The First World War was the catalyst for social and technical changes, which gave rise to new administrative needs, materialized by the emergence of a new social group: that of the experts. In modern German and Polish states, a particular group of experts stands out, specializing in a theme with deep cultural roots: eastern Europe.The changes of regime and territory between 1918 and 1972 destabilize the frame of reference of the German and Polish societies, particularly between 1939 and 1945. However, the historiography of Eastern German sciences (Ostforschung) emphasizes the personal, institutional and conceptual continuity in the expertise of the East from the "Third Reich" to West Germany. In East Germany and Poland, on the contrary, the change of regime after 1945 renders any continuity impossible, but the question of the evolution of the thought on the East in the circles of the expertise, which maintained, remains asked.By going beyond the analysis of expertise in terms of subordination to the various political regimes to which it is addressed, we highlight the specificities of Eastern expertise. It is characterized by a double anchoring in the collective imagination and in contemporary scientific practices, to express a political goal. This anchorage explains the inertia in the German and Polish conceptions of the East. The comparatist approach emphasizes both the diversity of Eastern conceptions and the comparable social functions of the East, particularly that of the enemy and the space of national projection, past and future
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