The 21st International Congress of Historical Sciences took place in Amsterdam on 22-28 August 2010. The preparations were led by a special consortium headed by Hans Blom. The pillars of this consortium were four institutions: The Royal Dutch Historical Society, the University of Amsterdam, the Dutch National Library, and the International Institute of Social History.
The Organizing Committee took a new initiative in the history of congresses, which was the creation of the Solidarity Fund, chaired by Pim den Boer, meant to enable historians from less developed countries to participate in the Congress by providing financial support. Ultimately, 90 researchers were the beneficiaries of the Congress.
About 1,300 participants from 84 countries attended the Amsterdam Congress. The largest group were Dutch historians (237 people), followed by Americans (114), Brits (81) and Germans (75). Participants included luminaries of historical sciences, e.g. José Louis Peset from Spain, Jean Claude Robert from France, Lex Heerma van Voss from the Netherlands, Bozhong Li from China, and Ibrahima Thioub from Senegal.
The Congress was scientifically very productive. A total of 175 sessions were held. The opening debate of the Congress was devoted to the history of water and water management. The three so-called major themes concerned more conventional issues: the collapse of empires, the city as culture, and finally religion vs. power. Among other panels, a lively discussion was triggered by a debate on the freedom of research and historical memory. The problem of globalization was also present in the discussions.
The Congress was widely echoed in the Dutch press. An interesting review of it, by Roger Chartier, came out in Le Monde.

The XXII International Congress of Historical Sciences was held in Jinan on August 23-29, 2015. It was organized by the Association of Chinese Historians which officially became a National Committee of the International Committee of Historical Sciences in 1982, and by the Department of History and Culture at Shandong University. The Congress gathered 2077 participants (2765 people registered on the website), including 785 foreign scholars (from 76 countries and regions in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania). The opening ceremony was attended by Vice Premier Liu Yandong who read the Congratulatory Message from President Xi Jinping. President of the ICHS, Marjatta Hietala, delivered the opening speech, in which she reviewed the process and channels of knowledge transmission and transnational cultural communication between China and the world and pointed out the role of the ICHS in this process. She also responded to the challenges facing contemporary historians, such as competition, media, and the Internet.

The theme of the Opening Lectures was Nature and Human History. They were given by three distinguished scholars from Europe, Africa and Asia: Andrea Giardina (Italy), Mamadou Fall (Senegal) and Xia Mingfang (China) invited by the organizers.

The Congress consisted of different types of sessions: 4 Major Themes, 27 Specialised Themes, 18 Joint Sessions, and 19 Round Tables. In addition, 19 commissions affiliated by ICHS organized their own special sessions. Also 3 Evening Sessions and a Graduate-Student Poster Session were organzed. First Major Theme, China from Global Perspectives, was organized by Wang Jianlang and María Dolores Elizalde. Fourteen scientists took part in the session, expressing their views on the relationship and interaction between China and the rest of the world, the role of China, and its impact on the history of globalization since the 15th century. Second Major Theme talked about historicizing emotions. For the first time in the history of the Congress, emotional history research was designated as a major theme. The topic aroused great interest. The organizers of the panel were Ute Frevert and Andrew Lynch. Third Major Theme Revolutions in World History: Comparisons and Connections was convened and hosted by Alan Forrest, Mitani Hiroshi and Pierre Serna. Four topics were covered in four sessions: Revolutions in the Atlantic World, Revolutions in Twentieth Century Europe, Revolutions in Modern Africa and the Middle East, Revolutions in Modern East Asia. The scholars discussed revolutions in different regions. Forth Major Theme, Digital Turn in History, was organized by Tom Dublin. The first session in the morning was entitled Digital History: Challenges and Possibilities, the second, afternoon session, focused on New Tools, New Narratives, New Histories. The evening session was designed around the topic Promoting Digital History Internationally.

