Aleksej Kalc graduated in history from the University of Trieste (Italy) and received his PhD in historical anthropology at the humanities doctoral school Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis in Ljubljana. He is also a professor at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Primorska. His research fields are social, cultural and political history with main emphases on migration and population studies, urban history, border regions, social relationships, demographic and migration politics. His research also includes methodological approaches in historical research, resources and epistemic issues in the migration studies.
In recent years, Aleksej Kalec’s research has focused on a comparative study of migration regimes in the territory of present-day Slovenia from the mid-19th century onwards. His research examines migration policies and practices of migration control in the context of Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom and socialist Yugoslavia, and the independent state of Slovenia, with particular attention to emigration, immigration, and internal migration in the region. The issue of relations with the Slovenian diaspora occupies a special place within this framework.
Other areas of his research include the microhistory of migration and spatial mobility as social and economic strategies of rural populations; urbanisation from the 18th century onwards; and population movements associated with geopolitical upheavals, changes in national borders, and shifts in ideological regimes.
Among his most significant achievements are the monograph The Population of Trieste in the 18th Century; the co-authored monograph The Age of Great Migrations in Slovenia (published in English as Daring Dreams of the Future); and the co-authored work Migration Control in Slovenia from Liberalism to Socialism.
KALC, Aleksej (2025). Urban opportunities: demography and mobility in a rural community (Tomaj, eighteenth-twentieth centuries). V: PANJEK, Aleksander (ur.). Upland families, elites and communities : long-run micro perspectives on persistence and change. Koper: University of Primorska Press, str. 197-224. https://www.hippocampus.si/ISBN/978-961-293-486-6/197-224.pdf, DOI: 10.26493/978-961-293-486-6.197-224.
KALC, Aleksej, MILHARČIČ-HLADNIK, Mirjam, ŽITNIK SERAFIN, Janja (2024). Daring dreams of the future: Slovenian mass migrations 1870-1945. Berlin [etc.]: P. Lang. DOI: 10.3726/b21284.
KALC, Aleksej (2024). Trieste ethnographies in the eyes of contemporary observers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Traditiones: zbornik Inštituta za slovensko narodopisje, letn. 53, št. 3, str. 137-161. https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/traditiones/issue/view/979/509, DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2024530306.
KALC, Aleksej (2023). Prihranki izseljencev in njihove poti v domovino v desetletjih pred prvo svetovno vojno. Dve domovini: razprave o izseljenstvu [št.] 58, str. 145-166. https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/twohomelands/article/view/13208/11548, DOI: 10.3986/dd.2023.2.08.
KALC, Aleksej 2022). Porters in the eighteenth-century Port City of Trieste: a special group within the working population of a free market economy. V: MELLINATO, Giulio (ur.), PANJEK, Aleksander (ur.). Complex Gateways : labour and urban history of maritime port cities : the Northern Adriatic in a comparative perspective : [scientific monograph]. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem, str. 51-69, https://www.hippocampus.si/ISBN/978-961-293-191-9/978-961-293-191-9.51-69.pdf, DOI: 10.26493/978-961-293-191-9.51-69.
KALC, Aleksej (2021). Ravni, akterji in dinamike nadzora ter politike izseljevanja v desetletjih pred prvo svetovno vojno. V: KALC, Aleksej (ur.). Nadzor migracij na Slovenskem od liberalizma do socializma. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, str. 27-62.
KALC, Aleksej (2021). O vzpostavitvi izseljenske zakonodaje v Kraljevini Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev. Annales: anali za istrske in mediteranske študije. Series historia et sociologia, letn. 31, št. 3, str. 507-518. https://zdjp.si/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ASHS_31-2021-3_Kalc.pdf, DOI: 10.19233/ASHS.2021.32.
- Between the “Tenth Banovina” and the “Seventh Republic”: States and Diasporas in the First and Second Yugoslavia (fundamental project • October 1, 2023 - September 30, 2026)
- Slovenian history on a small scale: continuity and change in a village community in a long-term perspective (Tomaj, 16.-20. century) (fundamental project • October 1, 2021 - September 30, 2024)
- Migration and social transformation in comparative perspective: the case of Western Slovenia after WWII (fundamental project • September 1, 2020 - August 31, 2023)
- Migration control in the Slovenian area from the times of Austria-Hungary to independent Slovenia (fundamental project • May 1, 2017 - April 30, 2020)
- Full professor of history at the University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities, Koper, Slovenia.
- Vladimir Bartol award of the University of Primorska (Koper, Slovenia) for academic excellence, 2020.
- Member of the editorial boards of the academic journals Acta Histriae, Annales, Series historia et sociologia, Časopis za povijest zapadne Hrvatske, Dve domovini / Two Homelands and Qualestoria; member of the scientific board of the book series Studi di storia (Edizioni Università di Trieste) and Slovenska znanstvena zbirka za humanistiko (University of Primorska).