User:MyMoloboaccount/Zygmunt Wojciechowski

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Zygmunt Wojciechowski (27 April 1900 – 14 October 1955) was a Polish historian. Born in 1900 in Austrian partition of Poland, he started his studes in 1921 at Lviv University where he obtained a doctorate from medieval history, social sciences, and economics. In 1924 he became assistant professor, and in 1925 he moved to Poznań, where he became a full professor in 1929. In 1934-1939 he was a nationalist politician[1]. During occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany he worked in Polish underground opposing German genocide of Poles by providing underground teaching, banned by German state. He also worked on future concept of Polish borders that would provide Poland with safety against any further German aggression, and proposed a compromise with Soviet Union, viewing Nazi Germany which attempted to exterminate Poles as Jews as "subhuman" as greater threat. After the war he continued to work as historian in People's Republic of Poland and headed Western Institute that studied former Polish territories recovered from Germany and history of Polish-German relations. He was a recipient of Commander's Cross and Officer's Cross of Order of Polonia Restituta.

Biography[edit]

Wojciechowski was born in Stryj near Lviv, then Austro-Hungarian Galicia.

During First World War he volunteered to serve in Polish Auxiliary Corps in 1918 but was later interned by Austrians and sent to Italian front. He later fought in Polish-Bolshevik war[2]


Interwar Era[edit]

Wojciechowski believed that the territories of Poland under Boleslaw Krzywousty formed the "motherland" areas Poland

In 1921, Wojciechowski began studying at Lviv University, which had then just been re-incorporated in the re-created Polish state under the name of Lwów. In 1924, he obtained a doctorate in medieval history, social sciences, and economics, and became assistant professor at the Institute for Auxiliary Sciences of History.

In 1925, he moved to Poznań, where he first was the deputy holder of the chair for the history of the political system and Ancient Polish law at Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM). The same year, he completed his habilitation with a thesis on the territorial administration of medieval settlements. He became extraordinary (non-tenured) professor in 1929, and full professor in January 1937.

In 1933 he published his book Rozwój terytorialny Prus w stosunku do ziem macierzystych Polski[3](earlier sketches of this idea are known, for example from 1924[4]) In the book he defined the Polish relations with Germany as structural conflict, and indicated that struggles with Poland's western neighbour are in his belief a question of survival[5], especially concerning Prussia. In Wojciechowski's view, Prussia dominated Germany and as it was its founder in XIX century,Germany inherited Prussia's anti-Polish policies. Wojciechowski stated that Prussia's success as a state was based on continuous absorption of Polish and Slavic lands-which were key territories for Polish state. He named these territories as "motherland land". Prussia's conquest of these territories, in Wojciechowski's view was the founding stone of it's political power in later centuries. He defined this "motherland" as the areas that belonged to 10th-century Piast Poland in the era of Mieszko I and Boleslaw Krzywousty (Greater Poland, Silesia, Gdańsk Pomerania,Western Pomerania, Mazovia,Lesser Poland, Neumark, Royal Prussia), the eastern border of Polish motherland territories was defined as Bug river[6]. From 1939, he was the dean of the university's Department of Law and Economics.


Since 1934, Wojciechowski, a friend of Roman Dmowski,[7] had been one of the main ideologists of the Camp of Great Poland (OWP). He founded the "League of Young Nationalists" (Związek Młodych Narodowców) in 1934 and became its chairman until 1937. From 1937 to 1939 he was the chairman of the "Nation State Movement" (Ruch Narodowo-Panstwowy)[8] During his political carrer he opposed Dmowski and the movement he belonged to sought integration with Pilsudski's faction, hoping that both main political factions in Poland would unite led by interest in well being of Polish nation[9]

