Kingdom of Poland

The article provides a historiographical overview of studies of early polish printing. During the period of the 18th–21st centuries, approaches, methods, and points of view on this issue changed repeatedly. The purpose of the article is to highlight trends in the development of the printing history studies, as well as to identify current problems in the study of the Polish Kingdom press. The history of printing has gone from a descriptive direction of science, focused on local subjects and bibliographic summation of knowledge, to an analytical direction, within which, in addition to history, various social and humanitarian disciplines (sociology, cultural studies, philology, linguistics, economics) find their place. To some extent, this is typical for all areas of historical science, but in the field of printing history, the perception of the role of printing press in the cultural development is essential. The appearance of works on the early printing history of the Polish Kingdom from the 2nd half of the 20th century was dictated both by a fairly large level of accumulation of knowledge on the subject and by the development of relevant social theories of communication. The departure from the Marxist metanarrative has brought the research of Eastern European historians into line with the work of Western colleagues, as a result of which historiography is now significantly theorized.