Calendar Event
"The Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk: At the Crossroads of History, Memory, and Politics" Pawel Machcewicz
In this lecture, Pawel Machcewicz will discuss the controversies surrounding the Museum of the Second World War, the most important historical museum in Poland. In recent years, the museum has become a battleground of competing visions of history, culture, and politics. The founding director of the Museum, Machcewicz will address how debates over the museum epitomize the threats that populism and nationalism pose to intellectual and academic freedom, both in Poland and elsewhere. He will show how these debates demonstrate the vulnerability of democracy and the dangers posed by the weaponization of history.
Dr. Pawel Machcewicz is a historian and professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. From 2008 to 2017, he was the founding director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk. He has taught at Warsaw University and the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. His many books include _Rebellious Satellite: Poland 1956_ (Stanford University Press, 2009); _Poland`s War on Radio Free Europe 1950-1989_(Stanford University Press, 2014); and _The War That Never Ends: The Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk_(De Gruyter, 2019).
Sponsored by the Leonard and Carolyn Miller Distinguished Professorship in Holocaust Studies
For more information, contact Miller Center for Holocaust St at 802-656-3180 or Holocaust.Studies@uvm.edu.