Poland: Transnational Histories

The borders of Poland have shifted dynamically throughout the country’s history, expanding and shrinking (or even vanishing), moving between the Baltic and the Black Seas, and the Oder and the Dnieper Rivers. Not unlike other states in the region, the spatial dynamics of Poland’s history have impacted its social structure: Poland has been home to diverse religious and ethnic groups, who migrated, assimilated, resisted assimilation, persevered or suppressed others. These forces of moving populations, shifting frontiers, and mixing of peoples have resulted in a complex and dynamic set of histories in the Polish space, a phenomenon as yet poorly understood in the wider scholarly community.

The books in this series aims at presenting original research on the shifts and movements characteristic of Polish history, but that is also embedded in broader developments beyond Poland’s borders. The works in the series examine the complexities and entanglements of Poland’s past as a rule rather than as an exception. They consider the ways particular elements and trends in Polish history resonate globally, on the one hand, and the impact of global trends on internal Polish developments, on the other.

The series is supported by the German Historical Institute Warsaw and the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences.