Wojna i konflikt zbrojny jako przedmiot badań historyków.

Abstract

War and army, as well as many related issues, have been a field of interest of historians from the very beginning of historiography. And it is quite understandable, taking into account the wide context of the historical research. It is not exclusively about a spectacular significance of such events as battles, figures of the time, examples of heroism, and the like; yet, they are – in most cases – the subjects of historical research. War and Wojna i konflikt zbrojny jako przedmiot badań historyków 41 army have always had a wider context. They have had an influence not only on the state structures (legal, geographical, social), when the state was being shaped (and also during its whole history), but on its economy, political actions of its government, the activity of its citizens, and even on its culture. The present paper concerns the issues dealt with by Polish historians throughout history. Starting from the first chronicles (gesta), through works dated back to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, through the 19th-century historiography (with its specific military analyses of the causes of Poland’s decline), to the contemporary deliberations on the essence of the armed conflict in the context of the life of the nation and state.

Keywords

• war
• histography
• military art