Department of the Social History of the 19th and 20th Centuries
Associate professor Natalia Jarska
Professor Anna Landau-Czajka
Dr Olga Linkiewicz
Professor Włodzimierz Mędrzecki
Associate professor Katarzyna Sierakowska
Cooperators:
Dr Andrii Bezsmertnyj
Dr Ewa Bukowska-Marczak
Dr hab. Karol Chylak
Dr Tomasz Flasiński
Dr Aleksandra Jakubczak
Dr Agnieszka Kajczyk
Dr Zachary Mazur
Dr hab. Małgorzata Nalewajko
Professor Oleh Razyhrayev
Dr hab. Irena Anna Słodkowska
Zuzanna Żubka-Chmielewska, MA
PhD Students:
Marta Kapełuś, MA
Tatiana Midura, MA
Karolina Siewak, MA
Marcin Wilk, MA
The research work of the department is focused on the social history of Poland in the 19th and 20th century (with particular emphasis on the period from 1914 to 1939). In 2010–2013, together with numerous researchers from Poland and abroad, the members of the department were involved in the research project “The Society of the Second Republic of Poland”, which was funded by NCN and led by Professor Janusz Żarnowski and Professor Włodzimierz Mędrzecki. Carried out by eight research teams, the project produced a wide range of conferences and a collection of publications in the series “Metamorfozy Społeczne” devoted to various aspects of social life in interwar Poland, such as the culture of Polish society in that period, the underclass, religious issues, family and socialisation, work and the role of the state in Poland’s social structure. Aside from the publications, which appeared in such renowned journals as Acta Poloniae Historica (on ethnic issues) and Roczniki Dziejów Społecznych i Gospodarczych (on demography), the final result of the project is a new synthesis of the social history of the Second Republic entitled Społeczeństwo międzywojenne. Nowe spojrzenie edited by Professor Janusz Żarnowski and Professor Włodzimierz Mędrzecki (published in 2015).
Since 2014, the department has been carrying out the research project “The First World War on the Polish lands. Expectations – experiences – consequences”, funded by NPRH, which deals with the social history (in a broad sense) of the Polish lands during the First World War. The project leader is Professor Włodzimierz Mędrzecki, while the main co-investigators are Professor Andrzej Nowak and Professor Katarzyna Sierakowska.
Aside from being involved in the research activities of the department, all its members conduct their own original research projects with the use of various methodological approaches, including history, anthropology and sociology.
The department also runs a doctoral seminar.
Members:
Professor Włodzimierz Mędrzecki – in his work, he focuses on the socio-cultural changes that occurred in Polish society in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century and on the nation-forming processes on the lands of the First Republic of Poland. He is currently preparing a new synthesis of the society of the Second Republic, which intends to summarise the results of a several-year-long research project conducted by the department and a monograph devoted to the role of the intelligentsia in the socio-cultural life of the Second Republic.
Professor Anna Landau-Czajka – Polish–Jewish relations in the interwar period, social and women’s history, the history of the interwar Polish-Jewish press, with a particular emphasis on the image of Poland and Poles in the Polish-language Jewish press (a monograph on the subject is currently being prepared). Her recent research work has been focused on preparing a monograph devoted to the periodical Mały Przegląd.
Dr Natalia Jarska – her research interests include the history of women and gender in Poland in the 20th century. She is currently working on a monograph on the activities of women in the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) and the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) in 1945–1989. Her new project is devoted to the roles and gender relations within marriage in Poland between 1918 and 1989.
Dr Olga Linkiewicz studies the history of Eastern Europe in the 20th century, focusing in particular on social and ethnic relations and nationalism. Her ethnographic research deals with the memory of social life in interwar Poland and during World War II. Her new project involves a study of the beginnings of expertise in ethnology and racial anthropology, as well as of the relationship between the development of these disciplines and the policy of the Polish state in the years 1918–1939.
Professor Katarzyna Sierakowska – her research work concentrates on the reactions of Polish society to phenomena which increased in prominence during the First World War, namely death, displacement and famine. She is also interested in gender issues with regard to family history and the roles of women in the society of interwar Poland.
Professor Mateusz Rodak – his main area of interest is the underclass of the first half of the 20th century, which includes the history of particular underclass groups, crime prevention, social and criminal policy, criminology, the penitentiary system, marginalisation). Author of a monograph devoted to the reconstruction of the life of prisoners in the “Mokotów” Penal Prison in the years 1918–1939. He is currently working on a book on the criminals of interwar Warsaw.
Research projects of the Department:
- ‘Studies on the Transformation of the Female Youth and Their Everyday Life in Interwar Tarnów’, PRELUDIUM, no. 2021/41/N/HS3/02065, funded: 130 795 PLN, 2022–2025, Principal Investigator: Marcin Wilk MA. The main task of this project will be a reasonably complete and multi-faceted reconstruction of the social and cultural functioning of various classes, groups and social environments of the female youth in interwar Tarnów. The project will also answer these questions: Who were the representatives of the “female youth”? How, as a specific and diverse social group, were they perceived in public space? What were their opportunities for social and individual fulfilment? What were they aspiring to? The additional objective is to develop a method of interpretation and historical analysis which would be adequate for the research on the social role of gender. Although the term “female youth” is well known, it is important to carefully consider whether this type of research can open up new perspectives and fit in with the current of so-called “girlhood studies”. Such a reinterpretation of the term “female youth” would allow us to draw on the traditional currents of Polish historiography, as well as on the achievements and works of educational history researchers.
List of completed research projects carried out by the Department:
- “The society of the Second Republic of Poland” (Professor Janusz Żarnowski, Professor Włodzimierz Mędrzecki, research grant 2009–2013, funded by NCN).
- “The Pariahs of the Second Polish Republic – the world of criminals in the Warsaw and Łódź voivodeships in the interwar period” (Professor Mateusz Rodak, research grant 2010–2013, funded by NCN).
- “Bottom-up creation of culture. A cross-sectional comparative study” (Ms Ewa Nizińska, research grant 2013–2015, funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage).
- “The political and economic elites of Bessarabia in the interwar period” (Mr Jakub Ber, research grant 2013–2015, funded by NCN).
- “First World War on Polish Territories. Expectations – experience – consequences” (Professor Włodzimierz Mędrzecki, Professor Katarzyna Sierakowska, research grant carried out in 2014–2018, funded by NPRH).
- “Women and men in marriage in Poland in 1939–1980” (Dr Natalia Jarska, research grant 2016–2019, funded by NCN).
- “Ethnopolitics: Studies of Ethnicity and Race in Poland, Politics, and the International Circulation of Knowledge, 1918–1958” (Dr Olga Linkiewicz, research grant 2018–2021, funded by NCN, OPUS call).
