Council of Memory - Instytut Pileckiego
The Pilecki Institute’s Council of Memory was established on February 1, 2026, for a four-year term, and consists of seven members.
Dr. Marek Mutor, Chair of the Memorial Council
Prof. Wojciech Śleszyński, Ph.D.
Prof. Mariusz Wołos, Ph.D.
Dr. Marcin Napiórkowski, Professor at the University of Warsaw
Dr. Przemysław Ruchlewski
Dr. Michał Trębacz
Wojciech Konończuk
Doctor Marek Mutor – Chairman of the Council of Memory
Marek Mutor is a Doctor of the Humanities, a specialist in Polish studies, and a historian. In 2022, he was appointed First Deputy Director of the National Ossoliński Institute in Wrocław. Doctor Mutor is a graduate of the University of Wrocław, and of postgraduate studies at the Academy of Cultural Leaders. In the years 2007–2023, he was the founder and thereafter director of the “Memory and Future” Center, and the creator of the Zajezdnia History Center in Wrocław. In the years 2005–2006 and in 2016, he was the Director of the National Center of Culture in Warsaw. Starting in 2021, he has served as the President of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, an international organization of circles and institutions documenting the history of victims of totalitarianism and heroes of resistance against totalitarian systems.
Professor Wojciech Śleszyński
Wojciech Śleszyński, a Professor of the Humanities, a historian and political scientist. He has served as the Director of the Sybir Memorial Museum since 2017. A long-time lecturer at the University of Białystok. From 2012 to 2016, he was Dean of the Department of History and Sociology at the University of Białystok, while from 2016 to 2020 he was Vice President for Education at the University of Białystok. Professor Śleszyński is currently the Director of the Department of Eastern Studies and International Political Relations at the University of Białystok. He is the author of more than 200 scholarly publications.
Professor Mariusz Wołos
Mariusz Wołos, a Professor of the Humanities, a historian, Sovietologist, source editor and essayist, is affiliated with the University of the Commission of National Education in Kraków and the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. In the years 1993–2011, he worked at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. From 2007 to 2011, he headed the Scientific Station of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) in Moscow as the Permanent Representative of PAS at the Russian Academy of Sciences. During the 2016–2020 term, he was Vice President for Education at the Pedagogical University in Kraków (the University of the Commission of National Education in Kraków as of 2023), where he currently heads the Department of Recent History and Historical Education. A member of the Council for Scholarly Excellence of the Committee of Historical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Professor Wołos is the author of nearly 300 scholarly publications and some 150 popular science publications. He is the recipient, among others, of the KLIO Award and the Wacław Jędrzejewicz History Medal.
Associate Professor Marcin Napiórkowski, Professor of the University of Warsaw
Marcin Napiórkowski, a Doctor Habilitatus in the Humanities, is a semiotician and a Professor at the Institute of Polish Culture of the University of Warsaw. His interests include cultural history, the collective memory, and the role of stories in building communities and decision-making. He is the author of several dozen scholarly articles and 7 monographs, including “Mitologia współczesna”, “Powstanie umarłych” (nominated for the Jan Długosz Prize, the final of the Kazimierz Moczarski Prize), “Turbopatriotyzm”, and “Naprawić przyszłość” (the final of the Tischner Prize, the final of the Marcin Król Prize). Professor Napiórkowski has also tried his hand at other genres: he has administered the mitologiawspolczesna.pl blog, and co-authored the well-received musical “1989” and several other plays, as well as the audioseries “Narutowicz”. He is a regular contributor to “Tygodnik Powszechny”, and has also published in, among others, “Więź”, “Znak”, “Polityka” and “Gazeta Wyborcza”. As of September 2024, he heads the Polish History Museum.
Doctor Przemysław Ruchlewski
Przemysław Ruchlewski, a historian and a Doctor of the Humanities in the field of History, specializes in modern Polish history, the history of the Polish People’s Republic, the history of the democratic opposition, and the Solidarity Trade Union. From 2010, he has been associated with the European Solidarity Center in Gdańsk, where he headed the Department of Historical Research in the years 2016–2020, and since 2020 has served as the Deputy Director of the institution. From 2022, he is the Chancellor of the Pomeranian University in Starogard Gdański. Doctor Ruchlewski is a graduate of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where he completed a Degree in History and Doctoral Studies. In the years 2014–2023, he taught at various universities in Gdańsk. In 2025, he was appointed to the third term of the Pomeranian Cultural Council. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal “Wolność i Solidarność”, and the author of several dozen scholarly articles on modern Polish history and of a history textbook for high schools and technical colleges.
Doctor Michał Trębacz
Michal Trębacz, a Doctor of the Humanities, specializes in the history of the Jewish community in Poland in the 20th century. Since 2017, he has headed the Scientific Department at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, where he oversaw, among others, the Global Education Outreach Program, which aims to support research on Jewish history both in Poland and abroad. He has lectured on 20th century Jewish history at universities in Germany, Israel and the United States. Doctor Trębacz has been the co-creator of numerous research projects devoted to the history of the Jewish community in Poland. Since 2009, he has been affiliated with the Filip Friedman Center for Jewish Research at the University of Łódź. He is the author of more than 40 scholarly and popular science publications. He has published his writings in, among others, “Zagłada Żydów. Studia i materiały”, “Kwartalnik Historii Żydów” and the “Polityka” weekly. On 20 March 2024, he was appointed Acting Director of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. By a decision of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, he was officially appointed Director of the Institute on 20 March 2025.
Wojciech Konończuk is the Director of the Marek Karp Center for Eastern Studies. Previously, he served as its Deputy Director, the Head of the Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova Team, and Analyst of Russian Foreign and Energy policy in the Center’s Russia Team. In the past, he was the coordinator of Ukrainian and Belarusian projects at the Stefan Batory Foundation, and a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute within the Wilson Center in Washington. He has participated in numerous international research projects (including Sorbonne Nouvelle, CEPS, and Think Visegrad). Mr. Konończuk is a regular contributor to “Tygodnik Powszechny”. He regularly lectures at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics. He is the Chairman of the Polish-Czech Forum at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, and a Member of the Board of the National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad POLONIKA.
He is a graduate of international relations at the University of Warsaw and the School of Eastern Europe Studies at the University of Warsaw. He also studied at the St. Petersburg State University and the School of Economics. He is the initiator of the publication and editor of a three-volume collection of Russian and Promethean writings by Włodzimierz Bączkowski (Mieroszewski Centre and OMP 2022). Author of the books “Zagrożone dziedzictwo. Polskie dobra kultury na Ukrainie i Białorusi” (OSW, 2020) and “Sztuka przetrwania. Deportacje sowieckie z powiatu bielskiego 1940–1941” (IPN 2019).