the region and beyond contributed to what may have been the most productive period in the modern history of Polish and Hungarian historiography. The more austere regimes in other Eastern bloc countries — such as the GDR or Czechoslovakia —

1 Monika Baar, Historians and Nationalism: East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford 2010, 295.

10 Introduction made similar development decidedly harder to achieve, but even there one could find scholars who combined Marxist thought with an interest in comparative history and international cooperation.

Before this Marxism-inspired intellectual ferment began, each Eastern bloc country went through a more or less prolonged period of forcible, swift Sovietisation. Marxism ceased to be just one of the many options that could be embraced in one’s methodology or worldview. Reframed as Marxism-Leninism, or historical materialism, it became the publicly endorsed doctrine that defined the boundaries of history, as well as science. This book discusses four Marxist- Leninist historiographies in three real-socialist countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia and the GDR. My attention will focus on the way these historiographies dealt with the tradition of national historiography. Approaching revolutionary manifestos and projected institutional or methodological changes with caution, I inquire how Czech, Slovak, Polish and East-German selfdeclared Marxist historians approached dominant national discourses about the past. To what lengths were they prepared to go in reinterpreting the Romantic framework in a Marxist vein (as described by Monika Baar)? And if the two were irreconcilable, were historians ready to leave tradition behind or subordinate Marxist terminology and a materialist philosophy of history to a traditional way of thinking about the past?

There is, then, at least one reason why a comparative analysis suits Marxist historiographies better than historiographies of the early 19" century. Here, the similarities are not limited to traits generally common to all Western historiographies. The correspondences, perhaps enforced, but nonetheless, real, also grew out of the region’s existing political situation and the imposition of a singular methodology. This makes the dearth of actual comparative research on the Communist era even more unusual. The “singularity” of the GDR’s historical narrative, which Matthias Middell observed at the turn of the millennium, often proves to have been made up of elements common to history writing in other Eastern Bloc countries as well.”

This attempt to partially fill the gap is based on a set of straightforward assumptions. Two of them seem to be of key importance in the context of my research. At the same time, they rather pointedly illustrate the problems faced by comparative history, bound up as they are with a specific practical example.

First, the comparison in question must not fail to take account of mutual influences, the interactions between different historiographies, as well as the influence of Soviet historiography on East Central European historians. Otherwise

2 Matthias Middell, “Kulturtransfer und Historische Komparatistik — Thesen zu ihrem Verhältnis,” Comparativ 10 (2000), 1, 30.

Writing Comparative Histories of Historiography 11 the image resulting from the comparison would amount to nothing more than a schematic juxtaposition. According to Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, this is one of the major dangers of comparative study. However, it can be averted if the comparative study is informed by knowledge gained from the study of cultural transfers. Werner and Zimmermann propose a histoire croisée, which „breaks with a one-dimensional perspective that simplifies and homogenizes, in favour of a multidimensional approach that acknowledges plurality and the complex configurations that result from it. Accordingly, entities and objects of research are not merely considered in relation to one another but also through one another, in terms of relationship, interactions and circulation.” In relation to Marxist historiographies discussed in this book, this translates into the necessity not only to take mutual influences into account, but also to reflect on the relationships between these countries and other states beyond East Central Europe. The image of Slovak historiography — whether Marxist or not — is never complete if it does not reflect on its relationship to the work of Hungarian historians. A similar focus is necessary when studying the works from GDR historians, whose attitude toward West German historians and historical narratives is particularly relevant to the study of East German historiography. As I also believe, it is important to note that no transfer of ideology or interpretative framework culminates in a state of total domination or the formation of one historiography by another. This observation is particularly useful when considering the relationships between any one of the Eastern bloc historiographies and Soviet historical sciences. Even if one could never treat them as equal, to describe any one of these relationships in terms of unilateral domination would be fundamentally inaccurate. Middell’s idea of comparative history moving from bilateral toward multilateral perspectives finds an apt illustration in the comparative study of Marxist-Leninist historiographies.* By juxtaposing two examples “cleansed” of non-bilateral influences, not only would we produce a distorted image, we would also make it more difficult to develop a proper reading of the complex processes behind the adoption of intellectual currents, ideologies or even systems of science.

