Michał Pospiszyl
Visiting Fellow
Michał Pospiszyl is a historian and assistant professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, who lives in the Białowieża Forest. Dr. Pospiszyl’s current research focuses on the environmental dimensions of migration, resistance, and imperial expansion in Eastern Europe during the Enlightenment. The current book project on "escape ecologies" in Enlightenment Eastern Europe examines how landscapes, natural resources, and environmental opacity enabled large-scale movements of peasants, deserters, and religious minorities into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during a period often described as one of political and economic collapse.
Dr. Pospiszyl’s research has been supported by fellowships from the National Science Center, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the Institute for Advanced Study at the Central European University in Budapest and the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University. Recent and forthcoming publications include “The Fifth Element: The Enlightenment and the Draining of Eastern Europe” (Environmental History, 2/2023); “On the Edge of Power: Peasants and Escape Ecologies in Eastern Europe, c. 1700–1850” (The Journal of Modern History, 1/2026).