Gerard Labuda (1916-2010), one of the most outstanding Polish humanists, a polyhistor and above all a medievalist, in his impressive output devoted much attention to the history of Poland's western border seen in close connection with the relations between the two neighboring states and nations. The beginning of those investigations goes back to his studies at the Poznan University (1936 - 1939), but he gave them a systematic character after the end of the Second World War. In a climate of immense wrong experienced by the Polish nation at the hands of its western neighbor, Gerard Labuda maintained a distance to those justified emotions and held an objective view of even the most controversial issues. The Scholar continued his studies of those issues throughout his long and creative life. They reached their culminating point in a synthesis published in 1971 under the title Polska granica zachodnia. Tysiac lat dziejów politycznych (Poland's Western Border: A Thousand Years of Political History). It is a presentation that also takes into account other, especially humanistic, disciplines reckoned from the point of view of a historian. Toady this work is considered a classic and has become an integral part of the achievements of Polish historiography. Four decades on, subsequent studies have brought new perspectives on a range of issues seen in the context of contemporary politics and new research results have been obtained by Polish and German authors.
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