Corruption, Revolution and the Quest for Justice in Poland and East Germany (Jakub Szumski)

Name: Corruption, Revolution and the Quest for Justice in Poland and East Germany (Jakub Szumski)
Start: 2026-04-30T13:00:00+02:00
Location: Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Wien, Austria

Schedule

Thu, 30 Apr, 2026 at 01:00 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Wien, Austria | Wien, WI

Lecture format: on site
Room: 2Q-EG-27 (Seminar Room of the Institute for Eastern European History).
Street address: Spitalgasse 2, Campus of the University of Vienna, Hof 3.2
Imagine a world without corruption. A world in which politicians disregard private interests and are committed to a better future for the people they serve. State socialist political elites in Cold War East-Central Europe promised to build such a world. Now imagine the same elites being caught profiting from their offices, building private homes using state resources, hoarding consumer goods, and bending legal and moral rules to their benefit. “Socialist Scandals” focuses on Poland and East Germany and examines how late-communist East-Central Europe dealt with corruption scandals. This seminar points to the durability of the socialist political culture of understanding corruption. It shows how dissenters used this culture against the socialist state and situates socialist confrontations with corruption in the modern history of this phenomenon. By providing a historically informed East-Central European perspective, it contributes to the ongoing debates about the dominant international expertise on corruption.
Jakub Szumski is a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the Imre Kertész Kolleg at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. His research interests revolve around the political, intellectual, and legal history in East Central Europe.
The event will be recorded and uploaded to RECET's YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@recetvienna).
More information on this event: https://www.recet.at/event-news/events/detail/socialist-scandals