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About Me

I received my doctoral degree in History from Yale University in May 2024. I am a historian of modern Eastern Europe and Russia, with a focus on nineteenth and twentieth century Poland and Polish-Jewish past. My work engages histories of nationalism, antisemitism and (white) European exclusions; empire, imperial legacies and transnational exchanges; civil society, democracy and liberalism; childhood and minorities.

My dissertation, “A Microcosm of Civic Action: The Kolonie Letnie for Warsaw’s Frail and Impoverished Children, Christian and Jewish, 1882-1922,” traces the history of the kolonie letnie (summer camps) for children of the urban poor in imperial and post-imperial Warsaw. It is an institutional microhistory as well as a history of positivist ideas in practice and of local Christian and Jewish cooperation within the kolonie letnie’s institutional space, where hygiene and pedagogy were embraced and utilized to turn frail, impoverished children of the city into productive and upright members of society. As an idea and project, the kolonie letnie arrived in Warsaw from western Europe. As an initiative executed by local experts and social activists, who sought to alleviate child poverty and its attendant ills, such as inadequate housing, poor nutrition, lack of public greenery, limited access to nature and suitable spaces for play, they became one concrete embodiment of organic work and socio-cultural aspirations of a subjugated society of a peripheral city within the Russian Empire. For over thirty years, between 1882 and 1915, the institution of the kolonie letnie grew steadily and flourished despite the lack of positive involvement on the part of the municipal and central imperial Russian authorities. Entirely dependent on private financial and material support, on the active engagement of a diverse civil society led by experts, the official recognition of the kolonie letnie’s rightful place among social and child welfare institutions came only in the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939).

At Yale, I have taught a History and Jewish Studies seminar entitled “The Jewish Metropolis: Warsaw before the Holocaust,” and I have served as an undergraduate senior thesis advisor. I have also co-founded an interdisciplinary working group, Memory Studies in Modern Europe.

I am a co-founder of the “Academics for Ukraine” initiative, an online network helping Ukrainian scholars at risk. I am also part of the “Knowledge to the Max Program” at the Ocalenie (Rescue) Foundation in Warsaw, where I volunteer as a tutor/mentor for migrant and refugee youth. In the spring of 2022, I coordinated activities for children in refugee detention centers for Caritas Poland as a response to the continued humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.

I hold a B.A. from DePaul University in Chicago, where I graduated summa cum laude in History and International Studies with a minor in German Studies. Prior to graduate school, I was a museum docent and assistant in archival work at the Polish Museum of America in Chicago.

Recent Publications

Academic Writing

Karolina Kołpak, “Poland’s False Symmetry: How Szczepan Twardoch’s Jakub Szapiro Knocks Out the Myth of Polish-Jewish Conflict.” In Voicing Memories, Unearthing Identities. Studies in the Twenty-First Century Literatures of Eastern and East-Central Europe, edited by Aleksandra Konarzewska and Anna Nakai, 119-136. Delaware: Vernon Press, 2023.

Karolina Kołpak, Introduction to Pani Stefa and the Orphans: Out of the Shadow of Korczak by Magdalena Kicińska, translated by Sean Gasper Bye, 1-14. Chicago: Vallentine Mitchell, 2021.

Public Writing

Karolina Kołpak and Aleksandra Konarzewska, “Putin in uns selbst: mehr Kritik im Umgang mit Russlands Kultur.” [“Putin in Ourselves: More Criticism in Dealing with Russia’s Culture”] Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 15, 2022.
Article also included in “Alles ist teurer als ukrainisches Leben.” Texte über Westsplaining und den Krieg [“Everything is More Expensive Than Ukrainian Life.” Texts About Westsplaining and the War], edited by Aleksandra Konarzewska, Schamma Shahadat, and Nina Weller, 117-121. Berlin: edition.fotoTAPETA, 2023.

“Czego uczą się z elementarzy Polacy za granicą?” [“What Do Poles Outside of Poland Learn from Primary School Textbooks?”] Dziennik Związkowy, October 14, 2014.

Media Coverage

Social Media

Country Focus

Expertise by Geography

Eastern Europe, Russia

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century

Expertise by Topic