The concept of the Baltic Sea region as a historical region : an analysis of the process of constructing narratives about the region's past

Abstract

This PhD thesis is a study of the development of the concept of the Baltic Sea region as a historical region in the Polish and Swedish historiographies in the interwar and post-Cold War periods. Taking as the point of departure an enthusiasm for Baltic Sea region history that appeared after the end of the Cold War, the aim is on the one hand to determine what intellectual traditions and earlier concepts the post-Cold War concept of the Baltic Sea region is based on, and on the other – to compare the two historiographies. The research shows first of all an asymmetry between the two cases in the two time periods: whereas the topic of the Baltic Sea region was discussed in Poland in the interwar period and almost ignored in the post-Cold War period, the situation in Sweden is reverse. Furthermore, two visions of the Baltic Sea region history are present in the historiography of the region: a more nationalistic one, striving first of all to secure national interests and seeing itself as an objective depiction of static past reality, and cross-national history, which adopts a post-modern view of history as an interpretation of the past, an ongoing process, and a definition of a region as a network of interactions or an arena of processes. It aims to create a basis for regional integration. These different approaches can be explained by the two countries’ distinct political cultures and intellectual traditions, but first of all - their different geopolitical situations in the interwar and the post-Cold War periods.