This thesis explores the idea of gardens as performance-based works of art, as sites that drew their relevance from the stylized behaviour that was enacted there in the form of arranged spectacles, plays and tableaux vivants. The analysis is based on the study of two gardens created by Princess Izabela Czartoryska: Powązki near Warsaw (1770-1794) and Puławy (1784-1831) near Lublin. These gardens are among the most celebrated ‘English’ landscape gardens in Poland. They are considered here as spaces that reacted to contemporary historical events through the adaptation of the visual imagery of the second half of the eighteenth century and participated in the reinvention of traditional Polish culture. The stylized events in the gardens are shown as forms of social interactions, willingly performed by guests to the gardens. This thesis also investigates the changing roles which Princess Izabela chose for herself and visualized in her gardens and how these personas evolved in the progression from Powązki to Puławy. By reconstructing the designs and the narrative programmes I argue that that the process of interactions did not fundamentally change over the sixty years of Czartoryska’s gardening, that the two gardens shared a remarkable unity of ideas and form, and that the garden-based culture of leisure was paramount in transmitting a variety of social, historical and aesthetic ideas. These ranged from models of education, through the collection of artefacts for her museum, to the promotion of the relationships of attachment as a nationally unifying bond. My analysis substantially alters the established view on the history of these two gardens and proposes a new perspective for them, as works of art based in the rhetoric of land, gesture and performance.

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This thesis examines the ways in which the Holocaust and the Jewish past have been remembered in Kraków, investigates the impact local memory work has had on Polish collective memory, and problematises the importance of the 1989 threshold for that memory work. Looking at Kraków, an exceptional and exceptionally important case study, between 1980 and 2013, the thesis investigates heritage creations in Kazimierz, the old Jewish Town, and traces the genealogies of Holocaust exhibitions presented in Kraków. It also traces the emergence of urban critical narratives about the past, pertaining both to the city and to Poland as a whole. Created in opposition to the mainstream ethno-nationalist narrative, which was often supported by both the Communist and the democratic governments, the interpretation of the past laid out in Kraków gradually incorporated the Jewish past into the narrative on Polish history. The thesis demonstrates how, over the course of thirty years, Jews came to be presented as rightful members of the Polish national community, and the Holocaust as an integral part of Polish war history, albeit still distinct to other sufferings. At the forefront of the process of excavating and presenting Kraków’s Jewish past were local memory activists. In particular, this thesis highlights the pivotal role played by mid-ranking officials from municipal administration and by fictive kinships in the process of urbanisation of memory. These individuals and groups translated the ideas of critical engagement with the nation’s history, propagated by some sections of the national elite, into a form that could be consumed by a mass audience. In addition, the thesis demonstrates that memory work on a local level persisted almost uninterrupted through the transition to democracy. Activists responsible for the creation of inclusive narratives in the 1980s, and the Krakowian intelligentsia in general, carried those ideas forward through the collapse of Communism – no radical reformulation of representations of the Jewish past or the Holocaust took place in the early 1990s. The local narratives grew progressively more critical and increasingly more cosmopolitan from the 1980s onward, but this process only truly accelerated after 2010. The present thesis argues that this post-2010 intensification was only possible after local activists had embraced new forms of commemoration and new modes of authentication within museum exhibitions. In particular it points toward the espousal of ‘complementary authenticities,’ a mode of authentication of narratives strongly anchored in history that at the same time aimed to incite an emotional response. This incorporation of ‘complementary authenticities’ allowed for the creation of narratives that sensitised audiences to the suffering of Poles regardless of their ethnic background. Thus the thesis relates the developments of memory work in Kraków to broader changes in culture, rather than solely to changes in political life.

