Our BERA-funded project is entitled Rehearsals for democracy:

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In 2023–2024, a Brian Simon Grant from BERA enabled us to launch further work on the role of student life in reshaping European societies after 1918. The fact that our funding was named after Brian Simon is apt in more than one sense: his work as a historian of education is widely recognised and recent research on Simon’s life and career acknowledges his activist commitments. Indeed, during the 1930s, he was a key figure in the National Union of Students, founded in 1922 and itself a product of the post-war environment.

Student life in Central and Eastern Europe, 1919–1923’. We initially focused on Poland and recruited a postdoctoral researcher, Agata Blaszczyk, who helped us survey the relevant literature. In some respects, the Polish situation was distinct: after the partitions of the late 18th century, Polish territories were under Austrian, Prussian and Russian rule, making the reconstruction venezuela consumer email list of a Polish nation-state – and its educational system – a complex endeavour. At the same time, the Polish case exemplifies wider post-war developments. For example, it illustrates the highly contested nature of post-war borders, which in Poland were only settled following the Polish–Lithuanian, Polish–Ukrainian and Polish–Soviet wars as well as paramilitary violence in the Polish–German borderlands. Moreover, interwar Poland illustrates the political volatility of the new European states, including interethnic conflict, ideological polarisation and a slide into authoritarianism.