Conference “Shared Experiences – Different Paths? The Turning Point of 1956 and Its Significance for the Countries and Societies of East Central Europe” - Instytut Pileckiego

The Pilecki Institute and the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences invite you to participate in an international academic conference, Shared Experiences – Different Paths? The Turning Point of 1956 and Its Significance for the Countries and Societies of East Central Europe, which will be held on 19–21 October 2026 in Warsaw. The event is part of a series of conferences devoted to the history of transformations in East Central Europe after 1945.

International academic conference “Shared Experiences – Different Paths? The Turning Point of 1956 and Its Significance for the Countries and Societies of East Central Europe”. 

19–21 October 2026
Instytut Pileckiego, 82 Sienna Street, Warsaw 

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The year 1956 is widely regarded as one of the key turning points in Poland’s post-war history, marking a fundamental shift within the political order established after 1945. On the seventieth anniversary of the Polish October, we would like to ask: was this year equally transformative for political and social processes across the wider region? The aim of the conference is to offer a critical reassessment of the significance of the turbulent year 1956 for countries and societies of the Eastern Bloc, with particular emphasis on the relationship between political transformation and social change. Our perspective goes beyond national frameworks. Situating the events of 1956 within the broader context of the Eastern Bloc allows us to draw on the approaches of transnational history, histoire croisée and connected history. This approach not only encourages interdisciplinary dialogue, but also offers new interpretative insights into issues long established in historiography. We invite scholars from various disciplines – history, sociology, political science and anthropology – to participate in the conference. We believe that innovative theoretical approaches and the dialogue between different scholarly traditions will contribute to a deeper understanding of the region’s historical trajectories during the era of ‘real socialism’ and in the longer term, extending to the transformations of 1989. 

Key note lecturers:

Daniela Koleva – professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sofia University, academic associate of the Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia and member of the Academic Board of New Europe College, Bucharest. Her research interests include social history and anthropology of socialism and post-socialism, with a particular focus on oral history, ageing studies, and biographical and cultural memory. She is also interested in the politics of memory and heritage as well as the social history of medicine. She wrote, among others: Memory archipelago of the communist past: Public narratives and personal recollections (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022), Ageing, ritual and social change: Comparing the secular and religious in Eastern and Western Europe (Routledge 2013), Negotiating normality: everyday lives in socialist institutions (New Brunswick, London, Transaction Publishers 2012) 

Silvio Pons – Professor of Contemporary History at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the president of the Fondazione Gramsci, Rome. His main field of interest is 20th-century international history, with a particular focus on Communism and the Cold War. He wrote, among others: Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936-1941 (Einaudi 1995, Frank Cass 2002, Routledge 2014), The Global Revolution. A History of International Communism 1917-1991 (Einaudi 2012, Oxford University Press 2014), and The Rise and Fall of the Italian Communist Party. A Transnational History (Stanford University Press, 2024). He edited A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism (Einaudi 2006-2007, Princeton University Press 2010) and was General Editor of the Cambridge History of Communism (Cambridge University Press 2017).

Shared Experiences – Different Paths? The Turning Point of 1956
and its Significance for the Countries and Societies of East Central Europe

October 19 – 21, 2026

The Pilecki Institute, 82 Sienna Street, 00-815 Warsaw
 

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Day 1: MONDAY, OCTOBER 19

15.00–16.15 Conference opening and inaugural lecture

Keynote lecture I: Silvio Pons, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

Communism in Europe after the Second World War and the Crisis of 1956: Transnational Perspectives

Moderator: Bartłomiej Kapica, Pilecki Institute

16.15–16.45 Coffee break

16.45–18.30 Session I: Systemic Crisis: De-Stalinisation and the Limits of Political Reform

Moderator: Bartłomiej Kapica, Pilecki Institute

• Attila Apor, Scruton Community Space, 1956 and the Inevitable Course of Hungarian State Socialism
• Milán Pap, University of Public Service, Budapest, A Cult in Crisis: Hungary's Liberation Ritual and the Rupture of 1956 in Comparative Perspective
• Arnd Bauerkämper, Freie Universität Berlin, The Revolt That Never Was. Walter Ulbricht’s Victory Over His Critics in the GDR, 1956–57
• Enis Sulstarova, University of Tirana, Contesting De-Stalinization: Albania in the Years 1953–1956

18.30 Dinner
 

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Day 2: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20

9:00–10:00 a.m. Keynote lecture II: Daniela Koleva, St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia

‘Everything for the sake of man, everything for the good of man’. Welfare and Legitimacy

Moderator: Ewelina Szpak, Polish Academy of Sciences

10:00–10:20 a.m. Coffee break

10:20–11.40 a.m. Session II: Society in Motion: Workers, Young People, Minorities