Subjects of the speeches given at the Congress was diverse, though for everyone global and international perspective was common. That’s what the ICHS has always encouraged, to avoid narrative too focused on national states, and instead apply global and international one. Some new subjects were represented in the program but in addition also, traditional topics or approaches (national history, regional history, political history, gender history, labor history, public history) were addressed from new perspectives of global history. Reviewing how these sessions were organized or what the papers talked about, we could make the conclusion that despite “global history” was not one of the major themes of the Jinan Congress, never have previous Congresses been characterized so much by “global approach”.

On April 2-9, 1913, the International Congress of Historical Sciences took place in London. Its organizers were the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society, headed by Sir Charles Firth.

Among the participants of the Congress were eminent scholars: an American medievalist from Harvard University, Charles Homer Haskins, British historian Sir George Walter Prothero and the Russian medievalist Paul Vinogradoff from Oxford University, who chaired at the Congress the Section on the Legal History.

During the Congress in 1913, the Naval and Military Section was organized for the first time. The speakers focused on various aspects of research. Both historical issues (for example John Holland Rose delivered a paper Précis of the Plans of Napoleon for the Autumn Campaign of 1813 and Christopher Thomas Atkinson Foreign Regiments in the British Service 1793-1815); and issues of more methodological nature (e.g. Alfred Dewar presented a lecture entitled Naval History and the Necessity of a Catalog, and Sir Lonsdale Hale The Difficulties Encountered in Compiling Military History) were discussed. Papers presented in this section were published by Cambridge University Press, because the organizers of the Congress were not able to cover the costs of publication.

However, the Oxford University Press published the materials of the Section on Legal History. According to this publication the participants gave papers in German, Italian, English and French. The papers concerned specialist questions (e.g. Edwin Charles Clark gave a lecture entitled Numismatic Illustrations of the History of Roman Law), as well as more cross-sectional (e.g. Sir Frederick Pollock’s paper The Transformation of Equity). Other papers concerned issues related to the tradition of the Roman law and law in different countries (including Germany, France, Russia and England).

 

Bibliography

1. Essays in Legal History Read before the International Congress of Historical Studies Held in London in 1913, ed. Paul Vinogradoff, London-Edinburgh 1913
2. Naval and Military Essays Being Papers Read in the Naval and Military Section at the International Congress of Historical Studies, Cambridge 1914
3. ‘Remember the Days of Old’. Sermon Preached in Westminster Abbey before the Members of the International Historical Congress, by the Right the Reverend the Dean Herbert Edward Ryle, D.D. on Sunday, April 6th, 1913, London-New York 1913

The 3rd International Congress of Historical Sciences took place in Germany’s capital Berlin on 6-12 August 1908. The organizing committee was headed by the “triumvirate”: Director General of the Royal State Archive Reinhold Koser and professors of the Royal University of Frederick William in Berlin: Eduard Mayer and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.

During the opening ceremony, Reinhold Koser read out a letter from the Chancellor of the Reich Bernhard von Bülow. Addresses were delivered moreover by: Secretary of State Theobald von Bethmann–Hollweg, Mayor of Berlin Georg Reicke, Secretary of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences Arthur von Auwers, and President of the Royal University of Frederick William in Berlin Carl Stumpf. The keynote speech at the opening ceremony was given by the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, David Jane Hill, who presented the issue of moral obligations faced by historians in the age of historiography written from a national perspective.

The Congress agenda consisted of 56 sessions divided into general sessions (6) and thematic ones (50). The latter addressed 8 areas: history of the ancient East, history of ancient Greece and Rome, political history of the Middle Ages and modern times, history of ideas and culture of the Middle Ages and modern times, legal and economic history, history of the Church, history of art, history of auxiliary sciences of history. A sub-section on the history of natural sciences was also created. The session agenda was divided into lectures and debates. The congress languages were German, English, French, Italian, and Latin.

