Piotr Biliński

Publications of Piotr Biliński

• [Family and scientific circle of Stanisław Kutrzeba].

  Authors: Piotr Biliński

  Kwartalnik historii nauki i techniki : Kwartal'nyĭ zhurnal istorii nauki i tekhniki -. 01/2010; 55(1):37-64.

  Stanisław Kutrzeba (1876-1946) was born in the Cracow middle-class family. He studied law at Jagellonian University where took a doctor's degree and qualified himself as assistant professor in theStanisław Kutrzeba (1876-1946) was born in the Cracow middle-class family. He studied law at Jagellonian University where took a doctor's degree and qualified himself as assistant professor in the realm of the history of Polish law. His academic career was very complicated. Kutrzeba was discriminated by the part of professors because of his middle-class provenience. After many defeats and disappointments, in 1908, he got a longed-for Department of the History of Polish Law. His productive scientific and didactic activity was stopped by the outbreak of World War I. Then he sacrificed himself for a politics and engaged himself in the development of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. That is why a year 1914 is such a significant turning point in his scientific biography.

• [Feliks Karol Koneczny - academic career path]

  Authors: Piotr Biliński

  Kwartalnik historii nauki i techniki : Kwartal'nyĭ zhurnal istorii nauki i tekhniki -. 02/2005; 50(1):95-115.

  Feliks Koneczny's ideas in history and philosophy of history are well-known in today's world. Since the 1990s many researchers have devoted their interests and studies to that very matter. They haveFeliks Koneczny's ideas in history and philosophy of history are well-known in today's world. Since the 1990s many researchers have devoted their interests and studies to that very matter. They have written a lot about the issue. Yet there hasn't been even one thorough biography of that outstanding scholar based on an in-depth archival query. It was the author's research conducted in national and foreign archives, that finally provided the answer to the hitherto unexplained, mysteries concerning Feliks Koneczny.Feliks Koneczny (1862-1949) graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and began work as an office senior lecturer at the Academy of Arts and Sciences; since 1897, he worked at the Jagiellonian Library. After Poland regained its independence, he became an assistant professor in 1919. In June 1920, after he had qualified received the degree of doctor habilitatus, he became a professor of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. After having retired in 1929, he came back to Cracow. His interests moved from purely historical research to the philosophy of history, religion and philosophy. During the Second World War his two sons were killed by the Nazis, and part of his house was occupied by German co-tenants. His pioneering works dealing with the history of Russia. As well as his theory the evolution of civilizations are among his greatest achievements. Foreign researchers and scholars, among them Anton Hilckman, Arnold Toynbee and Samuel Huntington widely draw upon Feliks Koneczny's works and achievements.In 1948, after sixty years of research work Koneczny calculated that his written scholarly output encompassed 26 volumes, each of them being 300 to 400 pages long, not to mention more than 300 articles, brochures and reprints. Although a lot of Polish scholars can boast of having completed more works than he had not many Polish historians can prode themselves on such an enormous scape of research, which included anthropology, sociology, philosophy, theology, ethnology, psychology, economics, history and law. This list, impressive as it may be, fails to do justice to the moral and personal dimension of his work. This loner by choice was the creator of Polish philosophy of history, a major Catholic thinker, a university professor and humanist in the most significant sense of the word.