Convinced that understanding Europe’s past helps us to imagine and shape Europe’s future, the European Civilization Chair contributes actively to the academic programme of the European Interdisciplinary Studies at the College of Europe in Natolin.
In the first semester, the Chair provides a regionally grounded historical foundation for all students through the compulsory courses taught successively by Professor Richard BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI on the “History of Central and Eastern Europe, 1740-1939” and Professor Georges MINK on “L’Europe centrale et orientale aux XXe et XXIe siècles”. The former covers the changes that began with the struggles for primacy in the region between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and the consequent destruction of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and ended with a new partition of Poland and the Baltic states between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1939. The latter explores the political, social and cultural transformations of the Central and East European region since the outbreak of the Second World War, including the period of Soviet domination, the process of desovietization and the construction of political democracy and a liberal economy.
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All students follow up these courses by participating in one of two simulation games led by the Chair’s professors: either “The Paris Peace Conference of 1919-1920”, led by Professor BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI, or “Drafting a Peace Treaty for the End of the Cold War”, led by Professor MINK and Professor Marek CICHOCKI.
All students can choose the workshop led by Professor MINK, “Les politiques historiques et mémorielles”, organized in cooperation with two innovative Warsaw Museums: the Warsaw Rising Museum and POLIN – Museum of the History of Polish Jews. They may also choose a Masterclass with Professor CICHOCKI and Dr Sławomir DĘBSKI on “Cold War Strategies from the Central Eastern Europe Perspective”.
The European Civilization Chair is at the heart of the second semester major "European History and Civilization”, whose courses are available to all students. Among these courses are Professor BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI’s “History of European Civilization”, the compact seminar “The Enlightenment: Theory and Practice”, and the simulation game “The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815”, Professor MINK’s compact seminar “Histoire, mémoire et négationnisme historique”, and Professor CICHOCKI’s course “From the Greek Agora to the Ukrainian Euromaidan: the History of Ideas of Democracy in Europe”.
Among the visiting professors are some of the world’s leading historians. Assessed core courses and specialist courses are complimented by compact seminars, workshops. The latter, led by postdoctoral fellows of the Max Weber Programme at the European University Institute in Florence, are new each year.
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The Chair also organizes debates involving students and visiting speakers on difficult questions of political, social, and cultural co-existence in a plural world. These cultivate the art of critical, unprejudiced engagement with opposing ideas and convictions while respecting the persons who hold them. Polemics should always be ad rem, never ad personam.
Each year, the Chair presents an award for the best Master's theses on European History and Civilization, written by students at the College of Europe in Natolin. Here are the students who have received the award to date:
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