Second, I believe that a comparison should not be “rigid,” 1.e., limited to an analysis of the way each historiography treats a specific, narrowly defined topic. Already in its heroic period during the early 19" century, historiography was both an inspiration for the study of problems faced by the community and a source of answers to such problems — concerning questions of the community’s genealogy, its rightful territory, or characteristics of its collective psychology.

3 Michael Werner, Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity,” History and Theory 45 (2006), 38. 4 Middell, “Kulturtransfer,” 39-40.

12 Introduction

At the same time, historians gave substance to the fundamental myths undergirding these communities. As a rule, they aimed to make their compatriots happy rather than forcing them to critically rethink their own positions or self-evaluations. If we focus on the themes that recur throughout different national cultures, the myths that tell the same old story with the support of different details, then chronological turning points will prove to be of secondary importance. Instead of rigidly comparing Marxist interpretations of specific epochs, I begin my analysis by examining the role particular historical phenomena played in the collective memory as well as in the historiography of a given nation, which is important because historiography comprises both a part of that memory and a medium for its dissemination. I believe that this kind of functional comparison can yield many positive results, even if it often leads one to connect ostensibly unrelated facts. The reader of this book will easily notice that this functional comparison is used, for instance, to set the Czech and Slovak national revival against the Polish uprisings. The Medieval expansion of East German feudal lords or the battle of the Teutoburg Forest, that pitted Germanic barbarian tribes against the Roman legions, are seen simply as different examples of the same historiographical narrative. Looking for instances of social revolt against growing feudal oppression, Marxists from different countries of the Eastern bloc traversed national histories with apparent ease, building analogies between events as far apart as the Great Peasant Revolt and the activities of the Carpathian robbers. Such unusual juxtapositions grow out of Thomas Welskopp’s Max Weber-inspired idea of fashioning comparative models that can prove useful in describing different circumstances.’ The goal is not to come up with a universal schema, but rather — as Welskopp and Weber claim — to lend substance to an idea of how things would have developed had history taken a different route. A comparative study produces data about potential possibilities of historical development, which, while speculative, are still more realistic than pure speculation.

The history of historiography in general, and particularly the history of Marxist historiography, can benefit greatly from this kind of comparative study, or histoire croisée, and not only because new facts might be uncovered, relations between different countries highlighted, and mutual inspirations and borrowings underlined. In my opinion, however, the greatest premium which this kind of approach can provide us is the rare chance to take temporary leave of our own backyard and look at it from the outside, through the eyes of another. In this

5 Thomas Welskopp, “Stolpersteine auf dem Königsweg. Methodenkritische Anmerkungen zum internationalen Vergleich in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte,” Archiv fiir Sozialgeschichte 35 (1995), 365-367.

Writing Comparative Histories of Historiography 13 light, what once was considered exceptional often proves extremely typical and schematic, that which seemed dangerously pathological becomes the grim norm, and that which looked quite obvious seems suddenly inexplicable. The comparative approach is therefore useful outside of comparative studies as well. Some of its tools appear to be indispensable if we are to advance any reliable historical claims that go beyond stating obvious facts.

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The circle of people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for the help and inspiration they offered during my work on this book is very broad and continues to expand. To all those whom I thanked in the Polish (2007) and German (2011) editions, I would like to add the employees of my home institution, the Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences, without whose aid this considerable undertaking would not have gained the necessary financial support. The translator, editor and publisher know how highly I value their involvement in our common work. Finally, at the risk of sounding ingratiating, I would like to thank the quite sizeable group of reviewers of previous editions of my book. The differences between the successive editions are to a significant extent due to their critical observations.

