Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena

Professor Piotr Majewski

Fellow Piotr Majewski

August - September 2016
Mail pm_majewski@wp.pl

Piotr M. Majewski (born 1972) works at the Warsaw University. His main scientific interests are focused on the history of Czechoslovakia and Czech lands and on the Czech-German relations in 19th and 20th century. He has conducted also research on the Polish foreign policy after 1945 and on the forced migrations in Europe during the Second World War. Since 2009 he is deputy director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, responsible for development of the permanent exhibition. In 2009 he was a member of the Scientific Council of the exposition "Deutsche und Polen. Abgründe und Hoffnungen" in the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. In 2006/2007 he was a Gastdozent at the Ludwig-Maximilan Universität in Munich. He graduated in 1996 history at the Warsaw University, where he has continued then his scientific career (a doctorate in 2000, habilitation in 2008).

Research project at the Kolleg

The project deals with collaboration in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia during the Second World War. Its main objective is to analyze forms and shades of this phenomenon respecting the changes of political and social background which took place in the course of war. The research is supposed to include not only forced cooperation of the Czech authorities with German institutions, but also the ideologically motivated collaborationism of some individuals (e.g. journalists) and of the extreme right groups, as well as the attentisme or less known and less unambiguous cases of collaboration which may be found in culture, economics and everyday life. Among questions which should be investigated especially important seem a perception of collaboration by the Czech society and the mechanisms of collaboration. What was accepted or at least tolerated as a legitimate cooperation with the occupiers and what was perceived as a national treason? What did drive particular people or groups to collaborate with Germans? How did the Third Reich authorities try to enhance a collaboration?

Main areas of research

  • History of Czechoslovakia and Czech lands
  • Czech-German relations in 19th and 20th century
  • Polish foreign policy after 1945
  • Forced migrations in Europe during the Second World War
  • Role of museums in shaping of the collective memory of the Second World War
  • History of the Warsaw University

Positions and Memberships

  • Deputy director of the Museum of the Second World War

Monographs

Piotr M. Majewski, Edvard Beneš i kwestia niemiecka w Czechach (Warszawa: DiG, 2001)

Piotr M. Majewski, Nierozegrana kampania. Możliwości obronne Czechosłowacji jesienią 1938 roku, (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio, 2004)

Piotr M. Majewski, "Niemcy sudeccy": historia pewnego nacjonalizmu (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa UW, 2007)

Piotr M. Majewski, Sudetští Nĕmci. Dĕjiny jednoho nacionalismu (Brno: Conditio Humana, 2014)

Piotr M. Majewski, Zmarnowana szansa? Możliwości obrony Czechosłowacji jesienią 1938 r. (Gdańsk: Muzeum II Wojny Światowej, 2016)

Edited volumes

Piotr Buras, Piotr M. Majewski, eds., Pamięć wypędzonych. Grass, Beneš i środkowoeuropejskie rozrachunki (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo "Znak", Warszawa, 2003)

Piotr M. Majewski, ed., Polskie Dokumenty Dyplomatyczne, Vol: 1973 (Warszawa: PISM, 2006)

Piotr M. Majewski ed., Polskie Dokumenty Dyplomatyczne, Vol: 1977 (Warszawa: PISM, 2009)

Piotr M. Majewski, ed., Dzieje Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1915-1945 (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa UW, 2016)

Piotr M. Majewski, ed., Dzieje Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego po 1945 (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa UW, 2016)

Articles

Piotr M. Majewski, 'Zwischen Versöhnung und Verteidigung nationaler Interessen. Die polnische Debatte über die Aussiedlung der deutschen Bevölkerung nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg vor dem Hintergrund der Diskussionen in der Tschechischen Republik 1989-2003', in Diskurse über Zwangsmigrationen in Zentraleuropa: Geschichtspolitik, Fachdebatten, literarisches und lokales Erinnern seit 1989 edited by Peter Haslinger, K. Erik Franzen, Martin Schulze Wessel (München: Oldenbourg, 2008) 31-58.

Paweł Machcewicz, Piotr M. Majewski, 'Muzeum II Wojny Światowej. Zarys koncepcji programowej', Przegląd Polityczny 91/92 (2008): 46-51.

Piotr M. Majewski, 'Polityka zagraniczna PRL w roku 1977', Polski Przegląd Dyplomatyczny, no 6 (2009): 109-138.

Piotr M. Majewski, 'Die Formsprache des Gedenkens und ihre Modernisierung - KZ Gedenkstätten in Polen', in Medien zwischen Fiction-Making und Realitätsanspruch: Konstruktionen historischer Erinnerungen edited by Monika Heinemann, Hannah Maischein, Monika Flacke, Peter Hasslinger, Martin Schulze Wessel (München: Oldenbourg, 2011), 305-326.

Piotr M. Majewski, 'Freimaurer, Feigling, Russophiler, Intrigant: Edvard Beneš in den Augen der Polen 1918-1945', in Edvard Beneš: Vorbild und Feindbild. Politische, mediale und historiographische Deutungen edited by Ota Konrád, René Küpper (München: Oldenbourg 2013), 71-91.

Piotr M. Majewski, Rafał Wnuk, 'Between Heroization and Martyrology: The Second World War in selected museums in Central and Eastern Europe', Polish Review 60, no 4 (2015): 3-30

Piotr M. Majewski, 'Społeczność akademicka 1915-1939', in Dzieje Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1915-1945 edited by Piotr M. Majewski (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa UW, 2016), 51-324

Reviews

Mnichov, Británie a pokus o revizi českého pohledu, review of Vít Smetana, In the Shadow of Munich: British Policy towards Czechoslovakia from Endorsement to the Renunciation of the Munich Agreement (1938-1942), (Praha: Karolinum, 2008) in Soudobé dějiny, no 1 (2009): 174-176

The full list of publications can be found here.