„W naszych hałaśliwych czasach o wiele łatwiej jest przyznać się do swoich wad, przynajmniej jeśli są atrakcyjnie opakowane, niż rozpoznać własne zalety, ponieważ są one ukryte głębiej i sam w nie do końca nie wierzysz…” /W. Szymborskiej/ Ronald Reagan powiedział kiedyś: „Polska nie jest Wschodem ani Zachodem. Polska leży w centrum cywilizacji europejskiej. Wniósł ogromny […]
The next seminar in PUNO’s Polish History Seminar series will take place on Wednesday, 15 May at 6.30pm. Please find details below. On Saturday 18 May, PUNO's Unit of European History hosts an online conference titled 'The Politics of History and Memory in Poland in the 20 and 21st Century - Between Continuity and Change'. For […]
19 June 2024 Professor Havi Dreifuss (University of Tel Aviv) Facing the Unthinkable: Initial Responses of Polish Jews to the Mass Murder Polish Jews were confronted with news of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" through various channels, eliciting diverse reactions. This lecture examines their initial responses to the systematic mass murder, […]
The Cinema of Good Change: The Populist Politics of History and Memory on Polish Movie Screens, 2015-2023 This paper examines politics of history and memory in Polish cinema during the rule of the Law and Justice party from 2015 to 2023. First, it explores feature films that glorified the mythologised community of the ‘Accursed Soldiers’ […]
Migration Status as Ethnicity: Natives, Migrants and Refugees in Postwar Poland Poland famously became ‘ethnically homogeneous’ during and immediately after the Second World War, as its previous minority populations were either killed during the Nazi occupation, forced to emigrate, and left outside of Poland’s post-1945 frontiers. And yet, across the western half of the country, […]
15 January 2025 Dr Michał Przeperski, Polish History Museum, Warsaw Wild, Wild East: Transformation of People and Mentality in Poland, 1986-1993. Today everything is obvious: the dictatorial system collapsed, so the things are exactly as they should have been from the very beginning. But Poles in 1986 were not aware that they were living in […]
Public Responses to the Renaming of Commemorative Street Names in Post-communist Poland: Daily Lives, Experiences of Change and Sense of Place. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe did not bring about widespread destruction of the material heritage of communist dictatorships in the region. In fact, given that on the whole public acceptance of […]
Dear Colleagues, The first PUNO history seminar of the 2025/2026 academic year will take place on Wednesday 24th September at 6.30pm (UK time). Dr Pawel Duber will give a talk titled 'Deprivation of Citizenship and Diplomatic Fallout: The 6 October 1938 Ordinance in Polish–Swiss Relations, 1938–1940'. The seminar will take place online via Zoom, See below […]
Po historycznym ujęciu tematu w pierwszym sympozjum, druga odsłona cyklu organizowanego przez Zakład Kultury i Edukacji Muzycznej Polskiego Uniwersytetu na Obczyźnie (PUNO) w Londynie odbędzie się z naciskiem na problematykę współczesnych wyzwań i przemian w edukacji jazzowej. Tempo rozwoju technologii cyfrowych jest na granicy przyswajalności społecznej i kojarzy się z szokiem bardziej niż z postępem. […]
5 listopada 2025 z profesorem Piotrem Maciejem Majewskim (Universytet Warszawski) ZOOM The mechanisms of collaboration This paper focuses on collaboration as a political and social phenomenon. It mainly concerns the Second World War, but it also attempts to answer the question why collaboration with the enemy (collaborationism and other forms) was only recognised and […]
14 January 2026 | Dr. Pawel Duber (PUNO, London) Deprivation of Citizenship and Diplomatic Fallout: The 6 October 1938 Ordinance in Polish–Swiss Relations, 1938–1940 Following the Anschluss and the failure of the Evian Conference, on the 6 October 1938 Poland issued an ordinance requiring passport revalidation, effectively preventing many Jews from returning. Switzerland responded by […]
25 February 2026 Prof. Paweł Machcewicz, (Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw) Moczar`s “Partisans”: Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, Historical Myths “The Partisans” were in the 1960s a very influential political group within the communist party and state apparatus in Poland. Led by Mieczysław Moczar, the minister of interior and leader of […]