Polish Studies

Polish Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Poland about their new books

Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa, "The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust" (Simon & Schuster, 2024)

March 17, 2024

The Counterfeit Countess

Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki

World War II and the Holocaust have been the subject of many remarkable stories of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Wom…

Sarah A. Cramsey, "Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the Ethnic Revolution in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946" (Indiana UP, 2023)

March 9, 2024

Uprooting the Diaspora

Sarah A. Cramsey

In Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the Ethnic Revolution in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946 (Indiana UP, 2023), Sarah Cramsey explor…

Roman Dziarski, "How We Outwitted and Survived the Nazis: The True Story of the Holocaust Rescuers, Zofia Sterner and Her Family" (Cherry Orchard, 2024)

March 3, 2024

How We Outwitted and Survived the Nazis

Roman Dziarski
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

In World War II's Poland, thirty year old Zofia Sterner and her husband Wacek refuse to be classified as Jews destined for extermination. Instead, the…

Serhiy Bilenky, "Laboratory of Modernity: Ukraine Between Empire and Nation, 1772-1914" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2023)

February 5, 2024

Laboratory of Modernity

Serhiy Bilenky

When the powers of Europe were at their prime, present-day Ukraine was divided between the Austrian and Russian empires, each imposing different polit…

Lenny A. Ureña Valerio, "Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920" (Ohio UP, 2019)

January 2, 2024

Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities

Lenny A. Ureña Valerio
Hosted by Steven Seegel

In Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920 (Ohio University P…

Magda Stroińska, "My Life in Propaganda: A Memoir about Language and Totalitarian Regimes" (Durvile, 2023)

December 21, 2023

My Life in Propaganda

Magda Stroińska
Hosted by AJ Woodhams

My Life in Propaganda: A Memoir about Language and Totalitarian Regimes (Durvile, 2023) is Magda Stroińska’s personal account of growing up with commu…

Is Poland Back on Track?  The Challenges for the New Government

December 18, 2023

Is Poland Back on Track?

Grzegorz Ekiert

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI's Director John Torpey interviews Grzegorz Ekiert, Chair of the Center for European Studies at Harvard …

The Idea of "Central Europe" from Naumann to Kundera

November 24, 2023

The Idea of "Central Europe" from Naumann to Kundera

Martyn Rady and Alexander Watson
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms: A New Hist…

Agata Fijalkowski, "Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial" (Routledge, 2023)

October 30, 2023

Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial

Agata Fijalkowski
Hosted by Alex Batesmith
Listen:

Addressing the relationship between law and the visual, this book examines the importance of photography in Central, East, and Southeast European show…

Martyn C. Rady, "The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe" (Basic Books, 2023)

September 23, 2023

The Middle Kingdoms

Martyn C. Rady
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms: A New Hist…

Malgorzata Fidelis, "Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Poland" (Oxford UP, 2022)

September 22, 2023

Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain

Malgorzata Fidelis
Hosted by Jill Massino
Listen:

The Global Sixties are well known as a period of non-conformist lifestyles, experimentation with consumer products and technology, counterculture, and…

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert, "Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

September 21, 2023

Przemysłowa Concentration Camp

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert
Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert's book Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) exp…

Jacob Mikanowski, "Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" (Pantheon Books, 2023)

August 11, 2023

Goodbye, Eastern Europe

Jacob Mikanowski
Hosted by AJ Woodhams
Listen:

Eastern Europe, the moniker, has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone now, and they might tell you that Estonia is in t…

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg, "Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust" (Cornell UP, 2018)

July 19, 2023

Intimate Violence

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg
Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:

Why do pogroms occur in some localities and not in others? Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg examine a particularly brutal wave of violence tha…

Jane Rogoyska, "Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth" (Oneworld, 2021)

July 9, 2023

Surviving Katyn

Jane Rogoyska
Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:

Committed in utmost secrecy in April-May 1940 by the NKVD on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, for nearly fifty years the Soviet regime succeeded in…

Anna Müller, "An Ordinary Life?: The Journeys of Tonia Lechtman, 1918-1996" (Ohio UP, 2023)

June 30, 2023

An Ordinary Life?

Anna Müller
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki
Listen:

With An Ordinary Life? The Journeys of Tonia Lechtman, 1918-1996 (Ohio University Press, 2023), historian Anna Müller has produced a beautifully writt…

Randy Grigsby, "A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019)

June 6, 2023

A Train to Palestine

Randy Grigsby
Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:

In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Euro…

Benjamin Balint, "Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History" (Norton, 2023)

May 10, 2023

Bruno Schulz

Benjamin Balint
Hosted by Renee Garfinkel

The twentieth-century artist Bruno Schulz was born an Austrian, lived as a Pole, and died a Jew. First a citizen of the Habsburg monarchy, he would,…

The Future of Eastern Europe: A Discussion with Zsuzsanna Szelényi

April 22, 2023

The Future of Eastern Europe

Zsuzsanna Szelényi

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been met with a range of responses in Eastern Europe – with some leaders offering muted solace to Vladimir Putin a…

Piotr M. A. Cywiński, "Auschwitz: A Monograph on the Human" (Muzeum Auschwitz, 2022)

April 16, 2023

Auschwitz

Piotr M. A. Cywiński
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki

Auschwitz is perhaps the best-known memorial site in the world. Epicenter of the Nazi extermination campaign of Europe’s Jewish population, the Auschw…