Research internship of dr Wawrzyniec Kowalski

From October to December 2022, dr Wawrzyniec Kowalski of the Institute of History was a guest at the University of Florida in Gainesville, carrying out a research internship under the mentorship of prof. Florin Curta. Professor Curta is a respected specialist in early medieval history, the author of the landmark work The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region c. 500-700.

During the visit, dr Kowalski carried out a research project: Baptism, dynasty and kingdom: the nation-making process in Central Europe (500-1300), and had the opportunity to give two lectures on the history of Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. The trip was made in support of staff travel from the Excellence Initiative – Research University program.

“Professor Curta is a world-renowned archaeologist and historian, a specialist in the subject of Central European and Slavic history. From the perspective of Slavic studies, the University of Florida may seem an unusual direction for obvious reasons, but America’s leading universities provide researchers with considerable opportunities. Access to library collections is very easy, and the University itself is developing one of the best databases of publications on medieval history in our region,” dr Kowalski concludes.

Translated by Paulina Rześniowiecka (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.