About me:

I am a social historian at the University of Gdansk, working on issues of social and economic history of Poland in the second half of the 20th century. So far I have published two books - on post-war Gdansk and (co-authored) on women in socialist Poland, as well as papers in international outlets. In recent years, political economy, supplemented by elements of social history, has helped me to better understand the structural transformation of socialism in East Central Europe. My latest book, Communism, Shipyards and the Crisis of Modernity: The Political Economy of Late Socialism in Poland, under contract with Routledge, navigates the era from Gierek to Jaruzelski, exploring the interplay between a command economy, societal pressures and post-Bretton-Woods global dynamics.

Research interests:

Communism, East Central Europe, political economy, social history, shipbuilding industry, Solidarity movement, history of Gdańsk, women's history.

Selected publications:

Communism, Shipyards and the Crisis of Modernity: The Political Economy of Late Socialism in Poland, under contract with Routledge.

“Socialist Consumption Revisited: Paternalistic Policies and Consumer Needs during the Polish Crisis”, The Historical Journal, 2026, 1–22, first view.

Women in Poland, 1945–1989: Modernity, Equality, Communism (Budapest: CEU Press, 2026), pp. 320 (with Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz, Małgorzata Fidelis, and Barbara Klich-Kluczewska).

“Modernization through Japanization? The Japanese System and State-socialist Poland’s Economic Reform”, The International History Review 47, issue 1 (2025): 88–104.

Gdańsk – miasto od nowa: Kształtowanie społeczeństwa i warunki bytowe w latach 1945–1970 (Gdańsk: Słowo/Obraz Terytoria, 2020, 2nd ed., expanded), pp. 660.

“Wedded to Welfare? Working Mothers and the Welfare State in Communist Poland”, Slavic Review 76, no. 2 (2017): 455–80.

Recent research projects: 

2018–2021: “Komunizm, Solidarność i kryzys nowoczesności”, Narodowe Centrum Nauki

2013–2016: “Kobiety w Polsce 1944–1989”, Narodowy Program Rozwoju Humanistyki, MNiSW, project in cooperation with Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Jagiellonian University. 

Fellowships:

2024: Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (Fellowship in Contemporary Urban History).