Seismographs of the Cold War: diaries in a transnational literary field

The Centre for Comparative Literature, in collaboration with
The Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures
presents a public lecture by

Professor Mateusz Chmurski
Polish and Central European Literature, Sorbonne Université

Seismographs of the Cold War: diaries in a transnational literary field, 1945-1975
4 pm, Wednesday, November 25, 2026
Room 009, Northrop Frye Hall, 73 Queen’s Park Cres E Bldg 515

How did private writings, once published, become weaponised in the Cold War, and with what consequences? This lecture examines the writer’s diary as a seismograph of the East-West relations and tensions in the period from 1945 to 1975. Drawing on an empirical study of the transnational literary field in five countries of the former Eastern bloc, the lecture will examine Polish, Hungarian, and Czech case studies to offer a broader framework for understanding life writing’s role in modern societies.

Professor Chmurski is an Associate Professor in Polish and Central European Literatures in the Department of Slavic Languages at the Sorbonne Université, Paris. His current project, Irradicated Ink: Journals in the Cold War (145-1975), explores the distinctive roles that diaries produced by writers from the Eastern Bloc acquired in post-war literary production. The project draws on a large corpus of manuscripts, editorial records and archives from Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.