What was 2025 like? | Mieroszewski Centre

Propaganda strategies shifted, public discourse evolved, and social moods changed. Yet one thing remained constant: the need for reliable knowledge and for conversations that do not shy away from difficult topics.

That is why 2025 at the Mieroszewski Centre was a year of intensive work — in research, education, media, and international cooperation — guided by the conviction that dialogue is not a luxury of peaceful times, but a tool for survival in times of crisis.

It was a year in which we spoke more than ever with the people shaping these realities. A year in which numbers grew faster than we could keep track of them — applications, submissions, views, questions, partnerships. But behind every number stood real people from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and many other places. People who care about facts, freedom, and mutual understanding.

Talking when facts are distorted

In 2025, Russian disinformation was omnipresent. Not only in the media, but also where it is less often expected: in public debates, emotions, and even in academia. This is why we published the first report in Poland showing how Russian narratives permeate academic literature. The study did not seek to identify “those at fault.” Instead, it focused on narrative patterns — because these are what shape how we understand the world.

At the same time, we trained teachers through HUMBUG workshops, organized study visits for journalists from Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, supported Polish and Ukrainian media, and worked to rebuild trust in information. Disinformation thrives where bonds are weak — we sought to strengthen them.

Looking at history to understand the present

Memory — its gaps, its pain, its unresolved conflicts — has long been at the heart of our work. In 2025, the Centre’s research teams not only published further volumes of documents on the NKVD’s “Polish Operation” and Soviet crimes, but above all asked what these histories mean today.

We therefore supported research on the nineteenth-century Polish-Ukrainian dialogue, on the language of historical disputes, on the idea of krajowość, and on Russian justifications for aggression from the time of Peter the Great to the present day. For us, history is not an archive. It is a tool that helps prevent the repetition of the same mistakes.

Learning together — in Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia

In 2025, dozens of young researchers, translators, journalists, and leaders from 11 countries took part in summer and autumn schools as well as translation programmes. Not to be “taught,” but to meet in conversation — about international law, language, identity, and building a shared region.

The Słowa na Słowa translation schools — Ukrainian and Georgian — became spaces of trust where young translators at the beginning of their professional paths could work under the guidance of leading experts and discover literatures that connect our sensitivities. Record-high interest in our scholarship programmes demonstrated one thing clearly: researchers from Eastern Europe want to carry out their projects in Poland — and they want to do so in dialogue with the Polish academic community.

Listening to the region — and speaking about it to the world

In 2025, the Mieroszewski Centre became a place where three ways of telling the region’s story worked in parallel: academic, expert, and artistic.

In research

– publications on Soviet repression,
– new volumes of historical documents,
– analyses of Russian policy,
– reports on Poland and Ukraine.

In culture

– Dziady performed by the Ivanо-Frankivsk ensemble in Warsaw,
– the Between the Dnipro and the Vistula concert at the National Philharmonic of Ukraine,
– screenings of the film Intercepted,
– discussions at the Lviv BookForum.

In media

Polihistor 2.0 surpassed 2.8 million views, while the Europa mniej znana blog filled an information gap about the region that audiences noticed immediately. Nowa Polszcza and Nowaja Polsza attracted over one million page views — just as many conversations about how to live in times that demand courage.

Programmes that change people — and through people, change the region

The Open Competition received 337 applications — nearly twice as many as the previous year. They came from places where dialogue is truly needed: local communities, NGOs, theatres, archives, schools, and artistic groups.

People. The most important word in this story

2025 was a year of meetings. In seminar rooms, archives, libraries, borderlands, theatres, newsrooms, concert halls, at borders, and in zones of conflict.

It was also a year in which the Centre’s mission — building dialogue — ceased to be self-evident and became a conscious stance. Because dialogue is not neutral. It is a choice. It requires effort, attentiveness, respect, and humility toward facts.

That is why we will continue to build it. Thank you for 2025.

In 2026, we want to be even closer to the people who are changing our region.