As part of the thematic sections, Antiquity scholars debated, among other things, ancient Egyptian sepulchral art. Medieval experts and modernists discussed, e.g. the categorization of historical sources and their impact on research. In the Church’s history section, a debate was triggered by the problem of the beginnings of Church organization in Protestantism. Particular interest was also aroused by the lecture by Erich Marcks from the Department of History in Hamburg on the young years of Otto von Bismarck.

The general sessions focused on more cross-cutting issues, such as the periodization of art history or the history of Islam. The lecture of the Director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Gaston Maspero, who presented the risks associated with the protection of ancient monuments and the measures necessary for their effective rescue, attracted a lot of interest.
The Congress participants had at their disposal an extensive printed programme of the events prepared by the hosts. Moreover, an information bulletin was published daily during the Congress; it contained brief reports on the meetings held on a given day.

A programme of accompanying events prepared for the Congress participants included visits to Berlin museums, archives and libraries, as well as tours of other cultural institutions and recreational facilities in and around Berlin. With the female participants of the Congress in mind, the organizers set up a special committee (Damenkomitee), whose task was to help organize their stay in Berlin.

During the closing ceremony, the host of the next Congress, London, was announced. Moreover, by decision of the Congress participants, at the request of the Italian delegation, a memorial plaque on the family house of Theodor Mommsen was founded.

 

Bibliography

1. Programm des Internationalen Kongresses für historische Wissenschaften, Berlin, 6. bis 12 August 1908, Berlin 1908.
2. Kongress-Tageblatt. Internationaler Kongress für Historische Wissenschaften, 1908, Nos. 1-7.

