PLACE-NAMES AND OBJECTIVITY IN HISTORIOGRAPHY

THE CASE OF SILESIA IN THE 19th AND 20th CENTURIES

Abstract

On the basis of the introductory analysis of the intimate bond established between territory and the nation/nation-state, the author points out that the main instrument of this bonding is naming of places in the national languge. Thus, it is not an innocent choice when one decides to use this or that language to render place-names of an area about the past of which one is writing. It is especially true of the 19th and 20th cc. when nationalism became the only globally accepted ideology. Actually such a choice may amount to repossessing the past of a territory in the interest of this or that nation/nation-state.
In order to avoid this all too rarely noticed possibility that may compromise the ideal of objectivity in historiography, the author maintains that a practical solution in regard  to the last two centuries in Europe, is sticking to official forms of place-names in history writing. He shows advantages and disadvantages of this method on the exemplar of Silesia, a region that often changed hands among Prussia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. In conclusion, the most practical ways of not ideological use of various language forms of place-names are noted with the reservation that the author does not see any simple manner in which this method could be extended to periods prior to the 19th c., and that there may be need of dropping official forms of place-names in favor of ethnic/dialectal ones when one focuses on non-dominant ethnic/regional groups.