Politization of history and its role on the international relations: theoretical and empirical analysis on example of polish-german relations

The German historian K. Schonhoven points out that history is a weapon in the political war for electorate and legitimization of the power. Historical politics as an instrument is used not only by authoritarian regimes but also by the democratic ones. Memories of the past are confronted and criticized at the boundary between generations, older and younger. The point is that the younger generation memory is no longer overwhelmed by the past; on the contrary, they have their own vision [Nijakowski, 2008, p. 35].

In his paper, O. Olszewski distinguished four models of historical politics: conservative, liberal, critical, and totalitarian [Olszewski, 2013, pp. 67-72]. The influence of the State or political parties on the processes of historical politics making is taken into account.

Thus, conservatism in historical politics is based on a positive vision of the historical past and the honouring of the heroes of the past [Olszewski, 2013, pp. 67-68]. This model is also characterized by the importance of historical politics in the country's foreign policy [Dudek, 2008, p. 199]. At the same time, the model mainly promotes the "white" past, but the difficult pages of the past are not considered. Accordingly, this model is criticized as one to reject historical pluralism.

The liberal model of historical politics is characterized by the least influence of a State on historical politics, the State acts as kind of observer. Such views of historical politics prevailed during the Kwasniewski presidency, who in his speech before the 1993 parliamentary election stated “today, we, the Democratic Left Alliance, declare that if we are in position to influence governance of Poland we will not be engaged in lustration, we will not destroy monuments (communism - Author's note), we will not rename streets” [Krac^ko, 1996, pp. 127-128]. D. Tusk also stand by that policy. In 1991, being a head of the Liberal Democratic Congress party he stated “" We cannot continue to go round in circles, constantly refer to Czestochowa, the eagle in the crown and the barricades during martial law” (Dudek, 2008, p. 195), thus underlining the depoliticization of the past.

The critical model of historical politics is opposite to the conservative one. The conservative model «cleans up” the history and the critical theory suppose the State should take responsibility for the "dark pages" of history.

The totalitarian model of historical politics has been extensively studied by R. Stobecki, who concluded that the totalitarian model was based on a complete change in public memory. In order to implement that, the state uses propaganda in addition to the media [Wiscicki and Woycicki, p. 15].

The German researchers R. Jessen and K.G. Kracht, who study memory in society issues, and focus on the problem of actors who create the past in bilateral Polish-German relations, emphasize the role of the mass media, defining them as a "daily historian" that create consciousness of citizens regarding the past of their people [Frei, 2003, p. 130]. According to them, mass media, being a powerful communication instrument influences the creation of a pattern of both peoples, Polish and German.

Having studied the basic definitions and approaches to historical politics, we can determine the following results.

There is no compromise in the scientific environment about the concept of "historical politics". Thus, the term "national memory policy" with national connotation is common among Ukrainian scholars. The term "historical politics» which is a calque German "Geschichtspolitik" is popular in Poland. In Germany, the terms "memory of culture", "policy regarding the past" and "policy of memory" are popular [Hahn, 2013, pp. 146-148].

CONCLUSIONS

Before presenting the definition of historical politics and the role of actors, we can state that there are two approaches: instrumental and value-based. At the same time, the instrumental approach is inherent in historical politics. On the contrary, the value-based approach is applied to the "policy of the past". In the context of the instrumental approach, we can note that the formation of historical politics is done top to down, that is, from the State and its bodies to the social units. The value -based approach is characterized by initiative in this process of society, which means widening initiatives and visions of the past bottom up.

It should be noted that the value-based approach is characteristic for German historical politics and instrumental for the post-Soviet countries, including Poland.

Historical event and vision of its past by various political and social entities is the objects of historical politics.

The actors of historical politics are individuals, social groups and political organizations, the State and its institutions.

Depending on the active use of historical politics in the political life of the State, there are four models: conservative, liberal, totalitarian and critical.

Analyzing Polish, German, Russian and Ukrainian approaches to historical politics understanding, the following should be mentioned:

- there is no single approach to understanding “historical politics” concept in the scientific literature. Moreover, the understanding depends on specific historical-political conditions of the State's development;

- the «historical politics" concept is interdisciplinary. Although its introduction is associated with the postpositive revolution in historical science in the late 60's of the XX century, in the 80-90's of the same century it became the object of study in sociology and political science, and in the XXI century in the theory of international relations;

- historical politics is a source of integration of the nation, however ways of historical politics using depend on the same political and historical development of the country and the nation.

Having considered the abovementioned facts, we are presenting our own interpretation of historical memory policy. Thus, historical memory policy is a sphere of political activities of various social units, from individual to State, which manifest itself in conscious action to form a vision of historical events in a society and to use it to building support among society or its groups. It is characterized by a different degree of its presence in a society, from minimum discourse to the maximum; the latter is equivalent to propaganda. Further in the text we will use the term “historical politics” since that would not bring significant changes to our study. At the same time, when considering issues on the formation of the historical politics of Germany we will also use the terms “policy regarding the past”, and “culture of memory”. This is due to approaches to the implementation of historical politics which are described above.

It should be noted that the historical politics version that exists in the countries of Eastern Europe, and especially in Poland and Ukraine, is a more likely and more realistic option. It should be noted that historical politics is a part of national identity and therefore an integral part of the State's activity. Moreover, this element is exacerbated during conflicts or wars on the international area.

Unlike historical politics, the German model of politics regarding the past and culture of memory is, for the most part, an idealistic view of the problem. Even the German policy in this respect has been repeatedly regulated by the State. At the same time, this influence has also taken place in the present, especially in the Centre Against Expulsions issues, which was actively supervised by E. Steinbach. The Federation of Expelled activities as regards compensation for lost property, which from time to time appear in the Polish-German relations, are also active.

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