The II International Congress of Historical Sciences was initially planned to have taken place on 16-25 April 1903. Its preparations were entrusted to the President of the Organizing Committee Enrico Teodorico Luigi Giovanni Maria Count San Martino and Valperga, President of St. Cecilia Music Academy in Rome and the city councellor for education. The person directly responsible, however, was the archaeologist Ettore Pais, professor of the Federico II University in Naples and director of the Naples Archaeological Museum, a disciple and friend of Theodor Mommsen. Historian Giacomo Gorrini was the secretary of the Organizing Committee, composed moreover e.g. of archaeologist and architect Giacomo Boni, archaeologist Luigi Ceci, who was the principal opponent of Pais, as well as historians Giovanni Monticolo, Niccolo Barozzi, Guglielmo Berchet, writer and deputy to Parliament Pompeo Gherardo Molmenti, and Count Filippo Nani Mocenigo. The Committee included moreover e.g. sculptor Adolfo Apolloni, lawyer Carlo Fiorilli, senator and diplomat Giuseppe Greppi, economist Francesco Saverio Nitti, and philosopher Benedetto Croce. The hostile approach of the Italian academic community to Pais, regarded as a traitor due to his support of the theories of German scholars concerning the origins of Rome, led to the dismissal of the Committee and the postponing of the organisation of the Congress for indefinite time.
The new Organizing Committee, appointed by the minister of education Nunzio Nasi, was presided by historian, senator and former minister of education Pasquale Villari, appreciated in Italy and internationally as an expert on Girolamo Savonarola and Niccolo Machiavelli. Gorrini was reappointed the Committee’s secretary. The other members were literature scholar Domenico Pietro Antonio Camparetti, politician Paolo Boselli, and historians Oreste Tommasini and Count Ugo Balzani. Two representatives of the ministry of education supervising the work of the Committee were senator and linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli and writer and literary critic Alessandro D’Ancona. The Committee, convening for its first meeting on July 10 in the company of representatives of the major scholarly institutions of Italy, presented to King Victor Emanuel III the general draft (concept?) of the new Congress on December 21.
Ultimately, the Congress took place on 1-9 April 1903. Although the number of sections was far smaller than initially planned in 1902 (eight instead of twenty), the agenda was quite extensive. It included not only history and auxiliary sciences, but also a number of other scholarly disciplines loosely tied with the historical sciences. The first section was dedicated to ancient history, epigraphy and classical languages and literatures, the second to medieval and modern history, the third to literary history, the fourth to archaeology, numismatics and the history of art, music and theatre, the fifth to the history of law and socio-economic sciences, the sixth to the history of geography and historical geography, the seventh to the history and philosophy of religion, the eighth to the history of mathematics, physics and medicine. The venue was a former Jesuit building of the Roman College (Collegium Romanum). Only sections four, five and six were held, respectively, at St. Cecilia Academy, the building of the Legal Association (Circolo giuridico) and in the offices of the Italian Geographic Society (Societa geografica italiana).
Scholars could participate actively in two ways, either by delivering rapid communications  reporting only the community of historians the most recent developments and discoveries, followed by no debate; and by delivering papers with research proposals and collective editorial projects. Italian was the official language of the Congress. It was spoken not only by the local scholars but also by most of the international speakers, with the exception of the French, who solely used their mother tongue. The section dedicated to classical languages and literatures was conducted in Latin.
By comparison with the previous Congress, the number of participants was truly extraordinary. Out of a total of 2,060 invited guests, it was attended by around 1,500-1,800 participants; 450 of the guests delivered papers. Most were Italians (1,144, who delivered 188 papers), but there was also a large number of Germans (358, with 18 papers), French (194, with 28 papers), citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (97, with 6 papers), the English (74, with 5 papers), Russian subjects (47, with 5 papers), and Belgians (31, with 1 paper). Germany was represented e.g. by a classical philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, who presided over the section dedicated to classical languages and literatures, theologian Adolf von Harnack, lawyer Otto Gierke, rector of Berlin University, and diplomacy scholar Paul Kehr. France was represented e.g. by a classical philologist and medievalist Paul Meyer, geographer Vidal de la Blache, and historian Gabriel Monod, editor of Revue Historique. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was represented e.g. by Ludo Moritz Hartmann, a scholar researching the medieval history of Italy, and Church historian Ludwig von Pastor, director of the Austrian Institute of History in Rome. Lawyer James Bryce came from London while historian and philologist Vasily Ivanovich Modestov from Petersburg.
The launch of the Congress was preceded by a meeting (April 1), during which the details of its inauguration were hammered out. Presidency of the Congress was entrusted to Pasquale Villari, with von Harnack, von Pastor, Meyer, Bryce, and Modestov as his deputies. The honorary presidents included, apart from Italian Minister of Education Nunzio Nasi, Mayor of Rome Prospero Colonna and Minister of Foreign Affairs Enrico Costantino Morin and Theodor Mommsen, who was absent. The Congress was launched on Capitol Hill, in the Conservators’ Palace, in the presence of King Victor Emanuel III and Queen Helen of Montenegro. The session was inaugurated by Mayor Colonna and Minister Nasi, who stressed the universal contribution of Rome and Italy to the human civilisation.