Chapter I Method

One of the most intriguing characteristics of the history of Marxist historiography in the last twenty years is its separation from the agenda of a “general” history of historiography. It is, on the one hand, a somewhat-“natural” side effect of the largely unchallenged position that the year 1945 is a turning point in recent history. But it is also, on the other hand, a reflex of post-1989 historical and political debates which spread their influence over historical science. Polish, Slovak, Czech, and German authors decisively distinguish between the historiography of the 19" century and that of the interwar period on the one side, and postwar Marxist-Leninist historical science on the other. Attempts at unifying both periods are rare and, even if they meet in the same book, the qualitative difference between them is emphatically marked. One of the most frequent oppositions discussed after 1989 was embodied in the contrast: “continuity or discontinuity.” Whereas the answer seems to be more than obvious: Marxism of the Soviet type has nothing to do with “normal” historiography. It was an attempt — to use the formulation of Polish historian of science Piotr Hiibner — to decapitate the intellectual elite.“

This post-1989 narrative identifies Marxist methodology as a part of an external attempt to subordinate and control the historians’ milieu. As soon as the deepest incursions of Stalinism had abated, historians were able to go back to their previous ideals, running their business more or less as usual.’ Even when — as happened after 1968 in Czechoslovakia — there was a backlash of a strong dictatorship and a revitalisation of Stalinist narratives, the dichotomised picture remains dominant: a clear division between historians on one side and Communist party functionaries on the other.“

6 Piotr Hübner, “Stalinowskie ‘czystki? w nauce polskiej,” in: Skryte oblicze systemu komunistycznego. U źródeł zła, ed. Roman Backer % Piotr Hiibner, Warszawa 1997, 220.

7 See Maciej Górny, “ Przełom metodologiczny’ na łamach ‘Przeglądu Historycznego” na tle wybranych czasopism historycznych w Europie Środkowowschodniej,” Przegląd Historyczny 2006/1, 39-48.

8 See Michal Kopeéek, “In search of ‘national memory.’ The politics of history, nostalgia and the historiography of communism in the Czech Republic and East Central Europe,”

The notion of discontinuity, as it is being used in the post-1989 history of historiography, refers not only to the scientific policy of Communist regimes, but also to dominant historical narratives. As Rafat Stobiecki puts it, Marxists — rather unwittingly — destroyed elemental social ties of historical continuity linking state and nation.’ The East Central European Marxism of the 1950s was thus clearly perceived as a gap in the development of historical science. In the historical debates that arose immediately after the collapse of Communism in East Central Europe, the notion of “white spots” (among others) was intended to represent the difference between ‘Communist’ historiography and the new, truly scientific, non-ideological historical science. The debates submitted to the logic of the totalitarian paradigm. Whereas Polish historians discussed the status of the People’s Republic of Poland (Polska, Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL), describing it variously as a case of Soviet occupation or limited independence, of a totalitarian or authoritarian regime etc.;'° in Czechoslovakia the Communist regime was declared unlawful and criminal; the thematic rupture, coupled with an increased interest in the history of political resistance and dissent, automatically brought on criticism of pre-1989 historiography. One of the interesting effects of this process was a sudden popularity of source literature, epitomising the “historical truth.”

To historians of historiography, the events of 1989 brought open access to archives, including the archives of the Communist party. It allowed them to study issues such as the balance of power in historical institutions, ways in which authorities influenced historians, personal connections, interdependences and conflicts, which were previously more or less known, but had no available evidentiary support in the documentary record. These new possibilities aroused an immense interest in the history of historiography in 1990s, especially in Germany. Dozens of historians (most prominently Konrad Jarausch, Matthias in: Past in the making. Historical revisionism in Central Europe after 1989, ed. Michal Kopeček, Budapest 2008, 78-80.

9 Rafał Stobiecki, Historia pod nadzorem. Spory o nowy model historii w Polsce (II połowa lat czterdziestych — początek lat pięćdziesiątych, Łódź 1993, 182. See also his article, “Between Continuity and Discontinuity: A Few Comments on the Post-War Development of Polish Historical Research,” Zeitschrift fiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 2001/2, 214-229.

10 The 1990s public debate over the nature of the Communist regime in Poland is analysed by Anna Magierska, Dylematy historii PRL, Warszawa 1995. For an international perspective, consult Obrachunki z historią, ed. Włodzimierz Borodziej, Warszawa 1997.

