Thomas Pazik

Thomas Pazik was born and bred in Indiana, but he moved to Michigan so he, his mother, and his father could be closer to his grandparents. He graduated from Harper Creek High School in 2019, but instead of pursuing a career in chemistry–as was his original plan–he switched gears to become a historian and linguist. As a historian, his objective was to learn about collective memory: how events of the past shape a people's shared experiences and identity. He wrote a thesis about how the Holodomor Famine in Soviet Ukraine impacted Ukrainians' perceptions of their sister nation in the 21st century. He hopes to learn how Soviet domination of the Polish people shapes their (unfortunately, often hawkish) geopolitical stances relating to Russia in the present, with the hopes of fostering a more nuanced intellectual discourse surrounding contemporary events in Eastern and Central Europe.