Faculty of History and Sociology

The Faculty of History and Sociology conducts research in a variety of interrelated fields – history, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy and religious studies.

Research programs conducted by the Institute of History embrace the history of Poland and the world (with particular emphasis on the history of East-Central Europe, Scandinavian countries and the United States of America), ancient history and regional studies focusing on the history of north-eastern Poland and borderland. Research priorities of the Institute include studies into society (family studies, demography, genealogy, prosopography, property rights, ethnic minorities – the Tartars and the Belarusians, social transformations), politics and military (two world wars, history of north-eastern borderland in Poland in the 1920s), religion and religious denominations (interdenominational relations, the role of Catholic and Orthodox churches, reformation in the Great Duchy of Lithuania) and intellectual and material culture (preservation and promotion of national heritage, archaeology of Polish lands).

The areas of research in the Institute of Sociology are determined by the unique character of Podlasie with its cultural, national, religious and denominational diversity. Major fields of the study include sociology of borderland (multiculturalism, institutions), sociology of towns and the countryside (with particular emphasis on the sociology of small towns, settlements in between towns and villages, civil society, anthropological dimension of transformation processes in small towns), changes in religiousness (relations between religion and ethics, ethics and business, new religions movements in post-communist countries), cultural dimension of social structures, labour market in Poland, cultural processes in an information society, philosophical theories of democracy and European philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries