The event focused on Galicia as a key region linked to the oil industry and analyzed this issue within various interdisciplinary contexts.
Conference on Galician Oil in Vienna and Kraków
The three-day conference “Oil and Empire. Historical, Cultural, and Political Dimensions of Petroleum in Galicia and Beyond” was organized by the Research Institute Brenner Archive at the University of Innsbruck in collaboration with the Institute of Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. The conference took place in Vienna (April 14) and in Kraków (April 15 and 17). It also included a study visit to the Ignacy Łukasiewicz Museum of Oil and Gas Industry in Bóbrka (April 16).
Dr. Nykiel’s presentation as part of the “Oil in Galicia” panel
The meeting of experts from Austria, Poland, Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy opened with a presentation by Alison Frank (Harvard University), author of the book “Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia” (2007). During the conference, a group of researchers examined the topic of oil and oil mining in various interdisciplinary contexts. As part of the “Oil in Galicia” panel, Dr. Beata Nykiel presented the paper “Our oilmen, or who was looking for oil in Galician California”. This presentation is the result of research conducted since 2024 by Dr. Nykiel and the Research Institute of European Heritage at the International Cultural Centre, in connection with an exhibition planned for the ICC Gallery at the end of 2027, dedicated to the oil industry in Galicia.
The “Galician Oil” research project at the ICC
The research conducted at the Research Institute of European Heritage at the ICC as part of the “Galician Oil” project focuses not so much on the history of the oil industry in Western and Eastern Galicia as on the lives of the people who shaped it, taking into account the transfer of knowledge, modernization processes, and the oil industry’s impact on high and popular culture. The phenomenon is examined in the context of civilizational processes in Central Europe, as well as from the perspective of the current fuel crisis and the impact of fossil fuels on the natural environment.
Event Program (PDF)