The Department’s Profile:

The research and didactic activity of the Department’s employees focuses on global history in the 20^th century. Prof. dr hab Mieczysław Nurek, who specialized in the history of British-Polish relations in the first half of the 20^th century, was the creator and first head of the Department. The Department was also broadening research on the Baltic Sea region and decolonization processes in Africa. Since 2015, the work of the Department is managed by Anna Mazurkiewicz, the student of professor Nurek. Currently, American studies dominate as part of scientific research carried out by the Department’s academics. However, issues related to international relations, diplomacy history, various aspects of social history and history of culture in selected regions of the world are discussed during the didactic classes. Three prestigious international conferences were organized by the Department’s employees at the University of Gdańsk; dedicated to transatlantic migrations (2012), outside the radio activities of the Free Europe Committee, with the participation of the President of Estonia and the US Ambassador (2014) and recently World Congress on Polish Studies (2019), which became the largest conference organized by our Department. Our employees actively participate in the US exchange programs not only regularly conducting lectures and research on the other side of the globe, but also organizing various forms of exchange with American students. Before the Covid-19 Pandemic, students from the USA regularly visited Gdańsk for several days. In the current academic year, we organized two virtual exchange programs. The first one was concerned with III year History students preparing a joint project with students from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The second was a program of 9 online sessions with the participation of Valdosta State University students. The meetings that are scheduled for three weeks of May 2021 were prepared in cooperation with PhD students from the Historical Faculty of UG and the Faculty of Languages UG. The Department’s academics also perform the function of student exchange coordinators under the Erasmus program. Currently, there are six PhD students in the Department, including six graduate students form the Doctoral School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UG.

Employees:

Dr hab. Anna Mazurkiewicz, prof. UG

Mazurkiewicz is the author of monographs regarding American and Polish relations after World War II and devoted to the experience of Central European political refugees. Her work “Political Refugees from Central and Eastern Europe in the American Cold War Politics, 1948-1954” (Warszawa-Gdańsk, 2016) won the title of the best, foreign language book on the history of the United States (Willi Paul Adams Award, 2019) awarded by the Organization of American Historians. In 2020, DeGruyter published her latest work devoted to the history of the Assembly of Captive European Nations – the organization financed by the US Free Europe Committee. Mazurkiewicz is also an editor of four collective works devoted to migration issues, four of which were published outside Poland. A scholarship holder of the Fulbright Commission (Stanford University), Kościuszko Foundation (University of Minnesota), Visegrad Fund (Central European University), American Polish Research Fellowship (University of Notre Dame). A lecturer at American universities – State University of New York at Buffalo, Valdosta State University (USA) – as a scholarship holder of the Kościuszko Foundation. The president of the Polish American Historical Association (2017-2018). In 2013-2016, the vice president of this American organization. A member of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Polish Historical Society, the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission for the Studies on Polish Diaspora, the Committee for Research on Migration of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The Fulbright Ambassador in Gdańsk, a mentor in Top Minds program. A laureate of many awards. In 2006, Mazurkiewicz was honored with the main prize of the National Cultural Center for the best doctoral thesis on historical sciences. Awarded with the Medal of the National Education Commission (2014), and Mieczysław Haiman Medal by the Polish American Historical Association (2019) and others.

Dr hab. Przemysław Różański, prof. UG

The subject of research conducted by Różański is the policy of the United States of America towards Nazi Germany’s genocide of Jews in occupied Poland, 1939-1945. Różański examines the US relations to “the final solution” and persecution of the Jewish population preceding the industrial genocide in the death chambers. The aim of Różański’s current project is to determine how the location of the Jewish minority in the area of Poland occupied by the German Reich from September 1, 1939, was perceived in the United States and what initiatives (or lack thereof) were taken by the USA and American Jewish population to help persecuted followers of Judaism, derange the German plans of annihilation of the Jewish community. Różański is a scholarship holder of the Polish American Research Fellowship (Notre Dame University, USA) and an active participant in many international conferences.

Dr Zbigniew Landowski-

A graduate of Arabic studies, explores the modern history of oriental studies (including Gdańsk), cultures and confessions of the East, region studies and “atypical” tourism. Landowski is also interested in art history and everyday life in Asia in all its manifestations, especially music and traditional clothing, and a broader-cultural image of the world (in religious, ethnological, and regional perspective) in modern history. In case of Islam, Landowski focuses on the analysis of the forms of folk Islam present in Central Asia.

Dr Piotr Derengowski –

A researcher of racial discrimination against African Americans in the American army by the prism of military courts. Additionally, the participation of Poles in the Civil War is also in the sphere of his interests. Derengowski is finishing the edition of William Kossak’s journal, born in Gdańsk, a cartographer and at the same time the commander of the pontoon-bridge column serving under Sherman’s orders. Simultaneously, he is preparing for a publication of a work devoted to the Polish Brigade of Kacper Tochman, which was created in Louisiana.