Department of Slavonic Studies
Polish at Cambridge
The Department of Slavonic Studies is keen to promote research on Polish topics, and runs a lively programme of events on Polish themes.
Lectures and Events
The department is currently running a series of high-profile lectures as part of the Cambridge University Polish Lecture Series, the first of which, entitled ‘The Polish Path to Freedom' was given by Adam Michnik in May 2011. The second lecture in the series, ‘Re-thinking the historical canon: the priorities and casualties of mainstream history' was delivered by Norman Davies on Thursday, 4 October 2012, and you can now view the lecture via our lectures and events page.
The next event to be run in association with the Polish Studies lecture series will be a public lecture entitled 'True Believers: Collaboration and Opposition under Totalitarian Regimes' on Wednesday, 6th March given by Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Anne Applebaum. The lecture will take place in the Umney Theatre, Robinson College from 5pm. For further details please contact slavon@hermes.cam.ac.uk.
Cambridge will be co-ordinating further Polish-themed events in the coming months, which will be publicised here. For more information on Polish at Cambridge please contact Uilleam Blacker, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Polish Studies, at ub217@cam.ac.uk or the Deparmtental Secretary for the Deparmtent of Slavonic Studies at slavon@hermes.cam.ac.uk
Research Activity
A major research project within the department, Memory at War, takes Poland as one of its target countries. MAW studies the dynamics of cultural memory across Poland, Russia and Ukraine, examining its often explosive manifestations in politics, culture and society. The first major publication to emerge from the project will be the book Remembering Katyn, about the memory of the Katyn massacre of 1940. The book traces the legacy of Katyn through the memory cultures of Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states, and is the first study of its kind.
As well as promoting research and organising events, Cambridge also offers its students the opportunity to learn Polish at both beginners’ and intermediate levels. Classes are open to students and staff from across the university.
The MAW project also runs a regular seminar series on Eastern European Memory Studies at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge, which regularly features scholars of Poland and from Poland. Past speakers have included Professor Jacek Purchla, (head of the International Cultural Centre, Krakow), Katarzyna Zechenter (Senior Lecturer in Polish at SSEES, UCL), Sławomir Kapralski (Univeristy of Warsaw), and Professor Aleksander Fiut (Jagiellonian University), and many others. The EEMS group also held a special workshop on the role of NGOs in shaping cultural memory, in which Piotr Filipkowski of the KARTA foundation participated.
MAW also runs a film seminar series on memory in Eastern European film, and as part of this arranges regular screenings of Polish films. The series recently held a special screening of the documentary ‘Battle for Warsaw 1944’ by Wanda Koscia, with a talk by the director.
Cambridge also cooperates with other institutions to co-ordinate Polish themed events. In November 2011, Cambridge co-organised a major conference on contemporary Polish literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London. Cambridge is one of the main organisers of a major conference on memory in art and museums to be held at the institute of Ethnology in Vienna in November 2012. Cambridge is co-ordinating the participation of two prominent Polish artists, Joanna Rajkowska and Rafał Betlejewski, in the conference.
Polish at Cambridge: Lectures and Events
