The Center for Totalitarian Studies - Instytut Pileckiego
The Center for Totalitarian Studies gathers researchers who specialize in political science, sociology, history, and Jewish studies. This unique milieu of scholars implements interdisciplinary research projects devoted to totalitarianism and the history of Poland in the 20th century. Research focuses primarily on events connected with World War II, the conflict’s impact on societies and politics in the second half of the 20th century, and the cultivation of memory by the second and third postwar generations.
While conducting their own research projects, employees of the Center utilize collections acquired by the Institute, which together form a digital archive containing documents relating to the history of Poland and Polish citizens in the 20th century. As part of their activities they popularize and disseminate the results of their studies, in particular abroad. To this end they organize debates, seminars, and international scientific conferences.
Selected research projects conducted by employees of the Center with the participation of cooperating scholars:
Department for the study of communism and Soviet occupation during the Second World War
The Department for the Study of Communism and the Soviet Occupation comprises research workers of the Institute who engage in a variety of topics related to the Soviet domination of East Central Europe in the 20th century, encompassing political, social and economic history. The Department’s research centers on exploring the essence of the Communist system in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and other Communist states; the distinguishing features of the system and its impact on subordinate societies; and the history of women in the totalitarian reality. Importantly, the unit also focuses on an analysis of the nature of the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic and the history of Poland under Communist rule after the Second World War.
Department for the study of Nazism and German occupation during the Second World War
The Department for the Study of Nazism and the German Occupation conducts research into the functioning of the Nazi system and the occupation policy of the Third Reich, with particular attention to the history of the Polish lands in the years 1939–1945. The team analyzes both the structures of the apparatus of violence and the perpetrators of crimes, and the experiences of victims and the social aspects of life under the occupation. Another important area of work concerns the post-war prosecution of Nazi crimes and the memory of the Second World War
Department for the study of totalitarianism, politics and international law
The research conducted at the Department of Totalitarianism, Politics and International Law is interdisciplinary, combining political and administrative science, international relations, history, jurisprudence and philosophy. The unit focuses primarily on the history of diplomacy and the development of international law and institutions – topics closely related to the concept of totalitarianism and the crimes committed under totalitarian regimes. Researchers at the Department are concerned with, among others, the following issues: the formation of the definition of international crimes and the principles of liability under the influence of totalitarian regimes, reparations for the crimes of totalitarian systems, and the actions undertaken by Polish diplomats and lawyers in these fields. Other important areas include the transformation of totalitarian states, and the impact of authoritarian and totalitarian states on international relations and the world order.
Research unit for the study of social anthropology of totalitarian and post-totalitarian systems
The Department of Anthropologies of Totalitarianism and Post-Totalitarianism at the Pilecki Institute conducts interdisciplinary research on how totalitarian and post-totalitarian systems shape everyday life, culture, memory, and social relations. Bringing together scholars from history, cultural studies, sociology, and related fields, it examines such systems not only as political orders but as lived conditions that structure behaviour, feeling, identity, and belonging. Its work focuses on the legacies of coercion, violence, propaganda, and ideological rule across Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet space, and other regions shaped by comparable regimes. Combining archival, ethnographic, digital, and computational methods, the department contributes to international scholarship on the lived experience and afterlives of (post-)totalitarianism.
Research Projects Department
Ewa Serafin-Prusator
Manager
Karolina Goździk-Lelewska
Dorota Sokolik