Wiktor Marzec

RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am a historical sociologist working on post-imperial transformations in East-Central Europe. My expertise is located in-between historical sociology, new imperial history, parliamentary and history of concepts. I am interested in empires, revolutions, nationalism, labor, parliamentarism and state-crafting. Main current research concerns figurations of contentious politics and state building in patchwork states, emerging from borderlands of the bygone, vying empires.

PROJECTS

In Institute for Social Studies I investigate patchwork parliaments emerging after empires. I explore how regional and imperial political traditions and refractions translated into the field of power in the highly heterogenous post-imperial states, emerging after the First World War: the republic of Poland, the extended kingdom of Romania and the merger Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. My project aims to understand the dynamic interaction between personal, regional and state-polity parameters in three patchwork parliaments sharing entangled but multiple institutional histories on the shatter zone of empires. It does so by merging new parliamentary studies, historical sociology of imperial form and post-Bourdieuian field analysis. In this way it offers a nested, encompassing comparison of three states in the making, which were facing bewildering cultural diversity, social challenges and political choices.
More on the project

Previously, I investigated rebellion and reaction in the post-imperial borderlands between 1905 and 1921. Comparing Poland, Finland and other borderland regions of the Russian Empire I ask about revolutions that succeeded, failed or did not happen at all against the backdrop of nation building and state-crafting in the region.
More on the project

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Books:

• Rising Subjects: The 1905 Revolution and the Genesis of the Polish Public Sphere, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh 2020; advance praise available: https://upittpress.org/books/9780822946120/;

Reviewed in: Slavic Review, Europe-Asia Studies, CHOICEconnect, Acta Poloniae Historica, Russian Review, Ab Imperio, Capital&Class

• From Cotton and Smoke: Łódź – Industrial City and Discourses of Asynchronous Modernity 1897–1994, Lodz University Press, Jagiellonian University Press, distributed by Columbia University Press, Łódź-Kraków 2018 (with Zysiak, A., Śmiechowski, K., Piskała, K., Kaźmierska, K., Burski, J.), Introduction available here. Reviewed in: American Historical Review, Slavic Review, International Review of Social History, Slavonic and Eastern European Review, H-Net Urban, H-net Poland, Moving the Social.

Translated as: Z bawełny i dymu. Łódź – miasto przemysłowe i dyskursy asynchronicznej nowoczesności 1897–1994, WUŁ, Łódź 2021

• Rebelia i reakcja. Rewolucja 1905 roku i plebejskie doświadczenie polityczne (Rebellion and Reaction. The
  1905 Revolution and Plebeian Political Experience in Russian Poland), Lodz University Press and Universitas, Łódź-Kraków 2016, Introduction available here.

Reviewed in Slavic Review, Acta Polonae Hisorica, Przegląd Historyczny, Kwartalnik Historyczny, Praktyka Teoretyczna, Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo – Wschodniej, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Kultura Liberalna, Nowy Obywatel, HistMag, Kronika Miasta Łodzi, nomination for Poznań Humanities Award 2018.

Peer-reviewed journal articles:

