W artykule dokonano uzasadnienia tytułowego powiązania geografii politycznej i historycznej.
W tym celu przeprowadzono analizę relacji między obiema dyscyplinami, podejmującą kwestie
ich genezy, kierunków rozwojowych, treści, zakresu i miejsca w systemie nauk, a także ustanowienia
ram organizacyjnych dla rozwoju tych dyscyplin w łódzkim ośrodku geograficznym.
As some has attempted to prove, both “titular” disciplines have different origins.
They differ in their development trends and, thus, in the contents, scope and place in the
system of sciences. However, different paths of development do not preclude them from
tackling the same issues, especially considering that historical geography and political
geography both refer, the former in a literal sense, to the unique bond between history
and geography. Specific topics, that may seem familiar to both disciplines today, were
discussed as far back as the 18th century, when political geography was still defining its
identity and attempting to become a valid subject of geography. However, in the case of
this discipline, its interests shared with its historical counterpart (concerning such issues
as heraldry and toponymy) were mostly incidental and marginal. On the other hand, the
issue of territorial divisions (nations, regions, borders), described by historians (or
historical geographers) as “historical and political landscapes”, was discussed by both
geographies since the very beginning. The main difference between the two – geo-
-political and geo-historical – approaches was the temporal perspective they assumed.
While the present was most important for political geography, historical geography was
more concerned with “former territorial divisions” (thus the term “historical and political
landscapes” is apt). Each of the disciplines also treated the research subject differently.
Political geography considered “the area described by borders and characterised by some
organisation, i.e. above all a state” or region as central, while historical geography acknowledged
its importance as one of many elements, apart from the transformed
(cultural) environment, settlement, elementary disasters, formed communication network,
the history of geographical horizons, toponymy and historical cartography, while
referring it, as mentioned earlier, the reconstructed image of the past.
With the development of the methodological foundations of both sciences, the belief
that “what is today includes what was yesterday, so in order to understand the presence,
we have to study the past” grew. This reflection was aided by the deepening relations
between historical geography and anthropogeography, which influenced not only the
expansion of tasks of the former, but also lead to the inclusion of the “historical element”
in the scope of geo-political discussion. Reaching into the past to reveal spatial
differences and similarities of a political nature, more and more boldly practised by
political geography, was also caused by the references to human history (human “fate”)
construed in the spirit of mechanistic determinism, as well as the changes in the political
map of the world at the break of 19th and 20th centuries. As their eyewitness, political
geography could not close itself in a narrow, quickly dating formula of the present. The
explanation of interrelations between political entities and their physical-geographical
surrounding attempted at the time required constant references to the historical context.
The contemporary political map was quickly becoming, if we can paraphrase Barbag,
a strictly historical map.
The practice of reaching into the past to interpret contemporary phenomena and
political systems caused the historical context to become an immanent element of
political geography. The discipline was becoming more and more bold in interpreting the political map and the territorial characteristics of political formation and development of
states and regions, not only in the presence, but also in the future. This research field saw
the formation – in reference to the bond between history and geography – of a unique
relationship between historical geography and political geography. Significantly, by
exposing the past, political geography sometimes lost view of the presence, i.e. the
element that defined its existence and distinguished it from historical geography. Thus,
we can say that M. Kulesza (2009) was right when he observed, as mentioned above,
that the development of political geography after World War II and, especially in the
1990s, resulted in the “internal” expansion and the emergence of new research fields,
which was caused by, among other things, taking some of them from historical
geography.