Dismantling Authoritarian Rule in Poland (Jan T. Gross, Magda Szcześniak)

This episode captures (the beginning of) a conversation between cultural studies scholar Magda Szcześniak (University of Warsaw) and historian Jan Tomasz Gross (emeritus, Princeton University) who – while studying Polish contemporary history during the past decades – published a book co-authored by Stephen Kotkin on "uncivil society" in 2010. It offered a powerful explanation for the implosion of communism in 1989. Not long ago, we witnessed an election defeat of a non-communist authoritarian regime in Poland and are observing a tough and twisted process of dismantling that regime. The discussion is initiated and moderated by János Mátyás Kovács (senior researcher, RECET).

Jan T. Gross studies modern Europe, focusing on comparative politics, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Soviet and East European politics, and the Holocaust. After growing up in Poland and attending Warsaw University, he immigrated to the United States in 1969 and earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University (1975). His first book, Polish Society under German Occupation, appeared in 1979. Revolution from Abroad (1988) analyzes how the Soviet regime was imposed in Poland and the Baltic states between 1939 and 1941. Neighbors (2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He joined the Princeton History Department in 2003 after teaching at New York University, Emory, Yale, and universities in Paris, Vienna, and Krakow. Professor Gross is the Norman B. Tomlinson ‘16 and ‘48 Professor of War and Society, emeritus.

Magda Szcześniak is Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies at the Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw. Author of Normy widzialnosci. Tozsamosc w czasach transformacji [Norms of Visuality. Identity in Times of Transition, 2016] and Poruszeni. Awans i emocje w socjalistycznej Polsce [Feeling Moved. Upward Mobility and Emotions in Socialist Poland, 2023].