This thesis analyses the construction of the modern national identity in Poland following the state’s creation in 1918. Its central aim is to argue that although much of Poland’s national identity was, in fact, the product of the revolutionary eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the twentieth century, ethnocultural foundations proved essential in the process of nation building. In order to offer a novel approach to this issue this thesis will evaluate the programmes of the émigré organizations and political parties to demonstrate the role of the two national currents: ethnic/organic and civic/territorial, which developed during the nineteenth century and shaped competing definitions of Polish nation. Furthermore, this study will analyse the role of the pre-modern and early modern symbols in shaping the political currents in modern Poland. Locating and examining elements central to the definition of the nation will allow demonstration of how the distinctive national programmes were defined under successive administrations. This research argues that the rise of competing national identities in East-Central Europe, at the turn of the century, accelerated the dissolution of the common trait or national identity, shared by the elites across the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Deprived of legitimacy the authorities were unable to maintain the democratic system, gradually introducing authoritarianism, and by the late 1930s replacing the inclusive state model with the organic definition of the nation. This exclusive programme resurfaced following the Second World War and became a justification for the construction of an ethnically homogenous Poland. The Communist regime aimed to eradicate the pillars of national identity and to diminish the role of society in the state’s functioning; however, the nucleus of civil society which survived the period of persecution continued to grow in strength outside of the official channels. Effectively, this created a popular definition of the Polish nation in opposition to that of the regime. The competition between the ethnocultural and political definition of the nation remained a central issue over more than two decades following the collapse of the Communist regime.

La thèse étudie les relations entre science et politique, à partir de la production historiographique consacrée à l’histoire des passés dits totalitaires (nazi et communiste) en Pologne. Cette histoire du temps présent est étudiée depuis sa genèse, durant la période communiste (1945-1989), jusqu’à la période post-communiste, après 1989. Elle fait l’objet de luttes entre acteurs, savants et profanes, dont les prises de position antagonistes s’expliquent par les positions différenciées qu’ils occupent dans l’espace du débat historiographique. L’autonomie de cet espace est limitée par une contrainte politique externe, exercée par le pouvoir politique, mais aussi par les logiques, internes à cet espace, de réponse à la contrainte externe. La thèse invite à relativiser la pertinence, en matière de production historiographique, de la césure de 1989, et souligne les formes de continuité entre la République populaire de Pologne et la situation présente. / Based on a study of the historiographical literature about the “totalitarian” pasts (nazi and communist) of Poland, this dissertation deals with the relationship between science and politics. The making of the history of these periods is studied from its genesis during the communist era (1945-1989) until the post-communist period started after 1989. Academic and non-academic actors are involved in the historiographical debate. Their stances can be explained by the various positions they occupy in the social space of this debate. The autonomy of this social space is not only limited by an external political constraint, applied by the political power, but also by this space’s internal logic elaborated in response to this outside pressure. The dissertation casts doubt the 1989 caesura in the historiographical literature, and underlines continuities between the Popular Republic of Poland and the current situation.

Alors qu’un vaste corpus de documents existe en français concernant la Shoah en général et Auschwitz en particulier, celui relatif aux sites de l’Action Reinhard – Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec, et surtout Treblinka - est relativement peu abondant. Un des obstacles majeurs à leur étude est l’absence - voulue par les nazis - des traces « visibles » de leur existence. Rasés et transformés en exploitations agricoles dès la fin 1943, aucun ne fut libéré par une quelconque armée. En France, Treblinka reste un camp encore largement méconnu. De tous les centres de mise à mort de l’opération Reinhard, ce fut pourtant celui où l’assassinat des Juifs fut le plus « efficace » (selon les responsables du système) - près d’un million victimes en 400 jours - et celui où les survivants furent (relativement) les plus nombreux : entre 50 et 70 en 1945. Il représente le cas paradigmatique d’une « impossibilité de rendre compte ». Décrire et réinscrire Treblinka dans l’Histoire, malgré tous ces écueils, c’est aussi déjouer les pronostics mémoriels du projet nazi tout en incitant l’historien à réfléchir sur les méthodes de son champ de recherche et sur le sens de son travail. / If a vast array of historical and literary material concerning WWII and the Holocaust is available in French, accounts concerning Aktion Reinhard in Poland, (Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka Camps) are relatively scarce. One of the major causes for this scarcity is the fact that the Nazis purposely destroyed almost all traces of their occurrence. Before the end of 1943, these sites were dismantled and turned into fake farms. None of these places was “liberated” by any military force.In France, Treblinka remains quite unknown. So is the fact that it was the most “successful” unit of the Aktion Reinhard death machinery. Close to a million Jews were assassinated there during the 400 days that it operated. It was also there that the number of survivors was relatively important: 50 to 70 were alive in 1945. It can be viewed as the paradigmatic case of words’ inability to express such knowledge. Despite all these difficulties, the description and reinsciption in History of Treblinka’s reality addresses a double necessity: to defeat the Nazis’ predictions regarding the erasure of their crimes and to confront the Historian with the relevance of his methods and the meaning of his endeavor.

