Reportage stories about history

Abstract

History has always been and will always be present in the Polish reportage, as showcased by such names as Ksawery Pruszyński and Melchior Wańkowicz, who wrote about recent history being aware that they lived in historically significant times. Ryszard Kapuściński repeatedly stressed that in a way, a reporter is also a historian, that explaining the present with the past is always worthwhile. Today history also plays a different role in reportages; in recent years there have been a number of so-called “historical reportages”, e.g. by Anna Bikont, Cezary Łazarewicz and Paweł Smoleński, which may suggest discovering some “uncharted territories” from the past. However, this is not the case; these reporters usually write about episodes from our history which have already been scrutinized by professional historians. In their books history works as a key to explaining the present. By mythologizing – or, conversely, demythologizing – our past, or by framing narratives within a historical context, they create models and outlines of human existence to draw attention to contemporary issues.