Casting a glance across Balticum – Poland and her past in Arild Huitfeldt’s Chronicle

Abstract

To study the way how other nations perceived our own country has always been an interesting and significant topic for historians. Depending on the period, this may be a question of opinions among intellectual and political elites or wider masses of the population. An obvious motive for this interest is simple curiosity, produced by the desire “not to be forgotten”. More serious could be the need to obtain information which could help explain some aspects of the past, such as political decisions. They can be clarified, their rationale can be shown if we realise what the decision-makers knew about the country, with which they were dealing. It was important to learn, what facts were known, what cliches were circulating among the educated, what experiences of previous contact were preserved and remembered. Another purpose can be pointed out in the situation when a foreign description delivers a picture in some ways different to the one, common in the national memory,