Historical Commissions: The Meeting Point for Diplomats and Scientists?

Science, in particular history, has been used in diplomacy and foreign policy. History and the emotions linked to the past have been a source of conflicts. In particular, the different interpretations of events – or the impossibility to talk about these “white spots” – bring tensions between groups within society, but also among various countries. Indeed, the past leaves traces on politics. It can also be selected as a tool for legitimising action (cf. Lavabre, 1992 and her distinction between the weight and the choice of the past). In International Relations, the past can be used for various goals (cf. Rosoux, 2001). Memory can also be misused (Lavabre, 2000) or abused (Todorov, 1995). In order to appease tensions and such politicisation of the past, governments have created historical commissions. How do diplomats interact and negotiate with such commissions? Our hypothesis is twofold. Firstly, historical commissions constitute themselves an instrument of foreign policy, on the macro, mezzo and micro levels. Secondly, diplomats are often members, guest observers or organisers of the meetings of such bilateral commissions. This contribution is based on two case-studies: the Polish-German Schoolbook Commission, established in 1972 and the Polish-Russian Group for Difficult Matters, created in 2002 and reactivated in 2008. The corpus, collected within the framework of my PhD, is composed of 54 interviews, archives, as well as additional sources such as participant observations, discourses, the press and opinion polls on reconciliation in Poland. Historical commissions constitute one tool of conflict transformation on the long run, whose study proves to be essential in order to better understand the way diplomats and scientists work together and how their interactions are affected by politics. In this paper I want to precise the scope and limits of these interactions within historical commissions and insist on how they are affected by politics.