Research activities

The three professors of the European Civilization Chair are respected authorities in their respective fields. Between them, their research covers the history, society, culture, ideas, politics, and memory of central and eastern Europe from the eighteenth century to the present. Through their publications and their varied academic and public roles, they contribute to the wider republic of scholarship.

Prof. Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski
Prof. Georges Mink
Prof. Marek Aleksander CICHOCKI

Since its foundation, the Chair has been the home for several collective research projects.


The current projects are The Cold War and its Legacy and 3R: Three Ukrainian Revolutions.

The Cold War and its Legacy

This project is led by Professor Marek Aleksander CICHOCKI. The European Civilization Chair organizes debates on the legacy of the Cold War with the participation both of special guests and of lecturers from the College and its Visiting Faculty. The debates are combined with workshops for the students of the College. For more information please visit this page.

3R: Three Ukrainian Revolutions

The 3R project of oral history on the three Ukrainian revolutions of 1990, 2004-05 and 2013-14, and their ongoing consequences, is led by Professor Georges Mink and Professor Paweł KOWAL, in cooperation with distinguished international partner institutions.

It has organized a series of high-level conferences and symposia, collected and made available sources for the revolutions, and published three volumes of sources and articles to date.

A conference focused on the relationship between the three revolutions and the current stage of Russia’s war against Ukraine is planned for the academic year 2022/23, to be followed by an academic publication on “The End of the Soviet World”. Read more about the project here.


The previous projects were The Fate of Freedom and Breaking Empires: Making Nations?.

The Fate of Freedom

The theme was initiated by the conference held in 2016 on “The Fate of Freedom in Eastern Europe: Autocracy – Oligarchy – Anarchy?” which brought together historians of various periods and social scientists to reflect on an old Aristotelian dilemma in a regional context.

It was continued by the 2018 conference on “Rousseau, Poland and Europe: Federalism – Sovereignty – Prosperity – Patriotism”. It is principally in this field that Prof. Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski’s own research on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Enlightenment is conducted.

Breaking Empires, Making Nations

The theme ‘Breaking empires, making nations’ was initiated by the major international conference held in 2015, which led to the volume Breaking Empires, Making Nations? The First World War and the Making of Europe.

A series of special lectures intended to facilitate reflection of centenaries of the First World War and its aftermath began in January 2018.

General News