ABSTRACT
The Polish theory of history owes much to the inspiration drawn from Hayden White’s ideas, but it is also a constant transgression of White’s thoughts. The cognising cultures of history that Topolski, Pomian, and Tokarczuk create and study bear the stamp of their “today”: the place and time in which they were created. And at the same time they show us, the recipients of their texts, how the past can be present – actively present – in our Contemporary. They demonstrate what causative power it has, both in motivating people to act and in ultimately and directly affecting their collective actions – the past as history. This is what distinguishes their approach to history from the metahistorical reflection of Hayden White, who, by default, avoids posing ontological questions.
