Mateusz Sokulski

Mateusz Sokulski is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Silesia in Katowice.  He is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies during October-November 2022. While at Stanford, Professor Sokulski will work on his book, presenting the most important figures of the democratic opposition in Serbia in the 1970s and 1980s. The projects aims to present their activity in comparison to other dissident groups in the European communist states. It is intended to depict their connections, mutual fascinations (the case of Solidarity movement in Poland, Charter 77, Helsinki Committees in the USSR and their impact in Yugoslavia). He will present policy of the regime in Yugoslavia towards its opponents while being focused on the social activity of democratic opposition, their aims, real impact on the society in Serbia and Yugoslavia. Fellowship at the Stanford Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies will be in fact next significant stage of his  previous surveys carried out in the archives in Belgrade, Zagreb, Budapest and Moscow where he has been working in the archives and recording testimonies of people involved in the most important democratic initiatives  in Yugoslavia. Professor Sokulski earned his PhD from the University of Wrocław, Institute of History in 2017 with a dissertation on "Yugoslav-Polish Relations in the years 1970-1980.