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  • Jerzy Wyrozumski7 March 1930–2 November 2018
  • Antony Polonsky

Jerzy Wyrozumski, who died in Kraków in early November 2018 at the age of 88, was for many years a professor of history at the Jagiellonian University and an outstanding scholar of the Middle Ages. Born in Trembowla (Terebovlya) in East Galicia, he was resettled with his family in Koźle in Silesia, which was incorporated into Poland after the Second World War. He completed his secondary education at the Henryk Sienkiewicz Gymnasium there, and went on to study at the Jagiellonian University, where he received his master’s degree in 1955. He completed his doctorate in 1963 under the direction of the eminent medievalist Roman Grodecki, with a thesis ‘Tkactwo małopolskie w póżnymśredniowieczu’ (‘Weaving in Southern Poland in the Later Middle Ages’), which was published in Kraków in 1972, and he received his habilitation five years later in 1968. In 1981 he was appointed university professor at the Jagiellonian University, where he continued to teach until his retirement in 2000. He also held the posts of dean of the Faculty of History and Philosophy and pro-rector. Between 1971 and 1973 he taught Polish history and civilization at the University of Lille in France.

His particular interest was the economic and social history of Poland during the Middle Ages, the functioning of the medieval political system, and medieval religious movements in Europe. Among his many works, some of the most important are Historia Polski do roku 1505 (‘The History of Poland to 1505’; 1978), Kazimierz Wielki (‘Kazimierz the Great’; 1982), and Dzieje Krakowa, i: Kraków do schyłku wiekówśrednich (‘The History of Kraków’, i: ‘Kraków to the End of the Middle Ages’; 1992). He also edited the French volume L’Université et la ville au Moyen Âge et d’autres questions du passé universitaire (‘The University and the City in the Middle Ages’; 1993).

In 2013, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his being awarded his doctorate, he recalled that he began his studies at a period of great ideological pressure at the Jagiellonian University, which was resisted by the general solidarity of the faculty. He recalled the minute’s silence during the mourning for Stalin after his death in 1953: ‘One of our colleagues began to laugh. Laughter is infectious and it spread to our whole group, among whom were two party members. The organizers were terrified, we were all terrified. We expected repercussions. There were none. Nobody denounced what had happened, nobody mentioned it.’ [End Page 519]

Professor Wyrozumski was well aware of the importance of including the Jews in Polish medieval history. He was actively involved in the organization of the Conference on Jewish Autonomy in Poland held at the Jagiellonian University in September 1986, the first such conference to be held in Poland. He gave the inaugural lecture, ‘Jews in Medieval Poland’, which was published in the volume The Jews in Old Poland, 1000–1795 (1993). Writing in the Jagiellonian University’s journal, Alma Mater, in 2007, he observed: ‘On the territory of Poland there lived more than half the Jews of the whole world, co-creators for many centuries of our history and culture. We are therefore obliged to concern ourselves with the fate of our former co-citizens and to remember their constructive contribution to many fields.’

Between 1994 and 2015 he was general secretary of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków and was also president of the Society of the Friends of the History and Monuments of Kraków. In addition, he was from 1990 to 2009 a member of the central commission on the granting of university degrees and titles, a member of the advisory council of the Wawel Museum, and a member of the jury for the Jan Długosz Award. He was also a founder member and vice president of the Association of the Polish Library in Paris and a member of the scientific council of the Polish Historical and Literary Society of Paris.

Among his many honours were honorary doctorates from the universities of Rzeszów and Bydgoszcz in Poland...

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