James Krapfl is an associate professor of history at McGill University, specializing in the history of European political culture. His book Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989–1992 won the British Association for Slavonic & East European Studies’ George Blazyca Book Prize and the Czechoslovak Studies Association Book Prize. He has served as the editor of Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes and East European Politics & Societies.

Research Interests:

• Central European history
• Cultural history
• Historical theory
• History of mentalities
• History of revolution

Current Research Project:

While at RECET, Prof. Krapfl is drafting a book tentatively entitled Europe between Revolution and Counter-Revolution: Reimagining Community since 1989. Intended as a sophisticated textbook, it will survey the past forty years of European history by asking how citizens across the continent have envisioned the communities to which they perceive themselves to belong and how they have sought to realize these visions in practice.

Recent Publications:

“From Leipzig to Kyiv through Brussels: How the Revolution of 1989 Defined an Era.” East European Politics & Societies, vol. 38, no. 4 (November 2024): 1013–25.

“Mimetické revizionismus.” In Dějiny v exekuci: Jak přemýšlet a psát o komunismu, edited by Jiří Suk, 41–76. Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2024.

“Ukraine’s Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity, Ten Years Later.” Special section in Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 65, nos. 3–4 (September–December 2023).

“Approaches to Decolonization.” Special issue of Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 65, no. 2 (June 2023).

“Building the Normalisation Panorama, 1968–69.” In Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe in the Era of Normalisation, 1969–1989, edited by Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe, 27–51. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

“Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.” Special section in Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 64, nos. 2–3 (June–September 2022).

“Methodological Questions in Studying the Revolutions of 1989.” In Annus mirabilis: 1989 and Slovakia, edited by Beáta Katrebová-Blehová. Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa, 2021.

“The Revolution Continues: Memories of 1989 and the Defence of Democracy in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia,” co-authored with Andrew Kloiber. Cultures of History Forum (May 2020).

“Czechoslovakia’s Year of Decision: From the Socialist Revolution of 1989 to the ‘Real’ Revolution of 1990.” In From Revolution to Uncertainty: The Year 1990 in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Joachim von Puttkamer, Włodzimierz Borodziej, and Stanislav Holubec, 80–102. London: Routledge, 2019.

“The Power of the Powerless Today.” Special issue of East European Politics & Societies, vol. 32, no. 2 (May 2018), co-edited with Barbara J. Falk.