Jan Hulewicz’s Relationship With Stanisław Kot

Abstract

The subject of the analysis undertaken in this article is the issue of the scientific, political, and social relations between Jan Hulewicz and Stanisław Kot, two eminent scholars, professors of the Jagiellonian University, researchers of the history of education and intellectual culture, as well as active participants in the political and social life of Poland in the first half of the 20^th century. On the basis of existing biographical studies and source materials available in the archives of the Jagiellonian University and the Institute of National Remembrance, the text presents in chronological order their stages of education and the meanders of their professional and academic careers, together with their political activity and the subsequent course of the lives of both scholars. The four periods distinguished are the time of Galician autonomy, interwar Poland, the Second World War and the post-Yalta period. Discussing the biographies of the two scholars, the article draws attention to the numerous similarities in their courses – i.a. the beginnings of their scientific careers related to the Lviv circle and Polish philology, and creatively continued in the Krakow circle in the field of cultural history and education; their adherence to certain ideological principles, their common political and ideological environment and commitment to the service of the Polish state. Despite being behind the Iron Curtain and subject to communist repression, the scholars’ cooperation remained unbroken. Hulewicz continued and developed Kot’s important initiatives in Poland, becoming the depositary of his legacy and executor of his last will.