Polish geographical survey of borders until 1945

Abstract

Border researches have a long tradition in Poland, because they precede the emergence of geography as an independent scientific discipline.The growing interest in the issue of borders appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the revival of Polish statehood became the subject of political discourse in the occupied country as well as in exile. The main topics of border and boundary research within political geography focused primarily on state and administrative boundaries. On the field of Polish historical geography, more popular were studies on the history of territorial changes of the country, starting from tribal structures. The other aim of research were internal divisions of Poland into historical, political and administrative regions. One can observe the regularity that studies of political geography developed more strongly during periods of freedom of research (e.g. in the inter-war period), and in the periods of ideological restrictions (e.g. annexations by neighboring powers), historical-geographical studies were intensifying.The aim of the article is to review the researches on borders in Polish political and historical geography since they were taken up until the end of the Second World War showing the most important trends in their development.