In 1935[10]Wojciechowski initially saw "traces of a modern national thought" in the National Socialism and initially admired Hitler's anti-Jewish policy as a good example for Poland but became more critical of Hitler's politics in the course of time.[11] He supported Anschluss of Austria, as he hoped it would wake up Italy to Polish issues in Central Europe and move it forward towards Polish camp, he also supported Munich Agreement as he viewed Czechoslovakia too closely allied with Soviet Union[12]


Later he focused his attention towards Fascist Italy, due to his interest in a "strong state", "depending on legal norms, in tradition of Roman law".[11]While nation was for Wojciechowski at time the "greatest good" he didn't exhibit racist ideas or anything that would be similar to German "volkisch" elements in his works[13].In a 1945 publication he condemned the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany during the war as "monstrous"[14]

German occupation of Poland[edit]

During the occupation of Poland in World War II, he was involved with the Polish underground authorities, teaching at the Uniwersytet Ziem Zachodnich ("University of the Western Territories", a part of the necessary underground education system) necessary, as all Poles were forbidden basic schooling as part of German genocide regarding Polish nation. He also headed the Government Delegation for Poland's department of education from 1940 to 1945. As part of conspiracy during Nazi German occupation he was one of the founding members of Ojczyzna-Omega, an conspiracy movement that gathered surviving(as Germans carried out systematic extermination of Polish educated classes) Polish intellectuals, priests,journalists, lawyers and teachers, who organised charity work, secret education and worked on concepts of post-war Poland; most of the members were Christian democrats and national democrats[15]. Ojczyzna-Omega envisioned a post-war Poland that would be a democratic, efficiently administrated state populated mainly by Polish majority alongside Jewish population and Slavic groups. The organisation believed that Nazi Germany(which attempted a genocide of Poles) was far more dangerous than Soviet Union and pushed for a compromise with Soviets [16].

In 1941 Wojciechowski created a concept of a post-war Polish–German border along the Oder-Neisse line, which included an overview of the Polish and Polonizable part of the populace. In tune with and probably in charge of Wojciechowski the director of the library of Kórnik at that time prepared the takeover of archives, museums and libraries in the future Western territories.[17]

On 17 December 1944 Tomasz Arciszewski, the Polish Prime Minister of the government-in-exile in London, declared in a Sunday Times interview, that a post-war Poland had no territorial claims towards Stettin (Szczecin) and Breslau (Wrocław) but considers Lviv and Wilna an integral part of the Polish state. This led to a vote of no confidence of the Ojczyzna-group against Arciszewski for this "renunciation of the Polish war aims" and finally to the breakup with the Polish government-in-exile in London.[18][19]

Post-war[edit]

In 1945 his book "Poland-Germany. Ten centuries of struggle" (first edidion 1933) was reissued. To Wojciechowski the history of Polish-German relations was coined by an eternal struggle against German aggression which was founded on a lack of the ability of Germans to cohabit peacefully with Slavs and their "biological" hatred of everything Slavic. Wojciechowski described his view of the post-war situation:[1]

"There is a new epoch of Slavic march to the west that has replaced the German Drang nach Osten. Who doesn’t understand it, won’t understand the new era and won’t see properly the place of Poland in the new international reality”

Wojciechowski resumed teaching at UAM. He became a member of the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU) in 1945 and of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in 1952. In 1944, he established the Western Institute (Instytut Zachodni), an institution dedicated to studying the Polish history of what would become the Recovered Territories. Initially in Warsaw, the institute's seat moved to Poznań in 1945. Wojciechowski remained its director until his death in 1955; the institute was eventually named in his honor in 1984. In 1945, Wojciechowski founded the affiliated journal Przegląd Zachodni ("Western Review") and remained his editor-in-chief until his death in 1955. (An English-language version of the journal under the title Polish Western Affairs was published from 1960 to 1994). From 1948–52, he was also founder and editor-in-chief of the "Journal of Law and History" (Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne), which continues to exist to this day.

Zygmunt Wojciechowski died in Poznań, Poland, he was the father of historian Marian Wojciechowski (1927-2006).