• ’The Revolution That Did Not Happen. Labor Insurgency in Late Russian Poland,’ International Labor and Working Class History, online first 2024:1-22. doi:10.1017/S0147547924000152.
• ’Making Basic Law in a Post-imperial State. Diffusion, Adjustment and Legal Cunning in the Constitutional Debate on Ethno-cultural diversity in Poland 1919-1922,’ Ab Imperio, 2023 no. 4, pp 155-188.
• ’From Empires of Nations to the Nation State of Minorities: The Conceptual History of National Minority in Russian Poland and the new Polish State 1900-1922,’ Contributions to the History of Concepts 2023, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 1-27.
• ’A sub-imperial realm amidst the global parliamentary moment. Legislative imaginations of Russian Poland, 1905-18,’ Parliaments, Estates and Representation 2022, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 253-268.
• ’Landed Nation. Land Reform and Ethnic Diversity in the Interwar Polish Parliament,’ Nationalities Papers, Vol. 51, No. 4, pp. 929-949, JCR IF 0.746
• ’One of the Oldest States in Europe Has Never Suppressed Any Nation.’ The Minority Treaty, Nationalist Indignation and the Foundations of Interwar Ethnic Democracy in Poland,’ Nations and Nationalism 2021, No. 27, pp. 1080–1096, JCR IF 1.433;
• ‘Forging Polity in Times of International Class War: The Parliamentary Rhetoric on Labor in the First Polish Diet, 1919–1922,’ International Review of Social History 2021, Vol. 66, No. 3, pp. 443 – 467, JCR IF 0.86;
• ‘Polish Politics before and after the Holocaust: The Impact of Antisemitism on Political Cleavages,’ The Polish Review 2021, vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 37–43;
• ‘Working out Socialism. Labor and Politics in Socialist Autobiography in 20th-Century Poland,’ An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 2020, Vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 361-385, SJR 0,24;
• ‘Civil society and the public sphere. Historical trajectories in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria,’ Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe2020, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 7-28, SJR 0,2;
• ‘Debating the Urban, the Rural and the Foreign: Łódź in the Polish Urban Discourse of Late Russian Poland,’ ZeitschriftfürOstmitteleuropa-Forschung. Journal of East Central European Studies2020, Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 159-182;
• ‘Repertoires of Industrial Conflict in a Modern City: Łódź, Central Poland 1861-1921,’ Labor History 2019, 60, No. 6, pp. 734-748, JCR IF 0,569;
• ‘The Birth of the Militant Self.Working-Class Memoirs of Late Russian Poland,’ East Central Europe 2019, No. 46, pp. 29-51, SJR 0,1;
• ‘Under One Common Banner. Antisemitism and Socialist Strategy During the 1905-1907 Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland,’Patterns of Prejudice 2017, 51, No. 3-4, pp. 269–291, JCR IF 0,378;
• ‘Vernacular Marxism. Proletarian Readings in Russian Poland Around the 1905 Revolution,’Historical Materialism 2017, 25, pp. 65-104, JCR IF 0,37;
• ‘What Bears Witness of the Failed Revolution? The Rise of Political Antisemitism during the 1905-1907 Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland,’ Eastern European Politics and Societies 2016, 30, No. 1, pp. 189-213, JCR IF 0,437;
• ‘Die Revolution 1905 bis 1907 im Königreich Polen – von der Arbeiterrevolte zur nationalen Reaktion,’Arbeit, Bewgung, Geschichte. Zeitschrift fuer Historische Studien 2016, Jahrgang – Heft 2016/III, p. 27-46;
• ‘Reading Polish Peripheral Marxism Politically,’ Thesis Eleven 2013, 117 (1), pp. 6–19; SJR 0,246;
• ‘The 1905-1907 Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland – Articulation of Political Subjectivities Among Workers,’ Contention2013, Vol. 1, pp. 53-72.

Co-authored:

• ’Parliament and Revolution: Poland, Finland and the End of Empire in early 20th century, 1905–1918,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 2024, Vol.66, No. 1, pp. 155-184, JCR 0,7 (with Risto Turunen)
• ’Who May Represent a Nation in Upheaval? The Concept of Representation During the Polish November Uprising, 1830-1831,’ Journal of Modern European History 2023, Vol. 21, No. 1, JCR 0,5, pp. 34-51 (with Piotr Kuligowski)
• ‘Historicizing the Asynchronous Modernity in the Global East,’ Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 61, No. 6, pp. 663-685, JCR IF 2.088 (with Agata Zysiak);
• ‘Social-isms in the Tsarist Borderlands. Poland and Finland in a Contrastive Comparison 1830–1907,’ Contributions to the History of Concepts 2018, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 22-50 (with Risto Turunen), SJR 0,12;
• Days of Labour. Topographies of Power in Modern Peripheral Capitalism,’Journal of Historical Sociology 2016, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 129–159, (with Agata Zysiak), JCR IF 0,553;
• ’Journalists Discovered Łódź like Columbus.’ Orientalizing Capitalism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Polish Modernization Debates,’ Canadian-American Slavic Studies 2016, 50, No. 2, pp. 213-243 (with Agata Zysiak), SJR 0,101;
• ‘Pathogenesis of the Polish Public Sphere. The Intelligentsia and Popular Unrest during and after
  the 1905 Revolution,’ Polish Sociological Review 2016, 4, pp. 437-457 (with Kamil Śmiechowski), JCR IF 0,121;
• (Im)mobilités des idées. Socialismes itinérants dans les régions de Pologne et de Finlande de l’empire de Russie, Cahiers Jaurès2019/4 (N° 234), 9-34, (with Risto Turunen).

