Meeting about the book “Carpathia”

What characterizes the category of “mountainousness”? How has the cultural and historical landscape of the Carpathians changed? Is there such a thing as mythical mountain freedom? On January 15, the author, Prof. Maciej Janowski, and Prof. Jacek Purchla will discuss the latest book published by ICC Publishing House.

January 15, 2025, 18.00  

Maciej Janowski's book “Carpathia” describes a space where people and landscape share a common destiny. It is a narrative, written with literary care and historical erudition, about a multinational area where different ethnic and religious groups have coexisted for centuries. Poles, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Jews, and Germans lived there. In this specific area, stretched between cultures and empires, “mountainousness” became a cultural category, a way of life and thinking, shaped by nature, beliefs and art.

Two experts, Prof. Maciej Janowski and Prof. Jacek Purchla, will discuss the concept of “mountainousness” – how it has changed and developed, how it has influenced and continues to influence the identity of the region. They will refer to the period of change in the Carpathians – displacement, industrialization, transformation of the landscape and memory. They will consider how socialist reality and then transformation affected the character of this area. This historical panorama will be complemented by the most interesting themes related to the specificity of this region – its borderland character, romanticized mountain freedom juxtaposed with poverty, violence, and exploitation in this region, and changing ideals of beauty in the context of mountain nature and landscape.

“Carpathia”

It is the 23rd volume of The Central European Library series under the editorship of Jacek Purchla.

Book premiere: December 1, 2025.

More about the book

Free admission

The Romanian Cultural Institute in Warsaw is a partner of the event. 

Discussion participants:

Prof. Maciej Janowski – Director of the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has been professionally associated with the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1993. He heads the Department of the History of Ideas and the History of the Intelligentsia in the 19th and 20th Centuries. He specializes in the history of Poland and Central Europe in the 19th century. He is the winner of the “Polityka” History Award, the Raczyński Library Award, and the Jerzy Giedroyc Award (as co-author of the book „Dzieje inteligencji polskiej do roku 1918”). He is the author of publications such as „Inteligencja wobec wyzwań nowoczesności. Dylematy ideowe polskiej demokracji liberalnej w Galicji w latach 1889-1914”, „Polska myśl liberalna do 1918 roku”, „Narodziny inteligencji 1750-1831”.