Assistant Professor; Post-Doc – Contractor Research Project Department of Sour

The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Organisation/Company The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute History of the Polish Academy of Sciences Research Field History » Other Researcher Profile Recognised Researcher (R2) Positions Postdoc Positions Country Poland Final date to receive applications 4 Jan 2026 - 00:00 (Europe/Warsaw) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 40 Offer Starting Date 1 Feb 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

The position is offered within the research project titled Rus Chronicles as source of common law, funded by the National Science Centre of Poland (OPUS NCN project no. 2025/57/B/HS3/02198 ), led by prof. dr hab. Adrian Jusupović.

Abstract of the research project

The main goal of the project is to study a Rus common law (precedential norms) and customs information preserved in Rus chronicles/letopis’) from the 10th to 13th centuries in comparative perspective (and the use of these legal precedents in later documents from the territory of Rus’ - that is, present‑day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland). The existing research has, on the one hand, failed to display an innovative scientific approach to interrogating these sources and, on the other hand, incorporated only a fraction of the information available concerning the law and customs of the Rus territory.

Most researchers have instead concentrated their research on strictly defined legal texts (eg. Rus Truth=Russkaya Pravda), while ignoring to some extent narrative sources. Taking this into account, our research will unlock a whole new field of research. To contribute to more rigorous scholarship in this field, we will begin by preparing a database using the published editions of Cyrillic chronicles alongside Latin, Scandinavian, and Greek sources as comparators.

We will examine these editions in search of information about law and customs, including, for example, international, civil, property, and religious law. These passages will subsequently be translated into English to make them more accessible to the international community. This research has three key objectives: 1. A finalized, open‑access Law Rus database (digital source edition) or digital repository of legal historical sources in a Mediawiki format, created in cooperation with IT specialists from the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IH PAS).

The long‑term preservation of this database on a IH PAS server is another key objective. The database shall be made available for contributions from interested researchers at the end of the project funding period, but it will be available as a work‑in‑progress from the first year onwards. 2. An international conference in 2028, bringing together specialists on Slavic law (and customs) to encourage more research on the legal history of the Middle Ages as part of the project’s wider engagement.

3. Publication. Articles in English and other languages in renowned European journals. We plan to publish our case studies on law and customs. We do not exclude, in fact we consider it quite likely that this project will result in more than one book publication.

START DATE
: after the agreement has been signed by the National Science Centre (expected date: Feb. 1, 2026)

E-mail konkursy.naukowe.pl

Research Field History » Other

Education Level PhD or equivalent

The tasks of the Assistant Professor (post‑doc) will include:

• Independent studies of written sources (Latin and Scandinavian);
• Conducting library and archive enquiries in Poland and abroad;
• Entering data into the database;
• Preparing a chapter about:
  Law procedures and norms of Scandinavian origin in the Rus’ chronicles of the 11th to the 13th centuries;
• writing and publishing scholarly articles;
• presenting papers at international conferences;
• participation in team meetings (online and in person);
• participation in public engagement activities;
• supporting the PI in project management tasks.