10 MILLENIUM
(Poland's Internal History under Stanislaw-August, 1880-6) and Smolenski's
writings on the Polish Enlightenment contrived to stress Poland's economic and
cultural achievements in the era of political failure. In Cracow, Kalinka diverged
from his Stanczyk colleagues, believing like De Tocqueville in France that the
destruction of the Ancien Regime was provoked by the very success of Reform.
In their separate ways, they all stressed that Poland's tragedies had not been
caused exclusively by her own failings. To that extent, they gave encouragement
to people who were working for a national, political revival, and deserved their
label of 'Optimists'. Korzon's Historia nowozytna (Modern History, 1889)
treated Polish affairs as an integral part of European developments, contrasting
sharply with Bobrzynski's both in tone and in substance.^10 These rivalries,
between the Pessimists and the Optimists, have continued to dominate Polish
historiography from that day to this.^11
The same positivist era laid the foundations of Polish History as a modern sci-
ence. The systematic collection and publication of source materials, first started
by Bishop Naruszewicz, reached impressive proportions. Archives, museums,
and historical libraries - among them the Archiwum Akt Dawnych (Archive of
Ancient Records, 1867) in Warsaw, the Czartoryski Collection in Cracow, and
the Kornik and Raczynski Libraries in Posnania - opened their doors, in each of
the Partitions. Work began on historical bibliography, notably under the aegis
of Ludwig Finkel (1858-1930) at Lwow, and on all the auxiliary sciences from
palaeography and archaeology to genealogy, heraldry, and numismatics. The
senior historical journals, the Kwartalnik Historyczny (Historical Quarterly,
1887) first edited in Lwow by Ksawery Liske (1838-91) and the Przeglqd
Historyczny (Historical Review) in 1909, began long uninterrupted careers, as
did the main series of documentary collections such as the Monumenta
Poloniae Historica, the Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Polski, and the Scriptores
Return Polonicarum. Medieval History flourished in the writings of Stanislaw
Smolka (1854-1924), Tadeusz Wojciechowski (1838-1919), Karol Potkanski
(1861-1907), Franciszek Piekosinski (1844-1906), and, of course, of Bobrzynski.
Constitutional history attracted the attention not only of Kutrzeba, but also of
Oswald Balzer (1858-1933), Adolf Pawinski (1840-96), and Aleksandr
Rembowski (1847-1906). Korzon explored the realm of historical demography,
statistics, and economy. Smolenski pioneered intellectual history and political
ideas.
None of the historians writing before the First World War knew what to
make of the nineteenth century. For them, it was contemporary history, and for
the censors of the ruling Empires, current affairs. It was at once, dangerously
political, and scientifically problematical. Without knowing the outcome of the
national struggle which was still in progress, it was impossible to know whether
the Partitions had spelt the end of Polish History as a separate subject or not. In
the absence of a Polish state, it was difficult to give Polish History any organic
structure. Not until the reappearance of the Polish Republic in 1918 could his-
torians regard the period of Partition as a temporary, if somewhat extended,