11 For the post-1989 East Central European debates on the legacy of Communism, consult the collective volume: Narratives unbound. Historical studies in post-communist Eastern Europe, eds. Sorin Antohi, Balazs Trencsényi, Péter Apor, Budapest 2007.

Middell and Martin Sabrow) agreed concerning the end of these political debates: “To escape from the vicious circle of mutual accusations and egoistic self-admiration, we need to critically historicise GDR historiography.”'” From this perspective, new research should focus on a comparison between East German and other historiographies of the East Bloc as well as historical science in Nazi Germany.

This approach became a wholeheartedly embraced practice in Poland, in the Czech Republic, and in Slovakia. Polish works devoted to this aspect of history focus on such phenomena as the conference in Otwock (1951-52, planned as an official imposition of Marxism on Polish historiography), the Party-governed colleges, or the Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences (founded in 1953 under Marxist auspices). Research on Czechoslovak historiography develops more or less along the same lines. The turning points in this case are: the last democratic congress of Czech historians in 1947, the purges accompanying the Communist takeover in 1948, and institutional changes concomitant with the persecution of professors and students. German and Polish historians were the first to analyse the impact of political censorship on historical writings.” The main research question for all the scholars in this field is whether continuity was maintained in historical sciences, or if Stalinism did cause a personnel and institutional break.

The Verwissenschafilichung (which in this context means “professionalisation”) of research on GDR historiography became the topic of a special issue of Historische Zeitschrift in 1998.'* Some of the texts it includes may be treated as research suggestions for the near future (and in fact Czech

12 Konrad Jarausch & Matthias Middel, “Einleitung. Die DDR als Geschichte: Verurteilung, Nostalgie oder Historisierung?,” in: Nach dem Erdbeben. (Re-)Konstruktion ostdeutscher Geschichte und Geschichtswissenschaft, eds. Konrad Jarausch & Matthias Middel, Leipzig 1994.

13 Zbigniew Romek, “Cenzura w PRL a historiografia — pytania i problemy badawcze,” in: Metodologiczne problemy syntezy historii historiografii polskiej, ed. Jerzy Maternicki, Rzeszów 1998; Cenzura w PRL — relacje historyków, ed. Zbigniew Romek, Warszawa 2000; idem, Cenzura a nauka historyczna w Polsce 1944-1970, Warszawa 2010; Siegfried Lokatis, “Die Zensur historischer Literatur in der DDR unter Ulbricht,” in: Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft als Forschungsproblem, eds. Georg Iggers, Konrad Jarausch, Matthias Middel & Martin Sabrow, Miinchen 1998; idem, “Die Zensur historischer Literatur in der DDR,” in: Geschichte als Argument. 41. Deutscher Historikertag in Miinchen 17. bis 20. September 1996. Berichtband, eds. Stefan Weinfurter & Frank Siefarth, Miinchen 1997.

14 Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft als Forschungsproblem...

scholar Martin Nodl adopted a majority of them to Czech historiography). These were, to name but a few: relations between East German historians and their ideological opponents from the Bundesrepublik,“ opposition to and collaboration with the authorities, and relations between power and historical science, or censorship. The same topics are discussed at least to an extent in Polish, Czech and Slovak historical works.

The same Sonderheft included a text by Frank Hadler and Georg Iggers, discussing the possibility of a comparative analysis of various Communist historiographies.'’ John Connelly’s analysis of Polish, Czechoslovak and East German universities under Stalinisation is without a doubt a prominent example of the advantages offered by such an approach.'®

The first appeals for the use of postmodernism in research on Marxist historiography were made in Germany. In the aforementioned special issue of Historische Zeitschrift from 1998, Konrad Jarausch proposed postmodernism as a tool for interpreting East German historical science.“ In 2000, during a congress of German historians in Aachen, the issue was debated by Jarausch, Matthias Middell and Martin Sabrow, among others.” Their postulates were almost immediately — at least in a formal sense — put into practice, with contemporary German authors analysing the Meistererzählung (master

15 Martin Nodl, “Možné prístupy ke studiu dějin české historické vědy v letech 1945- 2000," Soudobé Déjiny 2001.

16 Martin Sabrow, “Die Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR und ihr ‘objektiver Gegner": Rainer Eckert, “Die Westbeziehungen der Historiker im Auge der Staatssicherheit”; Wolfgang Mommsen, “Die DDR-Geschichtsschreibung aus westdeutscher Perspektive,” all in: Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft als Forschungsproblem....

