The historical awareness of those events most important to Poland of the previous century among university students

Abstract

Historical consciousness is a phenomenon of incorporating the past into the current social consciousness, being the sum of ideas about the past and the way of thinking about it; it also entails awareness of the existence of the past, present and future and a sense of having one's own, unique history, attributed to any given society. This study presents the results of research analyzing the respondents’ historical awareness of such historical events of the last century, which are considered the most important for Polish history and have particularly stuck with their consciousness. The research shows that the respondents’ historical consciousness is on a rather low level, and the choices of the events from Poland’s past are conditioned by the media campaign connected with the anniversary of Poland regaining independence in 1918.