„W końcu przyszło nam żyć w «ciekawych czasach»”. Studentów historii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego zbiorowy dziennik pandemiczny („pierwsza fala”, marzec–czerwiec 2020)

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“We’re finally living in interesting times”. A collective pandemic diary of University of Warsaw history students (“first wave” of the pandemic, March–June 2020) The beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in particular was characterised by a mass scale and diversity of forms of describing and recording the covid reality. They included journal and diary writing, both taken up spontaneously and initiated by universities, scholarly institutes or cultural institutions. The present collection is a result of my request to write a diary, a request addressed to participants in my seminars at the then Institute of History, University of Warsaw, immediately after the suspension of classes by the university authorities on 10 March 2020. I sought to encourage students to think about the situation and rationalise it, and to impose on them some discipline — not only intellectual — in the new reality. In addition, I was interested in the experiences of a formalised student peer group with diverse interests, social backgrounds, residential circumstances or jobs (a considerable part of them worked). All of them were unfamiliar with the experiences of shortages, isolation or fear for physical survival, experiences known (in a different form) to their parents and grandparents. The task was undertaken by 15 individuals — 5 women and 10 men. Their observations of the pandemic reality often prove extraordinary mature, varied, insightful and fresh, marked both by humour and clear disappointment with politics. They provide an excellent illustration of the first months of the pandemic, of isolation and fear, but also gradually getting used to the covid reality. The students themselves indicated the fragments of their diaries to be made public. I sought to present complete entries in the resulting “collective diary” made up of these fragments, but this was not always possible (omissions are indicated in square brackets). The entries have been completely anonymised, with their authors being identified, without a reference to their gender (which can be inferred from the entries anyway), by the abbreviation “Stud.” and a consecutive number, depending on the order of “appearance” in the collection.