Trumna mego narodu. Słowianie połabscy w wybranych narracjach historiograficznych długiego wieku XIX

Abstract

The paper is a translation of Chapter 10 of the book Stopy zapomenutého lidu (“Traces of a forgotten people”), originally published in Czech in 2006. The author describes and analyzes different ways in which the history of Polabian Slavs was depicted in the works of Slavic and German scholars starting from the turn of the 19th century through the final years before the First World War. The paper traces the way in which the past has been (re)interpreted in the current political context and used to support cultural and social movements, notably, Pan-Slavist ideas on the one hand, and the unification of Germany on the other. The translator has complemented the text by adding a number of footnotes and bibliographic refe­rences not present in the original publication.