Recognition[edit]

Since 1984 he is the patron of Western Institute Zygmunt Wojciechowski is recognised today in Poland as exceptional historian, and one of people who formed Polish intellectual elites[20] There are also numerous streets in Poland named after him.

Publications[edit]

  • Polska nad Wisłą i Odrą w X wieku. Studium nad genezą państwa Piastów i jego cywilizacji [Poland on the Vistula and Oder in the 10th century: A study on the genesis of the Piast state and its civilization], Warszawa: Nasza Księgarnia, 1939
  • Polska-Niemcy. Dziesięć wieków zmagania [Poland-Germany. Ten centuries of struggle]. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Zachodniego, 1945
  • Państwo polskie w wiekach średnich. Dzieje ustroju [The Polish state in the Middle Ages: The history of its political system], Poznań: Poznań Księgarnia Akademicka, 1948
  • Zygmunt Stary (1506-1548) [ Sigismund the Old (1506-1548)], 1946, re-issue Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1979
  • (as editor) Poland's Place in Europe. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Zachodniego, 1947


References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Schneider, Axel; Woolf, Daniel (2011). The Oxford History of Historical Writing; 1945 to the Present. Oxford University Press. p. 245. ISBN 978-0-19-922599-6.
  2. ^ Kenar, page 18
  3. ^ Kener 158
  4. ^ Hackmann, Jörg (1996). Ostpreussen und Westpreussen in deutscher und polnischer Sicht (in German). Deutsches Historisches Institut Warschau/Niemiecki Instytut Historyczny w Warszawie. p. 224. ISBN 3-447-03766-0.
  5. ^ Kenar, page 158
  6. ^ Kenar, page 158
  7. ^ Connelly, John (2000). Captive University; the Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education 1945-1956. University of North Carolina. p. 158. ISBN 0-8078-4865-4.
  8. ^ Borodziej, Włodzimierz (2005). Option Europa (in German). Vandenhoeck&Rupprecht. p. 507. ISBN 3-525-36287-0.
  9. ^ Tomasz Kenar. „My mamy myśl, a Piłsudski siłę”. Myśl polityczna Związku Młodych Narodowców i Ruchu Narodowo-Państwowego. 1932-1939. Szczecin 2008, page 24-27, 80
  10. ^ Insert footnote text here
  11. ^ a b Fahlbusch, Michael; Haar, Ingo (2005/). German scholars and ethnic cleansing, 1919-1945. Berghahn Books. p. 267, 268. ISBN 1-57181-435-3. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
  12. ^ Insert footnote text here
  13. ^ German scholars and ethnic cleansing, 1919-1945 Michael Fahlbusch, page 268
  14. ^ "Polska--Niemcy, dziesięć wieków zmagania" Zygmunt Wojciechowski, Instytut Zachodni,page 258, 1945
  15. ^ Przegląd zachodni, Volume 61, Issues 3-4 Instytut Zachodni, page 255, 2005
  16. ^ Przegląd zachodni, Tom 50,Wydania 3-4 Instytut Zachodni, page 118,148 1994
  17. ^ Schlögel, Karl; Halicka, Beata (2007). Oder-Odra. Blicke auf einen europäischen Strom (in German). Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. p. 233, 234 ff. ISBN 978-3-631-56149-2.
  18. ^ Schlögel, Halicka: Oder – Odra; p. 235
  19. ^ Brier, Robert (2003). Der polnische „Westgedanke” nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (1944-1950) (PDF) (in German). University of Munich. p. 23 ff.
  20. ^ Czy endecja miała wybitnych pisarzy? Tomasz Wołek, Gazeta Wyborcza, 2008-02-18

Further reading[edit]

  • Markus Krzoszka, Für ein Polen an Oder und Ostsee. Zygmunt Wojciechowski (1900-1955) als Historiker und Publizist, Osnabrück: fibre, 2003. ISBN 3-929759-49-7
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