From federal Europe to the European utopia. Polish narratives of the history of European Integration

This chapter examines the content of Polish textbooks on the history of European integration published in the years 1965-2018. Chronologically, the textbooks can be divided into two categories: 1) those presenting the birth and evolution of integration processes from the 1950s to the Maastricht Treaty, and 2) those devoted to the construction of the first peace plans aiming at the Christian integration of Europe from the Middle Ages to modern times. Polish studies on the history of European integration tend to present the national contribution to the construction of the united Europe. From an interpretative standpoint, it can be assumed that until 2015, Polish history textbooks were dominated by the federal or functional-federal approach to European integration, while after 2015, we have seen a paradigm shift towards the promotion of a European confederation model.