Polish History Seminar – POSTPONED

The first PUNO history seminar of the 2025/2026 academic year will take place on Wednesday 24^th 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 for details.

And on Friday 26^th September our PUNO colleague Dr Magdalena Wanda Zegarlińska will launch her new book ’Lynchland revisited: Duality as a source of „the uncanny” in films directed by David Lynch.’  This is an in-person event, taking place in PUNO’s lecture room at POSK. See https://puno.ac.uk/premiera-ksiazki-26-09-2025/ for details. If you are interested in coming to the book launch, please let me know as places are limited.

Best wishes,

24 September 2025      Dr. Pawel Duber (PUNO, London)

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 tightening visa requirements and expressing concerns over reliability of Polish passports. The paper focuses on the impact of this law on the diplomatic relations between both countries and the role of Tytus Komarnicki, Polish envoy to Switzerland, whose initially liberal stance shifted toward strict enforcement of the aforementioned ordinance. Drawing on previously unused archival sources, the study reveals how both countries navigated through legal, diplomatic, and humanitarian challenges amid worsening geopolitical conditions and after the outbreak of World War II.

Dr hab. Paweł Duber is a historian and lecturer in the Unit of European History at the Polish University Abroad, as well as a history teacher in British schools. He graduated from the University of Silesia in Katowice and has worked at various cultural and academic institutions, including the University of Warsaw, the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), the Józef Piłsudski Museum in Sulejówek, and Nottingham Trent University. He earned his PhD in 2009 at the Academy of Humanities in Pułtusk and completed his habilitation in 2015 at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. His research focuses on the political history of Poland after 1918, 20th-century Central and Eastern Europe, Polish political and military emigration after 1939, the history of diplomacy and international relations, and the politics of memory. He is the author / co-author of several books and nearly one hundred scholarly and popular articles. His most recent book, a biography of the Polish diplomat and lawyer Tytus Komarnicki, is being published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.

ZOOM LINK:

Topic: Polish University Abroad History Seminar

Time: Sep 24, 2025 18:30 London

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Meeting ID: 891 4552 2267

Passcode: 673786