17 Frank Hadler & Georg Iggers, “Úberlegungen zum Vergleich der DDR- Geschichtswissenschaft mit den ‘gespaltenen’ Historiographien Ostmitteleuropas nach 1945,” in: Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft als Forschungsproblem...

18 John Connelly, Captive University. The Sovietisation of East German, Czech and Polish Higher Education 1945-1956, Chapel Hill — London 2000.

19 Konrad Jarausch, “Historische Texte der DDR aus der Perspektive des linguistic turn,” in: Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft als Forschungsproblem....

20 Konrad Jarausch & Martin Sabrow, “Das Konzept der ‘historischen Meistererzählung’ als Mafšstab eines deutsch-deutsches Historiographievergleichs,” in: 43. Deutscher Historikertag Aachen 2000. Skriptheft 2 Eine Welt — eine Geschichte?, eds. Max Kerner, Peter Droste, Angelika Ivens & Cornelia Kompe, Aachen 2000; Matthias Middel, “Historische Meistererzähllung und Institutionalisierung in der Geschichtswissenschaft,” in: ibidem; Martin Sabrow, “Bauformen einer erneuerten nationalen Meistererzählung in der DDR: das Lehrbuch der deutschen Geschichte,” in: ibidem.

narrative) and the Herrschafisdiskurs (discourse of power) within the GDR.” The best practical example of the advantages and disadvantages of this method is Martin Sabrow’s book Das Diktat des Konsenses. Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR 1949-1969. It is based on broad archival research and describes not only various aspects of party dictate, but also the initiatives of historical circles. Sabrow analyses (in a very detailed, but somewhat tiring manner) mechanisms for the creation of rules in GDR historical discourse. The image he comes up with is much more complicated than a one-way model of the subordination of science to politics. Sabrow points to the moments when historians themselves disciplined their colleagues, creating an efficient system of self-control and thus reducing the need for direct political intervention. But, surprisingly, Sabrow devotes relatively little attention to a seemingly vital problem — the analysis of historical narratives, rhetoric, style or strategies of argumentation. Thus, his analysis is not a deconstruction of the content of GDR historiography but a description of historical sciences in the GDR. Because of this, one might wonder whether postmodernist notions are truly useful in this type of analysis. Nevertheless, Sabrow’s influence on later international research cannot be denied. In some cases — as in the recent monograph of Slovak Marxist historiography by Adam Hudek — the outcome may be a well-balanced mix of institutional and textual analysis.“

Sabrow’s interesting attempt has one more feature that seems characteristic of the new type of German research into the history of science in the GDR. The question whether or not East Germany was a totalitarian state hinges upon the issue of research professionalisation. German authors generally relate to contemporary definitions of totalitarianism, concluding that none of them fully describes the GDR: the dictatorship of the Communist Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) was seriously limited, ergo, the GDR could not have been a totalitarian state. This explains why John Connelly’s claims concerning the Sovietisation of Central European universities met with a rather cold response in Germany.” Instead of referring to abstract models, Connelly compared the reality of scholarly work in the GDR to the situation of

21 See Die historische Meistererzihlung. Deutungslinien der deutschen Nationalgeschichte nach 1945, eds. Konrad Jarausch & Martin Sabrow, Göttingen 2002 (herein especially: Martin Sabrow, “Auf der Suche nach dem marxistischen Meisterton. Bauformen einer nationalen Gegenerzählung in der DDR”).

22 Martin Sabrow, Das Diktat des Konsenses. Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR 1949- 1969, München 2001.