Contributions in edited volumes

• ’Class, Nation, Revolution. Revolutionary Biographies in Late Russian Poland’, in: Revolutionary Biographies in the 19th and 20th Century: Imperial – Inter/national – Decolonial, Nikolaus Katzer, Sandra Dahlke and Denis Sdvizhkov (eds.), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2023, pp. 37-55.
• ’Beyond group antagonism in asymmetrical counter-concepts. Conceptual pair order and chaos and ideological struggles in late 19th – early 20th century Poland,’ in: ’Hellenes’ and 'Barbarians’: Asymmetrical Concepts in European Discourse, ed. Kirill Postoutenko, Berghahn Books, New York 2022, pp. 225-257.
• ’Sublating the hyphens. Internationalist Working Class Militant Biographies, Identity, and Sub-culture in Late Russian Poland,’ in: Identities In-Between in East-Central Europe, Jan Fellerer, Robert Pyrah, Marius Turda (eds.), Routledge, London-New York 2019
• ’Emotional Community of Nationalist Workers. Performing and Remembering Private Nationalism in late Russian Poland,’ in: Emotions and Everyday Nationalism in Modern European History, eds. Andreas Stynen, Maarten Van Ginderachter and Xosé M. Núñez Seixas (eds.), Routledge, London-New York 2020
• ’Pojęcia na ulicach. Demokratyzacja i polityzacja pojęć w okresie rewolucji 1905 roku,’ in: Z dziejów pojęć społeczno-politycznych w Polsce XVIII-XX wiek, Maciej Janowski (ed.), IH PAN, Wydawnictwo Neriton, Warszawa 2019
• ’Państwo i rewolucja na imperialnym pograniczu. Transformacja rosyjskiej Polski 1905-1921,’ in: Polskie nauki społecznie w kontekście relacji władzy i zależności międzynarodowych, Tomasz Zarycki (ed.), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Warszawa 2022, pp. 45-76.

Edited volumes

• Working Class Literatures: National and International Traditions in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, : Magnus Nilsson, Mike Sanders, Wiktor Marzec (eds.), Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, in print;
• Migrations of Modernism. Modernity and Exile (edited volume in Polish), with Tomasz Majewski and Agnieszka Rejniak-Majewska, NCK-Topografie, Warszawa-Łódź 2014, academic edition;
• The 1905 Revolution. A guidebook (edited volume in Polish), with Kamil Piskała, Warszawa 2013, academic edition;

Journal editorial activities

• Civil Society under Pressure. Historical Legacies and Current Reponses in Central Eastern
  Europe, special issue of Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, in press (with Daniela Neubacher);
• Editorial board member / editor Praktyka Teoretyczna / Theoretical Practice
  (https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/prt)
• 2011-2018, Indexing, database and Impact Factor coordinator, concluded with complexpeer-review and ethical standard implementation and applications to Scopus andClarivate Analytics index lists (pending)

Edited journal issues:

• Subversive Concepts: Empires and Beyond, Praktyka Teoretyczna 2021, No.4, with Piotr Kuligowski;
• Repressed histories of the 19 the century, Praktyka Teoretyczna 2017, No. 1, with Katarzyna Czeczot and Michał Pospiszyl;
• Archaelogies of Contemporaneity. Historical Sociologies of the Modern, Praktyka Teoretyczna 2014, No. 3(13), with Agata Zysiak and Jacek Burski;
• The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg, Praktyka Teoretyczna 2012, No. 6, with Kamil Piskała.

EDUCATION

• December 2023, Habilitation in sociology, University of Warsaw
  Title: Polish Parliamentarism and the Sociogenesis of a Post-Imperial State 1905-1922
• June 2017, PhD in Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Budapest,
  Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology Dissertation 'Rising Subjects. Workers and the Political during the 1905 Revolution in Russian Poland.’ Defense summa cum laude. Committee: Judit Bodnár (supervisor), Balázs Trencsényi (internal examiner), Brian Porter-Szűcs (external examiner), Theodore R. Weeks (external reader), Marsha Siefert (chair)
• June 2011, MA in Philosophy (summa cum laude), University of Lodz, Institute of Philosophy
• June 2009, MA in Sociology, University of Lodz, Institute of Sociology, specialization: Culture, Communication, Media

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• 2019 – present, The Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, principal investigator / project leader, grant-supported research position in the rank of assistant professor
• 2018 – Aug. 2018, Centre for Historical Research, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Sankt Petersburg, post-doc in the rank of assistant professor

AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

Fellowships and research stays:

• Fall 2024 – Summer 2025, New Europe College, Bucharest, Romania, Mattei Dogan Fellow
• Fall 2022, Free University of Berlin, Germany, Academic Excellence Initiative, visiting scholar, Global History, Germany
• Winter 2021, University of Tampere, Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, HEX fellowship
• Fall 2020 – Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany, Research Explorer Fellowship
• Fall 2019 – Winter 2020, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University, visiting scholar
• Winter 2019, German Historical Institute, Moscow, visiting fellow (DHIM research fellowship)
• Spring-Summer 2018, Center for Advanced Study, Sofia, in-residence advanced academia fellowship
• Winter 2018, German Historical Institute, Moscow, visiting fellow, research stay
• Spring 2017, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria, CEU-IWM fellowship, junior fellow
• Fall and Winter 2015-2016, Re:work research Center, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, Doctoral Research Support Program, junior fellow
• Winter and Spring 2015, Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, visiting PhD student
• Fall and Winter 2006 – 2007, University of Tartu, Estonia, student exchange

Additional training

• June 2023, ACLS Summer Institute, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
• June 2018, Research Explorer funding research training initiative, Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany
• May 2018, Institute for Human Sciences, IWM ERC Mentoring Program, Vienna, Austria
• 2017, Janka Kupala Bellarusian State University, Grodno, International Summer School in Russian and Belarusian language
• – Oct. 2016, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique, (organized by re:work research center, Humboldt University, Berlin), International Summer Academy 'Labour, Politics and Safety’
• June-July 2016, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, Summer School of Interdisciplinary Polish and German Studies 'Cultures in Times of Transition’ and research stay
• Aug. 2015, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Concepta Summer School in intellectual history
• 2013, University of Warsaw, Poland, Hegel’s Dialectic and the Method of ‹Das Kapital›,
  Warsaw Summer School

GRANTS RECEIVED AND RELATED RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Funding secured

• December 2023 – June 2028, Polish National Science Centre, Opus 23, 2022/45/B/HS6/00352, Patchwork Parliaments. Post-imperial Field of Power in the Second Republic of Poland, Greater Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes After the First World War, the Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, project value 400000 EUR. Principal investigator leading an international research team (four scholars from Poland, Romania and Serbia).
• Oct. 2018 – Oct 2023, Polish National Science Centre, Opus 14, 2017/27/B/HS6/00098, The Revolution That Did Not Happen. Rebellion and Reaction in the Post-Imperial Borderlands 1905-1921: Poland and Finland in Asymmetrical Comparison, the Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, project value 250000 EUR. Principal investigator leading an international research team (four scholars from Poland, Finland and Russia).
• 2012 – Sep. 2016, 'Revolution 1905-1907 and emerging of the political. Political mobilization in early modern Poland in the light of post-structural political thought and discourse theory,’ research grant of Polish national Science Center for young scholars, Preludium 3, 2012/05/N/HS3/01158, University of Lodz, project value ca. 25000 EUR. Principal investigator.

Other Research project experience

• 2018 – Sep. 2019, ImpDiv, Post-imperial diversities – majority-minority relations in the transition from empires to nation-states, ERA.Net RUS Plus funded project, University of Gottingen, University of Eastern Finland and Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, project value 460000 EUR.
  Associate researcher responsible for one of the case studies.
• 2016 – September 2019, 'The history of social and political concepts in Poland, 18 th -20 th century,’ research grant from Polish National Program for the Humanities, Institute of History, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, project value ca 70000 EUR. Associate researcher, cooperation on the theoretical background for a major publishing project, preparation of a few entries to the lexicon project.
• 2013 – Feb. 2016, 'Four discourses of modernity – modernism of periphery on the example of Lodz (19 th -20 th centuries),’ research grant of Polish national Science Center, Opus 2, 2011/03/B/HS6/01874, University of Lodz, Poland, project value ca. 80000 EUR Associate researcher; main theoretical framework, mining and analysis of textual sources, resulting co-authored volume in English.
• 2010 – June 2012, 'Migrations of Modernism,’ research project on migrant biography, historical contingency and 20th century social thought and art; publication of outcomes and additional translations, co-editor of the edited volume
• 2006 – Oct. 2008, 'Reconfigurations of Modernism,’ research project and publication of translations and commentaries