Janusz Woliński (1894-1970)

Polish historian, professor at the University of Warsaw. In 1945 he was one of the initiators of the revival of Przegląd Historyczny, which he headed as editor-in-chief until 1952.

In 1914–1926 he studied law and history at the University of Moscow and University of Warsaw. He specialised in the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth century; in 1926 he obtained his doctorate at the University of Warsaw on the basis of a dissertation on Polish-Brandenburg political relations in 1674–1675, and in 1938 he received his habilitation there on the basis of a study of John III Sobieski’s policy towards Ukraine. Before the war he was a history teacher in many secondary schools in Warsaw, and in 1938 began lecturing in history at the Institute of History, University of Warsaw. From 1931 until 1939, he was head of a department at the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment.

During the Nazi occupation Janusz Woliński was a librarian at the Krasiński Library in Warsaw and was also actively involved in clandestine teaching. In 1945 he became permanently affiliated with the University of Warsaw, where he was appointed associate professor two years later, becoming full professor in 1958. For many years he served as the University’s Chair of Early Modern History; in addition, he supervised 120 master’s degrees in history and 20 doctorates in the humanities. An outstanding scholar, author of more than thirty historical monographs and source editions, he was also a respected populariser of the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Decorated with many Polish and foreign orders (including twice with the Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta), he died in Warsaw in 1970.