The sociology of fields explains how various configurations of the relations between the scientific and the bureaucratic fields have had constraining effects on the former, and contributes to a better understanding of the changes in these relations. This perspective is illustrated through the case of history policy in Poland, defined as the space of struggles for the legitimate production of an officialized historical narrative. Observed in a relatively long socio-historical perspective, the structure of the relations between these fields reveals a form of continuity: both before and after 1989 the existence of a pole of production of an official history has played a part in restraining the autonomy of scholarly history. The internal logics of the scientific field consist in positioning oneself in relation to the external constraints, which, when refracted in this space, can constitute resources for the agents who appropriate them. As a result, external constraints can also become internal resources.