CV

Michał Szulc, born 1981 in Gdańsk, is an assistant to the Chair of Modern German-Jewish History at the Historical Institute of the University of Potsdam (since 2013) and a fellow at the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center (since autumn 2015). He holds a PhD from the University of Potsdam (2014); the title of the thesis: “Die Implementation der emanzipatorischen Judenpolitik in Danzig, 1807-1847”. Apart from the PhD program in Potsdam (2009-2014), he studied at the Universities in Gdańsk and Tübingen (2000-2005) as well as at the European University Institute in Florence (2006-2008). He is a co-editor of the academic journal “PaRDeS. Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e. V.” and of the series “Pri ha-Pardes” (Universitätsverlag Potsdam). 

Research Project

The project deals with the transformation of Jewish community organisation in Prussia between 1750 and 1850, in which phase a pre-modern autonomy was circumscribed and state control of communal affairs increased. It aims to analyse the extent to which everyday practice within Jewish communities complied with the instructions issued by the Prussian administration. It asks whether the adoption of new regulations had dramatic effects on communities’ day to day business or whether it was only a superficial one, under which the communal affairs were conducted as before.

Selected Publications

- A Gracious Act or Merely a Regulation of Economic Activity? A Daily Life Perspective on the Reception of the Prussian Emancipation Edict of 1812, in: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 59 (2014), pp. 23-36.
- Jüdische Staatsbürger in der bürokratischen Alltagspraxis der Staats- und städtischen Behörden in Westpreußen seit dem Erlass des Emanzipationsediktes am 11. März 1812 bis in die 1840er-Jahre, in: I. Diekmann (ed.): Das Emanzipationsedikt von 1812 in Preußen. Der lange Weg der Juden zu „Einländern“ und „preußischen Staatsbürgern“, Berlin/Boston 2013, pp. 167-198.
- Agents of the Implementation of Emancipation Laws in Prussia. A Case Study on the Introduction of the Municipal Ordinance of 19 November 1808 in the Towns of West Prussia, in: Studia Judaica 15 (2012), no. 1-2 (29-30), pp. 97-120.
- Rozruchy antyżydowskie w Gdańsku w 1821 roku i ich polityczno-prawny kontekst oraz konsekwencje, in: K. Pilarczyk (ed.): Żydzi i judaizm we współczesnych badaniach polskich, vol. 5, Kraków 2010, pp. 213-230.
- Einführung. Aus der Geschichte der Juden in der Kaschubei, in: M. Borzyszkowska-Szewczyk, Ch. Pletzing (ed.), Jüdische Spuren in der Kaschubei. Ein Reisehandbuch, München 2010, pp. 17-66.