The two were followed by Congress President Villari, who delivered a plenary lecture. The Italian historian observed that while the 19th century was an age of the development of nationalities and emancipation of the working class, the mission of the 20th century would consist in raising the material and intellectual level of people of Africa and Asia. Furthermore, reviling nationalism, Villari stressed that due to their location between America and Russia the countries of Europe should strive to reach an agreement. As to historical disciplines, Villari observed that history is the only true foundation of the social sciences, which are a prerequisite for the understanding of the surrounding world. He moreover called for comparative studies, claiming that one cannot comprehend the history of any nation without a broader perspective, not collaborating with scholars from other countries.
The Congress offered an opportunity to demonstrate the progress of the disciplines that had developed so vehemently in the latter half of the 19th century, such as archaeology, biographical studies, history of culture, and Bible studies. It was also a major stage in the process of departing from historical idealism for the sake of alternative concepts. This is borne out by the statements made by Ludo Hartmann and Benedetto Croce. First and foremost, however, the Congress was a debate forum for the discussion of all kinds of research proposals and projects. Many concerned philology, source texts edition and lexicons. For example, proposals were put forth to carry out work on a set of Latin proper nouns (Felice Ramarino) and on the bibliography of Greek and Latin classics (Remigio Sabbadini). Another proposal called for the establishment of an international team collecting Greek literary papyri (Girolamo Vitelli). Other projects focused on the middle ages, e.g. by discussing the utility of a set of Italian medieval epigraphs (Francesco Novati) and Italian diplomatic documents (Luigi Schiaparelli). In turn, Alessandro D’Ancona suggested the publication of a biographic and bibliographic dictionary of Italians. Some proposals related to paleo-ethnology (Luigi Pigorini) and historical geography (Giuseppe Dalla Vedova). Although not all of the above suggestions were acted upon, the Congress contributed to the debate on various research questions.
Some of the participants presented already published texts or ongoing research and editorial projects. A heated debate among the Italians was triggered by a reprint of a series of chronicles edited by Ludovico Antonio Muratori: Rerum italicarum scriptores. Coming out in the Scipio Lapi publishing house, they were re-edited by Giosue Carducci and Vittorio Fiorini. During the session presided over by the Belgian historian Paul Fredericq, an adoption of a resolution supporting the initiative was proposed in the presence of over 400 participants. However, due to the opposition of the Italian Historical Institute, who according to its bylaws dealt with editing source texts, among others, a call was ultimately accepted commissioning the publication of the text, without specifying the publisher. The debate, apart from Villari, was attended by influential historians from abroad, such as Robert Davidsohn from Gdańsk, an eminent expert on the history of Florence, and Gabriel Monod. The Congress was moreover an event during which scholars advised one another about the most recent archaeological discoveries. For example, Luigi Pigorini provided a meticulous description of the archaeological excavations carried out by a team of Italian archaeologists in Crete.
The Congress meetings were supplemented by a versatile program of accompanying events (exhibitions, concerts, parties). Of special significance was the unveiling on September 2 of a reconstructed map of ancient Rome, Forma Urbis Severiana, made in Rome by Rodolfo Lancini in collaboration with the German Archaeological Institute. An exhibition of the topography of Rome in the Victor Emanuel II Library was launched the very next day. The agenda of accompanying events included moreover a concert of sacred music composed by Italian masters, directed by Raffaelo Terziani, and a mandolin concert in the Coliseum.
The organisers offered a number of sightseeing tours, including to Norma, Sermoneta and the archaeological excavations in Norba. A trip to Sicily was originally planned for September 14-22. According to plan, a cruise ship was to drop anchor in a number of locations on the coastline and the participants were to visit e.g. Messina, Taormina, Catania, Siracuse, and Palermo. On the way back, they were to make stops at Amalfi, Sorrento and on Capri. For lack of a sufficient number of registered participants, however, the tour did not take place.
A lot of attention was paid to the Congress by the Italian press, not only by the newspapers issued in Rome, but also those from other cities. This was due to the support offered to the Congress by the Ministry of Education and interest displayed by the royal couple. The overall assessment of the Congress was favourable, but there were also words of critique. There were reservations as to the extensively broad range of topics and the presence of disciplines indirectly linked with the historical sciences. Due to the predominance of issues related to linguistic and literary studies, the playwright Giuseppe Giacosa complained in Corriere della Sera that the session dedicated to the history of science was not treated seriously enough. Dissatisfaction was expressed about the form of proceedings, i.e. no debates after the statements, as well as the noninnovative character and the local scope of the issues addressed. The opinions expressed by international press varied; they were more critical in Germany and England and rather favourable in France.
The Congress gave rise to 12 volumes of documents, published in the years 1904-1907 by Accademia dei Lincei. Incidentally, the Congress led to individual publications, such as the text of a lecture by Giacomo Boni, delivered during a tour of the Forum Romanum.

