Paradoksy samokolonizacji Europy Wschodniej

The article undertakes criticism of interpretations of the history of Eastern Europe which are based on the categories developed by theorists of postcolonialism and result in formulation of simplified and artificial distinctions between dominant, colonized and self-colonizing cultures. The author argues that they lead to searching for innocent victims The article undertakes criticism of interpretations of the history of Eastern Europe which are based on the categories developed by theorists of postcolonialism and result in formulation of simplified and artificial distinctions between dominant, colonized and self-colonizing cultures. The author argues that they lead to searching for innocent victims of colonization using different, sometimes even contradictory interpretative clues, and the result – not always intended – is treating modernity as no-alternative model. In place of these fatalistic and narrow conceptions the author proposes a reference to the cultural modernization theory, formulated by Charles Taylor, which states that modernity is a new form of cultural self-understanding and creative adaptation of institutional solutions coming from the outside.