23 Adam Hudek, Najpolitickejsia veda. Slovenska historiografia v rokoch 1948-1968, Bratislava 2010.

24 See Konrad Jarausch’s review in Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 2002/2.

scholarship under Polish and Czechoslovak Stalinism. Such a comparison inevitably leads to the conclusion that, even if none of these countries was actually totalitarian, East Germany came surely the closest to clear-cut totalitarianism.

In the programmatic article cited above, Konrad Jarausch opposed deconstructivism in the history of historiography to a simplified formula, within which Marxist historiography is analysed exclusively in its legitimising function. Jarausch noted that “The common critique of the instrumentalisation of historiography in the GDR leads to the tricky question: what to do with all those libraries full of East German intellectual heritage.” Postmodern analyses are supposed to yield as broad an image of historiography as possible, and not be restricted only to one function of it (regardless of its importance). Nevertheless, despite all the conceptual differences, those two different approaches often lead to similar effects. Characteristically, a number of recent works on the historical legitimisation of political power in East Central Europe show a solid background in theories of sociology, visibly exceeding the typical level of engagement with sociological theory for each of the respective historiographies.“ Although historiography is not always accorded a central position (for instance, by Marcin Zaremba), it is always referred to as an important legitimising tool. In most cases, however, historians dealing with the process of legitimisation through historiography look at the problem from the perspective of rulers and their need for history (or their fear of history) rather than considering historiography as a science or art with its own tradition. Furthermore, the period researched (whether it is a Communist or Nazi dictatorship) is often treated in isolation from the rest of national history, as an abnormality contrasting with the supposedly “normal” before and after.“ All this leads back to the simplified ascriptions of totalitarianism. The paradox is even more striking if we consider that those works commonly conclude that Communists eagerly borrowed nationalist ideas — in other words, that they borrowed a lot from their predecessors.

Opposition towards the tendency to treat Marxist historiography, or, more generally, the culture of the Communist period, in isolation may have different reasons behind it. According to Jarausch and Sabrow, Marxist historical science should not be compared to “normal” historiographies of the democratic, liberal West. They believe that the research on historiography in the GDR should be conducted without reference to what was happening simultaneously in the

25 Marcin Zaremba, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm. Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja władzy komunistycznej w Polsce, Warszawa 2001; Michal Kopećek, “Ve službách dčjin, ve jménu národa. Historie jako součást legitimizace komunistických režimú ve stfedni Evropč v letech 1948-1950,” Soudobé Déjiny 2001/1.

26 See Marcin Zaremba, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm..., 398.

Federal Republic of Germany.“ Within this scheme, historiography is perceived as a part of the Herrschaftsdiskurs, but it is also a science, so East German historians should not be judged in the same way as journalists of Neues Deutschland. GDR historiography is supposed to be analysed only as an aspect of the SED’s dictatorial rule.

Another German-American historian Georg Iggers seems to be of a different opinion. He questions sharp distinctions between historiography under dictatorial and democratic rule. In both cases, history serves non-scientific purposes. From this point of view, Marxist historians of the Eastern Bloc may stand in line with Michelet, Droysen or Palacký.” Iggers obviously believes that “objective historiography” is a purely normative term, but as Karl Popper said, historians may try to show wie es eigentlich nicht gewesen.”

The idea of supporting the treatment of the history of historiography as a continuous effort, without subjecting the 45 postwar years to exclusive treatment, seems very appealing. The works of John Connelly and others highlight the fascinating encounters between tradition and “Sovietisation,” including the pressures applied and concessions made in view of creating a new compromise. To answer the question whether historical science maintained continuity during the era or not, we should refer not only to the dimension of personal or institutional politics; of equal importance are the questions whether Marxist historiographies follow in the footsteps of their bourgeois predecessors, and if so, how. The title of one of Sabrow’s books, Das Diktat des Konsenses, could be used to describe relations not only between historians and authorities but also between Marxist historical narratives and the national traditions in Poland, the GDR and Czechoslovakia.