Bibliography
Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche (Roma, 1-9 aprile 1903), vol. 1-12, Roma 1904-1907
„Corriere della Sera”, 1903, nr 60, s. 2, nr 63, s. 1, nr 64, s. 1, nr 90, s. 1, nr 91, s. 2, nr 92, s. 2, nr 93, s. 1, nr 96, s. 2, nr 97, s. 2, nr 98, s. 2, nr 113, s. 1, nr 188, s. 1
K.D. Erdmann, Die Ökumene der Historiker. Geschichte der Internationalen Historikerkongresse und des Comité International des Sciences Historiques, Göttingen 1987

Andrea Mariani

In 1900, the world lived the great Universal World Exhibition in Paris. As many as 242 scientific congresses were held on this occasion. The exhibitions organized before World War I were a great opportunity for such events. They had the idea of showing the progress of civilization, which was a result of the development and interaction of science, society and technology. The rich exhibition pavilions referred to historical styles, contrasting with technical innovations. This was the atmosphere of the first “true” Congress of historians, then still under the name of the International Congress of Comparative History.
The chairman of the Congress Bureau was Gaston Boissier, a secretary of the French Academy, who dealt with the history of ancient Rome. The chairman of the Executive Committee, in turn, was a specialist in history of diplomacy René de Maulde-La Clavière, who two years earlier was the main organizer of the International Congress of the History of Diplomacy in La Haye. This conference is considered a kind of “prologue” to the world congresses of historians. Anyway, the idea of international exchange of ideas was born just within the Society of History of Diplomacy . On the one hand, the progressing development of states and the emergence of “new nationalisms”, on the other, the existence of the phenomenon of “globalization” (mondialisation, internationalisation) was observed. Maulde-La Clavière saw world congresses as events on the border between science and politics. The art of diplomacy was considered as a tool enabling the nations to communicate with each other and therefore its historical approach was to be dominant.
The Congress of Paris was held in Collège de France from 23 to 28 of July. It was divided into 8 sections. The first was general history and the history of diplomacy. In the section 21 papers were delivered; it gathered around 300 participants. In the second section – comparative history of institutions and law – 14 papers were presented. In the third, on the history of comparative social economy, 5 papers were delivered, in the fourth, devoted to matters of religion, also 5, history of science up to 20, comparative history of literature 16, history of art and drawing 15. The eighth section – the history of music – was held as a separate International Congress (38 speeches). At the Congress almost a half of the speakers were French. In addition, the results of their research presented several representatives from Italy, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, two representatives from Greece, Romania and the Vatican, and one from the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and the USA.
Henri Houssaye, a chairman of the organizing committee of the first section, said that the classical method of the historical research had been renewed. Greater emphasis has been placed on critiques of sources, and public and private archives were increasingly willing to share their collections. History was no longer written by great leaders, so the contemporary historian should have paid due attention to facts and truth, and these were in the documents. It is characteristic that not only historians but also representatives of the governments of some countries chaired this section. The papers were mainly devoted to political history, although there were also topics that probably did not match other sections.
During the meeting of second section, its chairman, Adhémar Esmain, noted that the comparative method was new also in the field of law. In this section, there were commentaries about the history of law in individual countries, but also about the issue of natural law or law in French colonies. In the third section, the leading theme were guilds , in the fourth, among others topics Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics and Protestants were compared, and in the fifth covered issues from technical sciences, through biology, geography, to medicine were raised. The sixth section, in turn, focused on the literature of European countries and its interactions, while in the seventh the papers concerned mainly Italian, French, German and Greek art. The Congress of the History of Music was divided into groups that corresponded to the epochs – Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times.
The Congress in Paris gave a chance to speak about their own history to historians from smaller countries, sometimes treated marginally. This was assessed by later historians as a symbol and sign of the coming out of these countries from under shadow of great powers. The outcome of the Congress was the seven-volume publication of the papers publishing house (not all papers were included). Moreover, the new journal “Revue de synthèse historique” appeared, which was founded by Henri Berr, who invited to international and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Bibliography

