A Completely Ordinary Country. A Conversation with Prof. Brian Porter-Szücs

Greenpoint Library invites its readers to a conversation with Prof. Brian Porter Szucs, author of the book "Całkiem zwyczajny kraj" ("A completely ordinary country"). Its English version was released in 2014 under the title "Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom" and and now the book is published in revised form in the Polish translation (Filtry, Warszawa 2021).

The author challenges the frequently encountered format of the history of Poland as a country torn apart by historical storms, unknown to any other nation, and argues that Poland is "a completely ordinary country". The book covers the period from the end of the 18th century, i.e. the loss of statehood by Poland to the present day, and confronts many apocrypha, anecdotes and simplifications that have grown into the country's history and have become the official version of events. Above all, the author confronts the belief in the uniqueness of Poland in the context of Europe. At the same time, the author proposes an in-depth and multi-level discussion about the once extremely diverse and heterogeneous Polish society and its identity.

The program will be conducted in English, but the discussion will be conducted in both languages.

Brian Porter-Szucs is a Thurnau Professor of History at the University of Michigan, where he has taught since 1994. He is the author of *Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom* (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), *Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland* (Oxford University Press, 2011), and *When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in 19th century Poland* (Oxford University Press, 2000). He is currently researching a book on the origins of neoliberal economic thought in communist Poland.