ABSTRACT
A critical dialogue with Hayden White’s work began in Poland in the 1980s in the circle of Jerzy Topolski’s methodological school. The reception of the American metahistorian’s ideas in Poland has gone through different phases: from distancing, through sympathetic interpretation, a period of fascination, to critical analysis and a kind of dialectical Aufhebung, as the author will try to show in Chapter 1, devoted to the methodological thought of Jerzy Topolski (1928–1998). The oeuvre of this world-famous Polish methodologist and theoretician of history impresses with the sheer breadth of its subject matter: from the methodology of historical research/historical praxis and the theory of historical knowledge to the theory of historical narration and the history-making theory and its innovatory character. Similar to Hayden White’s, Topolski’s circle of reception and influence was global, though never as spectacular as the former. They grew out of different philosophical traditions (Marxism in the former case, analytic philosophy in the latter), and both were able to recognise the limitations of their backgrounds and develop their own theories, which brought them international recognition. No wonder then that the work of Jerzy Topolski is worthy of recognition and international promotion, all the more so because towards the end of his life he was working on an anti-White’s New Theory of Historical Narration, whose assumptions have been reconstructed here by Pomorski, thanks to notes found him in the Topolski’s private papers. The presentation of this original and unique theory of historical narration is the most important part of this chapter.
