Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska was featured in the fourth episode of the #pokolenieNCN anniversary series created to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the National Science Centre, Poland (NCN). The series consists of 15 short interviews with researchers representing the “NCN generation” and is hosted by Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz.

In the interview, Karolina discusses her research on resettlement cultures formed after 1945 in post-displacement areas of Poland and former Czechoslovakia. She also talks about material traces of the past, memory of place, and the ways successive generations build relationships with inherited spaces.

The conversation was also an opportunity to present ERC StG project and to highlight the importance of national grants, which help researchers gain experience needed to apply for European funding. She also reflects on the role of NCN grants in developing an independent research career. As a bonus, viewers can also find out what profession she might have chosen if she had not become a researcher.

You will find the link to the conversation here.

Is the Sudetenland merely a patchwork of fragmented, melancholic histories? Inspired by the Sudetenlove comic exhibition in Olomouc, Magdalena Bubík revisits this question with a fresh perspective. In her blog post, she argues that these stories are not entirely lost, they persist through memories embedded in objects and buildings. It’s a piece that invites readers to see continuity where fragmentation is often assumed.

Link to the blog post you can find here.

On April 12, the Wałcz Land Museum hosted an event “How much of ‘centralacy’ is in us?”, bringing attention to a relatively overlooked dimension of the region’s postwar past, namely, the experiences of settlers from central Poland, the “centralacy.” As our PI, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, was involved in the creation of the Museum’s new permanent exhibition, she led a tour through it, focusing on the life trajectories of the “centralacy,” using examples from her fieldwork and archival search queries.

Since the exhibition begins with a shared introduction, explaining the propaganda surrounding the expulsion and resettlement, as well as the establishment of the Polish administration in the “Recovered Territories,” and is then divided according to different groups of settlers, Karolina chose to follow this structure to highlight the specificity of resettlement among those from central Poland. She then elaborated on the section of the exhibition devoted specifically to this group, explaining what was understood as “Centrala” and where these people actually came from.

We are happy that the collaboration with the Museum is ongoing, and that some of the research findings, despite not being directly connected to our projects, were embodied as part of a museum exhibition.

A few days ago, our researcher, Michal Korhel, published a commentary in the Slovak newspaper Denník N titled “Slovakia also has its Sudetenland.” In the article, Michal explains that although Slovakia did not have “Sudetenland” in the same historical sense as Czechia, there are regions that can be compared to it in a metaphorical way.

In Czechia, the Sudetenland is not only a geographical area, but also a symbol of historical trauma connected to the German minority, World War II, and the post-war expulsion of people. Today, the term is also used for peripheral and economically weaker regions.

In Slovakia, there was also a significant German minority, but compared to the German population in Czechia, it was less politically and territorially unified. Still, after 1945, expulsions and a break in historical continuity happened here as well, but this topic has received less attention in Slovak society.

Michal also points out that some Slovak regions, such as Gemer and Novohrad, show similar signs of being peripheral—like economic decline, people moving away, and distance from decision-making centers. At the same time, he criticizes simple stereotypes that describe these areas as having no identity, and he stresses that new forms of local life and connection to place are developing there.

The term “Slovak Sudetenland” is therefore used as a metaphor to highlight neglected historical memory, regional inequalities, and the way central areas view the periphery.