Anna M. Cienciala

Email: hanka@ku.edu

Professor Emeritus of History and Russian and Eeast European Studies (Ph. D. Indiana 1962; M.A. McGill, 1955; B.A. Liverpool, 1952). East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries; Poland from the partitions to the present, Communist nations; 20th Century Polish, European and Soviet diplomacy 1919–45. Professor Cienciala has published 2 books, edited 4, and published around 40 academic articles in U.S., Polish, and German historical journals.

Born in the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk, now in Poland), educated in Poland, France, England, and the U.S., she taught at the University of Ottawa and the University of Toronto before coming to the University of Kansas in 1965. For examples of work on interwar and wartime Polish diplomacy and international relations, see: Anna M. Cienciala, Poland and the Western Powers in 1938–1939. A Study in the Interdependence of Eastern and Western Europe (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London; University of Toronto Press, 1968; Anna M. Cienciala and Titus Komarnicki, From Versailles to Locarno. Keys to Polish Foreign Policy 1919–1925, (University Press of Kansas, 1984); “The Munich Crisis of 1938: Plans and Strategy in Warsaw in the Context of the Western Appeasement of Germany”, in: The Munich Crisis, 1938. Prelude to World War II, edited by Igor Lukes and Erik Goldstein, (Frank Cass, London, Portland, OR, 1999, pp. 48-81); “Poland in British and French Diplomacy in 1939: Determination to fight—or avoid war?” in: The Origins of the Second World War, edited by Patrick Finney, (Arnold, London, New York, etc., 1997, pp 413–433); “The View From Poland,” in: Victory in Europe 1945. From World War to Cold War, edited by Arnold A. Offner and Theodore A. Wilson (University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2000, pp. 47–76); “The Nazi—Soviet Pact of August 23, 1939: When did Stalin Decide to Align with Hitler, and Was Poland the Culprit?” in: Ideology and Politics in East Central Europe, edited by M.B. Biskupski, (University of Rochester Press, 2003, ISBN 1-58046-137-9 and pb. 1-58046-155-7, pp. 147–226.) This book was dedicated to Professor Piotr S. Wandycz to honor him for his contributions of East European History.

Other recent publications include “La politique étrangère de la Pologne dans la période de l'Appeasement et des revisions des traités. Les vues et la politique du maréchal PiŁsudski et du colonel Beck, 1933–1939,” in: La Pologne et l'Europe. Du partage à l' élargissement (XVIIIe-XXIe siècles), red. Par Isabelle Davion, Jerzy Kłoczowski et Georges-Henri Soutou (dir), (PUPS Paris 2007: 119–146); “The Foreign Policy of the Polish Government-in-Exile, 1939–1945: Political and Military Realities versus Polish Psychological Reality,” published with other conference papers in New York, September 2007, in a volume titled: Reflections on Polish Foreign Policy, edited by John S. Micgiel and Piotr S. Wandycz, pp. 47–88. (ISBN 0-9654520-7-7). These are the proceedings of a conference sponsored by the East Central European Center, Columbia University and the Jòzef Piłsudski Institute for Research in the Modern History of Poland, held at Columbia University on 17 November 2005. She has also published articles and review essays on Polish-Jewish relations in World War II in The Polish Review, and recently a review essay of a book on Polish deportees to the USSR, “An Unknown Page of History: The Poles Deported to the USSR in 1940–1941,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 22, 2009, pp. 301–314.

Her latest major work was done for Katyn. A Crime without Punishment (Yale University Press, 2007). This is a volume of Russian documents in English, which she co-edited with Dr. Natalia S. Lebedeva, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, and Professor Wojciech Materski, Director Polish Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. The book consists of 122 documents selected from the Polish and Russian language editions jointly edited by Lebedeva and Materski, published in 2 vols. in Moscow (1997, 2000) and Warsaw (1995–2006). Cienciala wrote new, extensive, historical introductions to each of the three sections, wrote short prefaces to each document, and added new material to the end notes.

(Note: Professor Cienciala's Polish language publications are not listed in this bibliographical sketch.)

Professor Cienciala is a member of several professional associations in Poland, the U.K., and the U.S. In the course of her academic career, she has received awards from the NEH, Fulbright, IREX, ACLS, and the Hall Center at KU.

In June 2000, Professor Cienciala was honored for her scholarly publications on Polish History by the History Institute of Gdansk University and the City of Gdansk. Also, as a member of the Board of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, she was awarded the Polish Cross of Merit for scholarly cooperation with Poland by the President of Poland. On November 28, 2007, at the Awards Ceremony held in the Polish Consulate General in New York, she received from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America the Distinguished Achievement Award for her editing work on the book Katyn. A Crime without Punishment.

Professor Cienciala retired in June 2002, but remains strongly involved in the educational mission of the History Department and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at K.U. She is at present revising and updating her internet course on the history of Modern East Central Europe, titled: “Nationalism and Communism in East Central Europe,” including an extensive English language bibliography. The course, which is utilized in Wikipedia, can be accessed at http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557.