dr hab. Monika Jakubek-Raczkowska, prof. UMK

Section 4.: The Early-Piast "Codices pretiosi" as an attribute of power. Facts and interpretations

The custom of attributing special symbolic values to certain historical objects, making them attributes of power and 'relics of the past' in local founding myths, has been a phenomenon in Europe since the late modern period. In Poland, the conditions for attributing historical significance to works of art by linking them to the persons of certain rulers were created in the 19th c. in connection with the struggle for the survival of national identity and historical memory; this trend of thought also marked the later period. The paper will attempt to identify the circumstances under which certain medieval artworks began their 'new life' as bearers of national identity and focus on the scientific consequences of this way of thinking, as a result of which history and art history have long struggled – and in some cases still struggle – with the myth of the beginning, which hinders a modern view of these objects as historical documents and the reconstruction of their real contexts.