Tomasz Kamusella


Tomasz Kamusella FRHistS is a Polish scholar pursuing interdisciplinary research in language politics, nationalism and ethnicity.

Education

Kamusella was educated at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Philology in Sosnowiec Campus, Poland; Potchefstroom University, Potchefstroom, South Africa; and the Central European University, Prague Campus, Czech Republic. He obtained his doctor degree in Political Science from the Institute of Western Affairs, Poznań, Poland and habilitation in Cultural Studies from the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland.

Academic career

In 1994/95, he taught in the Language Teachers' Training College, Opole, Poland, and between 1995 and 2007 at the University of Opole, Opole, Poland. From 2002 to 2006, he did postdoctoral research in the European University Institute, Florence, Italy; the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., United States; the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria; and the Herder-Institut :de:Herder-Institut |, Marburg, Germany. As visiting professor, in 2007–10, he taught Central and Eastern European History and Polish History and Politics in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, in 2010–11 at the Cracow University of Economics, Kraków, Poland; and in 2011 did research in the Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. Currently, he teaches in the School of History at the University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland.
In 2004 Opole Voivodeship politicians opposed his publication of "Regional Glossary of the Opolskie Voivodeship" which included the interpretation that "Silesia was part of the eastern German lands under the temporary administration of Poland and the USSR 1945-1991". The politicians lodged a criminal complaint with the Polish prosecution who declined to take the case as there was no premise for the crime. The board of the University of Opole's Faculty of Philology formally distanced itself from the theories propagated by Kamusella in a press release published in the local Opole insert of Gazeta Wyborcza, alleging methodological inadequacies, tendentious conclusions and "polonophobia", among others, in his historical research. According to Kamusella, these accusations were unsubstantiated. In the Glossary he presented the official doctrine adopted in West Germany before 1992.
The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe —Kamusella's major synthesis of the intertwining histories, nationalisms, and languages of East Central Europe—was praised in leading academic journals, including by Yale's Timothy D. Snyder and Cambridge's Peter Burke. The 2020 Times Higher Education World University Ranking singles out Kamusella as one of the three famous alumni of the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Career in civil service

In 1996, he was employed as the regional Plenipotentiary on European Integration to the Regional Governor in the Regional Authority, Opole. Later, from 1999 to 2002, he acted as Advisor on International Affairs to the Regional President, Self-Governmental Regional Authority, Opole. In co-operation with the University of Opole, between 1997 and 2001, he managed the application in the Council of Europe, and financing that led to the establishment of the European Documentation Center in Opole. This centre makes acquis communautaire available to the inhabitants of the Voivodeship of Opole and constituted a basis for founding a Department of Law at the University of Opole. In 1998, in the framework of the European Visitors Program of the European Union, he also visited the Spanish Autonomous Community of Galicia, which, in the following year, led to the signing of the co-operation agreement between this Spanish region and the Opole Voivodeship.

Books in English