MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
A regional initiative of European Studies Council

Kruzhok - Slow Violence in a Soft Dictatorship?

Rural and Borderland Violence in Interwar Poland

The Kruzhok-REEES Reading Group presents Professor Katherine Lebow, Oxford University

Title: Slow Violence in a Soft Dictatorship? Rural and Borderland Violence in Interwar Poland

Abstract: This paper reflects upon violence in the Polish Second Republic (1918-39), drawing on narratives by “ordinary” Poles submitted to popular memoir competitions between the two World Wars. Focusing especially on rural areas and borderlands in the 1930s, it asks how memoirists narrated and understood violence; it also considers what typologies or paradigms might usefully help us think about violence in a “soft” authoritarian regime.

Date: Friday, December 05, 2025 | 5:30 pm ET

Not Open to the Public; for more information on the kruzhok and to get involved, please visit it's webpage.

Speakers

Katherine Lebow

Associate Professor of Modern History, Oxford University