The Western Institute (WI) was established as an institution dedicated to the research of the Recovered Territories. One of the first tasks assigned to the Institute was the scientific "development" of the Recovered Territories. The scientists focused within WI undertook the formidable task of describing the regions of Recovered Territories in the series "Lands of Old Poland," with the work being preceded by the first interdisciplinary field studies in the territories annexed to Poland as a result of World War II. The aim of the paper is to analyze the positions of historians, art historians, and representatives of other disciplines, who traveling throug lands dominated by German cultural heritage, had to confront the top-down imposed narrative of a return to the "lands of Mieszko and Bolesław." The primary source materials will consist of archival documents stored in the archives of the Western Institute and the personal documents of researchers involved in scientific expeditions.