Michał Pospiszyl is an Assistant Professor of History at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Central European University in Budapest. He has received two grants from the National Science Centre and has been a fellow at the Institute for the Humanities (IWM) in Vienna, a Minister of Education and Science fellow, and a visiting fellow at New York University, Yale University, and MIT. Pospiszyl is currently writing a book on the escape ecologies in Eastern Europe during the Enlightenment. The book explores how landscapes, natural resources, and environmental opacity enabled the large-scale migration of peasants, deserters, and religious dissidents to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during a period frequently characterized as one of political and economic decline in Poland and Lithuania. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in “American Historical Review”, “Journal of Modern History”, and “Environmental History”. He lives in the Białowieża Forest.
Research interests
- Environmental history
- Social history
- Modern history
- History of Eastern Europe
Selected Publications
- Pospiszyl, M., Confusion of Places: Ecologies and Escapes, “American Historical Review”, 2027/1 (forthcoming).
- Pospiszyl, M., On the Edge of Power: Peasants and Escape Ecologies in Eastern Europe, c.
- 1700–1850, “Journal of Modern History”, 2026/1: https://doi.org/10.1086/739699
- Związek, T., Pospiszyl, M., et al., The beginnings of forest management on Polish lands (late 18th–mid-19th c.), “Journal of Historical Geography”, 2026/2: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2026.03.002
- Pospiszyl, M., The Fifth Element: The Enlightenment and the Draining of Eastern Europe,
Selected Presentations
- Pospiszyl, M., On the Edge of Power: Peasants and Escape Ecologies in Eastern Europe, c. 1700–1850, in: Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University in Budapest, February 2026.
- Pospiszyl, M., Escape Ecologies: Peasants, Nature, and Power in Eastern Europe, 1700-1850 in: MIT, Program in Science, Technology and Society, Cambridge, Ma., November 2025 (as a keynote speaker).
- Pospiszyl, M., Escape Ecologies: Peasants, Nature, and Power in Eastern Europe, 1700-1850 in: Yale Agrarian Studies Colloquium, New Haven, October 2025 (as a keynote speaker).
- Pospiszyl, M., Can the Lice Speak? Ecology and the Napoleonic Wars in Eastern Europe in: European Society for Environmental History (ESEH), Uppsala, Sweden, August 2025.
- Pospiszyl, M., Decolonising Eastern European Ecologies: Peasants, Environment, and Rulers in the Age of Enlightenment, in: Eastern European Workshop, New York University, April 2025 (as a keynote speaker).
- Pospiszyl, M., Popek, J., Peasant Environmentalism: The Ecological Revolution in Enlightenment Eastern Europe and Grassroots Resource Management, in: European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC), Leiden, Netherlands, March 2025.
- Pospiszyl, M., Corrupted Nature: Environmental and Social Resistance to Canal Building and Swamp Drainage in Eastern Europe, 1760-1830, in: The American Society for Environmental History 2025 Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 2025
- Pospiszyl, M., Natural Ally: Eastern Europe and Escape Ecologies, in: Bordering Nature: Reimagining borders against the climate of crisis, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, September 2023 (as a keynote speaker).
Associatons
- Polish Historical Society
- American Society for Environmental History
- European Society for Environmental History
Publications
Staff Information
- +48 22 825 52 21
- michal.pospiszyl@protonmail.com