• Congrès international d’histoire comparée. Annales internationales d’histoire. Congrès de Paris 1900, vol. 1-7, Paris 1901
• A. Dubois, Der erste internationale Historikerkongress in Paris 1900, 2014 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_arpalsK1FXT212NENsTkZBMzQ/edit; https://parhei.hypotheses.org/256 (8.12.2019)
• G. Hübinger, B. Picht, E. Dabrowska, Cultures historiques et politique scientifique. Les congrès internationaux des historiens avant la Première Guerre mondiale, „Revue germanique internationale”, no. 12, 2010, p. 175–191
• „Le Figaro”, 24 VII 1900, p. 2
• Rapport général sur les congrès de l’exposition par M. de Chasseloup-Laubat. Exposition universelle internationale de 1900 à Paris, Paris 1906
• A. Rasmussen, Les Congrès internationaux liés aux Expositions universelles de Paris (1867-1900), „Cahiers Georges Sorel”, no. 7, 1989, p. 23–44

Magdalena Heruday-Kiełczewska

The 7th International Congress of Historical Sciences took place in Warsaw in 1933. The decision about organising the Congress in Poland, which was taken unanimously during the 6th International Congress of Historical Sciences in Oslo in 1928, was a mark of great distinction and appreciation for the rapid development of Polish historiography. Behind this success stood two men: Marceli Handelsman, who was the first to propose the idea of organising the Congress in Poland, and Bronisław Dembiński, who was the Member of the Board of the International Committee of Historical Sciences from 1926 – the year of its foundation. The preparations for the Congress began as early as in 1929. Bronisław Dembiński was elected Chairman of the Organising Committee, and Stefan Ehrenkreutz, Oskar Halecki, Marceli Handelsman and Wacław Sobieski became vice-chairmen. Tadeusz Manteuffel assumed the function of General Secretary. Substantial financial help (almost 100 thousand zlotys) was granted, despite the crisis, by the Polish government, mainly by the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment.

The Congress commenced on the 21st of September 1933 in the Main Auditorium of the Warsaw University of Technology. The most prominent politicians, including president Ignacy Mościcki, were present at the opening. 1100 historians from 31 countries took part in the Congress. Most strongly represented were scholars from Poland (over 60%), followed by participants from France, Italy, Germany and England.

The Congress had 15 sections and 13 special sessions. The focus on discussing Polish themes was underlined in post-conference reports. Interestingly, the closing ceremony took place on the 28th of August in Kraków. The organisers provided a special train connection for the participants.

The organisation of the Warsaw Congress was assessed positively. Bronisław Dembiński was elected vice-president of ICHS – the post he held until 1938. In his place another Polish scholar, Marceli Handelsman, was elected. These nominations reflected the considerable prestige which Polish historiography enjoyed at that time.

The logo of the 7th International Congress of Historical Sciences in Warsaw was designed by Edward Manteuffel-Szoege (1808-1940).

 

Congress Publications

1. VIIe Congrès international des sciences historiques: Varsovie, du 21 au 28 août 1933, Warsaw 1933
2. VIIe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques: Rapports présentés au Congrès de Varsovie, „Bulletin of the International Committee of Historical Sciences”, vol. 5 (1933)
3. VIIe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques. Résumés des Communications présentés au Congrès, Varsovie 1933, vol. 1-2., ed. T. Manteuffel, Warsaw 1933
4. La Pologne au VIIe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques, Varsovie 1933, vol. 1-3, ed. O. Halecki, Warsaw 1933
5. B. Dembiński, O. Halecki, M. Handelsman, L’historiographie Polonaise du XIX-me et du XX-me siecle: VII-e Congres International des Sciences Historiques Varsovie 1933, Warsaw 1933

Source of illustrations – Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe: NAC 1-M-526-5; NAC 1-M-526-8; NAC 1-M-526-4; NAC 1-M-527-4