Author
Władysław Konopczyński 1880-1952

He was born in Warsaw on the 26th of November, 1880, into a family of a participant of the January Uprising of 1863. Already while attending the secondary school, he was active on various aid, or self-teaching, groups, and he wrote his first lecture on history at the age of fifteen. He graduated from the Department of Law of the Warsaw University (1899-1904), receiving the title of Candidate of Sciences on the basis of his thesis Przyczynki do kwestii powstania liberi veto. He continued his education by studying history at the University of Lviv (1907-1908) where, under the supervision of Szymon Askenazy, he was promoted Doctor of Philosophy. Following his Ph. D. defense, he worked for some time as a history teacher at the Secondary School No. VI in Warsaw, and also gave lectures at the Society for Scientific Courses (TKN). In 1911 he qualified himself as assistant professor at the Jagiellonian University (on the basis of a thesis called Polska w dobie wojny siedmioletniej) and in that capacity was employed by that academy. In 1917 he was appointed associate professor and four years later received the title of full professor. At that time he headed the Department of Polish Modern and Contemporary History. He was also involved in politics as an adherent of Roman Dmowski and opponent of the Sanation camp rallied around Józef Piłsudski. On behalf of the Popular National Union (ZLN) he held a Sejm seat in 1922-1927. During the Second World War, as the dean of the Department of Philosophy, he was arrested by the Germans as part of the Sonderaktion Krakau and – having spent some time in prison in Kraków and Wrocław – finally sent to Sachsenhausen. Released in 1940, Konopczyński returned to Kraków and participated in the underground education at the Jagiellonian University. After the war he was persecuted by the authorities to an extraordinary extent. Finally in 1948 he was forced to give up his post at the Jagiellonian University in connection with groundless accusations of chauvinism and racism. His published works include Mrok i świt (1911), Geneza i ustanowienie Rady Nieustającej (1917), Liberum veto (1918), Przyczyny upadku Polski (1918), Dzieje parlamentaryzmu angielskiego (1922), Polska a Szwecja (1924), Stanisław Konarski (1926), Kazimierz Pułaski. Życiorys (1931), Dzieje Polski nowożytnej (1936), Konfederacja Barska (1936-1938), Polska a Turcja, 1683-1792 (1936), Anglia a Polska w XVIII wieku (1947), Fryderyk Wielki a Polska (1947), Kwestia bałtycka do XX wieku (1947), Chronologia sejmów polskich 1493-1793 (1948), and Kiedy nami rządziły kobiety (1960).

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