From the history of Polish archaeology studies of the beginning of the Polish state 1948–1966 („Millennium Program”)

Abstract

Situation of Polish archeology in 1945 literally and figuratively resembled a “landscape after battle” (Stobiecki 2007: 106). Due to war military operations, nearly one third of the archeologists had died1 (Gurba 2005: 257–264) and those who survived, were facing unprecedented problems. They had to recreate museum collections, commence academic education, and prepare research programs; however, they also had to figure out their place in the new sociopolitical reality, forced on Poland through the decision of the Big Three conference in Yalta and Potsdam (change of borders, loss of independence, and communists taking over power). The question about the “shape” of the reviving archeology had taken a key significance. Venturing a generalization of sorts, it can be said that there was a clash between the advocates of the continuation of the tradition of this discipline from the years 1918–1939 who realized the need for revisions of certain outlooks, and their critics who favored a fundamental reconstruction of archeology based on the theory of historical materialism (Stobiecki 2006: 127–156). At the end of the 1940’s, with the arrival of the Stalinist era, the winning idea was the one advocating for the rejection of the interwar period traditions in favor of establishing the foundations of the new “socialist science” based on