Research Areas:
- Contemporary history
- History of socialist Yugoslavia and the Cold War
- History textbooks
Biography:
Mateja Režek graduated from the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, in 1994 and became a young researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. She received her PhD from the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, in 2000 with a dissertation entitled “Political Changes in Slovenia/Yugoslavia in the Decade following the Cominform Conflict, 1948–1958”.
Since 2012 she has been employed as a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Historical Studies of the Science and Research Centre Koper. Before that she worked as a research associate at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. In addition to her research, she has also been engaged in pedagogical work. Between 2007 and 2016, she was employed as an assistant professor at the University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities, where she lectured in World History of the 20th Century and History of the Balkans. In addition, she is a member of the National Commission for the Matura Exam in History.
Her bibliography comprises a total of more than 170 items, of which more than 50 scientific articles, two scientific monographs, two high school textbooks of contemporary history and many other contributions.
Research activity:
The field of her research is contemporary political and diplomatic history. She focuses on the history of socialist Yugoslavia and the Cold War, in recent years especially on Yugoslavia’s foreign relations, relationship between state and church, political dissidence and censorship, history textbooks and the politicization of history.
Mateja Režek has worked within three research programmes and many research projects, two of which she led and successfully completed. The result of her research project entitled “Freedom of Speech and Press: its Restriction in Slovenia, 1945–1990,” the comprehensive monograph Cenzurirano: zgodovina cenzure na Slovenskem od 19. stoletja do danes [Censored: History of Censorship in Slovenia from the 19th Century to the Present], was awarded an outstanding scientific achievement by the Slovenian Research Agency in 2010. Since 2018 she has worked within the research programme “The Mediterranean and Slovenija”. At the same time she is or has been involved in several research projects, among them “Religious Change in Slovenia and Yugoslavia: Religious Conversions and Processes of Atheization (2021–2024); “Adriatic Welfare States” (2019–2022); “The Engagement between Marxism and Christianity in Slovenia, 1931–1991” (2018–2021); “Antifascism in the Julian March in a Transnational Perspective, 1919–1954” (2018–2021); “Yugoslav Self-Management Experiment and the Discussion on Development of European Socialism between East and West, 1950–1980” (2015–2018); “Slovenian Diplomats and Foreign Policy Aspects of the Independence Process of the Republic of Slovenia, 1980–1992” (2014–2017); etc.
In the capacity of a leader or member of programme committees, she has organised several conferences, among them: “Antifascism in a Transnational and Comparative Perspective” (Koper, 2021); “Crossing the Lines between Marxism and Christianity in the 20th Century East-Central Europe” (Koper, 2021); “The Yugoslav Laboratory of Political Innovation: The Origins, Synthesis and International Influences of Self-management Socialism” (Koper, 2018); “International and Transnational Aspects of the Yugoslav Crisis and the Establishment of Successor States, 1980–1992” (Koper, 2016); “Tito’s Yugoslavia as a Diplomatic Challenge of the 20th Century” (Koper, 2012); “Historical and Social Aspects of Censorship in Slovenia” (Ljubljana, 2009); “Contemporary Slovenian Historiography” (Ljubljana, 2007); etc. She has also presented her research findings at many other conferences in Slovenia, the USA, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and elsewhere. In addition, she occasionally collaborates as a guest editor in the scientific journals Annales and Acta Histriae and as a reviewer in the scientific journals International History Review, Religion, State and Society, Annales, Acta Histria, Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino, Tokovi istorije, etc.