Moderator: Paweł Sasanka, Pilecki Institute

• Padraic Kenney, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Dreams and Disappointments – Workers in a Communist State
• Tom Junes, Polish Academy of Sciences, The Generation of ’56: Transnational Student Revolt in the Soviet Bloc, 1955–1957
• Marek Szajda, Civitas University, Warsaw, Was 1956 an Anti-Semitic Year? The Experiences of Jews in Poland During the October Thaw

11.40–12.00 a.m. Coffee break

12.00 a.m.–1.20 p.m. Session III: The Socialist Welfare State: Modernization, Consumption, and New Legitimacy

Moderation: Michał Przeperski, Polish Academy of Sciences

• Maksim Shulga, European University Institute, Florence, The Promise of Private Space: Khrushchev's Housing Reform and the Remaking of Soviet Property, 1956–1976
• Ewelina Szpak, Polish Academy of Sciences, Towards a Welfare State? Modernity and Health Policy in Rural Poland after 1956
• Hubert Wilk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Towards Socialism on Four Wheels. Mass Motorization in the Eastern Bloc in the 1950s

1.20–2.30 p.m. Lunch break

2.30–3.50 p.m. Session IV: Socialism with a Human Face? Everyday Life After 1956

Moderation: Hubert Wilk, Polish Academy of Sciences  

• Natalia Jarska, Polish Academy of Sciences, Women, Work and Expertise Before and After 1956: Poland in a Comparative Perspective
• Ivana Dobrivojević Tomić, Institute of Contemporary History in Belgrade, Building Socialism with a „Human Face”. The Yugoslav Experience 1956–1991 
• Dániel Farkas, Danube Institute, Goulash, Communism, and Globalisation in Hungary, 1958–1970

3.50–4.10 p.m. Coffee break

4.10–5.50 p.m. Session V:  Between East and West: The Flow of Knowledge and Ideas

Moderation: Bartosz Kaliski, Polish Academy of Science

• Paweł Sasanka, Pilecki Institute, 1956 and the Transnational Spread of the Idea of Workers’ Councils: Polish-Yugoslav Encounters
• Jędrzej Piekara, Museum of the Second World War, Gdańsk, Émigré Agency in the Thaw: Jerzy Giedroyc and the Polish October in the Light of the Literary Institute’s Archives
• Oleksandr Avramchuk, University of Warsaw, Poland after 1956: Academic Exchange and the U.S.–Soviet Struggle for Socialist Bloc Elites
• Aleksandra Sumorok, Academy of Fine Arts, Łódź, A „Window of Opportunity”? The Ford Foundation Fellowship Program for Polish Architects, 1957–1962

7.00 p.m. Dinner
 

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Day 3: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21

9.00–10.40 a.m. Session VI: 1956 as a New Beginning: New Spaces for Culture and Action

Moderation: Bartosz Kaliski, Polish Academy of Sciences

• Melinda Harlov-Csortán, Apor Vilmos Catholic College, International Participation Possibilities at Cultural Organisations and Initiatives after 1956
• Maksymilian Loth-Hill, Durham University, 1956 – A Turning Point in Polish Museology?
• Katarzyna Matul, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Beyond 1956: Rethinking the Origins of the Polish School of Poster 
• Iveta Leitane, University of Tübingen, From the French Group to the National Resistance After 1956 in Latvia

10.40–11.00 a.m. Coffee break

11.00 a.m. – 12.20 p.m. Session VII:  The Polish October and the Outside World

Moderation: Michał Przeperski, Polish Academy of Sciences

• Meng Yang, University of Warsaw, 1956 as a Turning Point in Sino-Polish Relations During the Cold War: Sino-Polish Maritime Cooperation and the 1952 Chipolbrok Flag Crisis
• Daniel Filip, University of Bucharest, The Polish Crisis of 1956 Through the Lens of Romanian Diplomacy
• Jacek Tebinka, University of Gdańsk, Great Britain and Poland in 1956. From a Soviet Satellite to the National Communist State

12.20 – 12.40 p.m. Coffee break

12.40 – 2.00 p.m. Session VIII: New Relationships and Global Opening

Moderation: Paweł Sasanka, Pilecki Institute

• Jakub Tyszkiewicz, University of Wrocław, Dreams of Titoization: The United States’ Response to Political Change in Central Europe in 1956.
• Przemysław Gasztold, Institute of National Remembrance, War Studies University, Warsaw, 1956 and Poland’s Global Opening: Reconfiguring Relations with the Third World
• Zsombor Bódy, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Opening Up to the Global South From Within the Eastern Bloc and From a Neutral Position. Hungary and Austria’s Room for Maneuver in the “Third World” in Comparative Terms, Starting in the Mid-1950s.