Powołanie Kierownictwa Badań nad Początkami Państwa Polskiego

The Department for Studies on the Origins of the Polish State was established in 1949 in order to conduct extensive interdisciplinary research on the origins and functioning of the State of the First Piasts. The research project started a year earlier due to the necessity to celebrate a thousand years of the Polish State and the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland. The process of “preparing the great anniversary”, which was interpreted by the Catholic Church and the State in a different way and whose scientific aims were strongly influenced by politics, was undoubtedly the biggest initiative in the history of the Polish humanities research after World War II . These millennial studies have improved the state of our knowledge on the origins of the Polish statehood and the importance of Poland on the map of early medieval Europe. They also played an important social and political role in developing national consciousness of the Polish society after changing the borders in 1945.