La présente étude est consacrée à la naissance d'une diplomatie européenne sous le regard polonais. À travers l'histoire de la construction européenne, il s'agit d'analyser la marche vers la mise en place du Service européen pour l'action extérieure (SEAE). Lancé en 2010 sous l'autorité du Haut Représentant de l'Union pour les affaires étrangères et la politique de sécurité, il devait réformer en profondeur les relations extérieures de l'Union européenne et lui permettre de s'affirmer en tant qu'acteur sur la scène internationale. Le regard de la Pologne permet de saisir plus concrètement les enjeux politiques et stratégiques liés à la création d'une diplomatie commune de l'UE. Deux aspects de cette diplomatie européenne sont étudiés : son visage et son appareil. Cette étude s'intéresse aux développements successifs de la représentation extérieure de l'UE dans la perspective de l'émergence d'une diplomatie européenne de réseaux. Elle démontre que la création du SEAE a provoqué des mouvements tectoniques dans l'architecture institutionnelle européenne et à l'intérieur des appareils diplomatiques nationaux. / The present study deals with the birth of a European diplomacy from the Polish point of view. Throughout the history of the European construction, the aim is to analyze the progress towards the establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS). Launched in 2010 under the authority of the High Représentative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and the Security Policy, it had to reform in depth the external relations of the European Union (EU) and allow it to assert itself as an actor on the international stage. The Polish approach enables to grasp more concretely the political and stratégie issues related to the création of a common EU diplomacy. Two aspects of this European diplomacy are studied : its face and its apparatus. This study examines the successive developments of the EU external représentation in the context of the emergence of European diplomacy networks. It demonstrates that the EEAS has caused tectonic movements in the European institutional architecture and within national diplomatie services.

La République de Pologne-Lituanie, par sa forme de gouvernement unique, a suscité l’intérêt d’auteurs français fondamentaux tels que Théodore de Bèze, Jean Bodin, Montesquieu, Voltaire et Jean-Jacques Rousseau, mais aussi de penseurs aujourd’hui moins connus, comme Jean Boucher, Claude de Rubis ou Nicolas Baudeau. La Pologne apparaît dans la littérature politique française dès 1573, date à laquelle Henri de Valois fut élu roi de Pologne, jusqu’en 1795, moment de la disparition de la carte de l’Europe de l’État polono-lituanien. Malgré cette présence continue, elle ne fut que très peu étudiée dans l’historiographie française. Pourtant, elle représente une clé de lecture passionnante pour éclairer les débats politiques français de l’époque moderne, ce qu’entreprend de démontrer cette thèse. / The Republic of Poland-Lithuania, with its unique form of government, aroused the interest of fundamental French authors such as Théodore de Bèze, Jean Bodin, Montesquieu, Voltaire or Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also the attention of less known thinkers like Jean Boucher, Claude de Rubis or Nicolas Baudeau. Poland appeared in French political literature in 1573, when Henri of Valois was elected king of Poland, until 1795, when the Polish-Lithuanian state disappeared from the map of Europe. Despite this continuous presence, it has been insufficiently analyzed in the French historiography. Yet, it represents a fascinating key for reading the French political debates of the modern era. This thesis aims at demonstrating it.