Wokół „kompleksu wypędzenia”. Polska debata historyczna w pierwszej dekadzie po przełomie w stosunkach bilateralnych

Abstract

The political breakthrough in Polish–German relations in 1989/1990 resulted in sparking discussion on important issues concerning forced migrations in Europe in the 20th century – namely, displacement of Germans from the lands incorporated into Poland in 1945. Research on this problem in Poland and divided Germany, limited by political factors in the first 40 postwar years, could be undertaken in full extent and in collaboration only after the fall of communism. The efforts of historians and scholars from other fields of humanities were accompanied by a vivid debate among the general public, for which in the 1990s the press was an active forum. Till the beginning of the 21st century, several scholarly analyses and source collections have been published, which form the foundation of this part of Polish historiography until the present day. However, the assessment of the social resonance of these efforts is not unambiguous. Indeed, the taboo which this topic had been in Poland has been broken, but the researchers achieved only limited success in disseminating their findings among the general public.