Władysław Konopczyński (26 November 1880 – 12 July 1952) was a leading Polish historianEncyklopedia Polski, p. 305. and publisher of primary-source materials.Encyklopedia powszechna PWN, vol. 2, p. 539.
Life Władysław Konopczyński was born on 26 November 1880 in Warsaw, and was the son of Ignacy and Ludwika nee Obrąpalska. He was baptised as Władysław Aleksander. His godparents were Zofia Strumiłło and Aleksander Konopczyński.P. Biliński, Władysław Konopczyński w kręgu naukowym i rodzinnym. In: Władysław Konopczyński 1880–1952. Materiały z posiedzenia naukowego PAU w dniu 21 czerwca 2002 r., zebrał i opracował J. A. Gierowski, Kraków 2005, p. 85. He spent his childhood in Łódź and Radom. In the years 1889-1891, together with his brother Zygmunt, he attended the Wojciech Górski Real School in Warsaw. In 1891 he moved to the 4th philological secondary school in Warsaw. From the sixth grade, he belonged to a secret self-education circle, where he was a librarian, lecturer and examiner on Polish history. In 1899 he passed his secondary school leaving certificate with very good results and a silver medal. He began his studies at the Faculty of Law of the Russian University of Warsaw.P. Biliński, Władysław Konopczyński (1880-1952). in: Słownik biograficzny polskiego obozu narodowego, pod redakcją Krzysztofa Kawęckiego, Warszawa 2020, p. 188
In 1904 he graduated, obtaining the degree in legal and political sciences on the basis of the thesis entitled Przyczynki do spraw pochodzenia liberum veto [Contributions to the issue of the origin of the liberum veto]. Earlier, between 1903 and 1904, he spent one year's military service in the 3rd artillery brigade of the guard. After the outbreak of the Russian-Japanese war, not wanting to go to the Manchurian front, he simulated a disease, thanks to which he avoided being sent. He started to compose a book entitled Polska w dobie wojny siedmioletniej [Poland during the Seven Years' War].
In 1903, on the initiative of Tadeusz Korzon, he met the founder of Lviv's history school, Szymon Askenazy.Encyklopedia Polski, p. 305 After an initial conversation Askenazy, suggested to Konopczyński to prepare a dissertation on modern history. The young historian chose the 18th century, the twilight of the reign of August III Sas. In 1904, he went through the manuscripts in the Dzieduszycki, Ossoliński, Pawlikowski and Baworowski Libraries in Lwow and then set off for Vienna. From there, he went to Dresden, where he conducted a source search. The next stage of his search were the manuscripts of the French National Library and Polish Library in Paris as well as the Library of the British Museum in London. In 1904, he completed his two-month-long research voyages at the royal archive in Copenhagen.
In 1906 Konopczyński returned to Warsaw. He arrived after the revolutionary riots and started working as a history teacher at the school of his paternal uncle Emilian Konopczynski. Thanks to Tadeusz Korzon, he also taught at the newly established Society of Scientific Courses.P. Biliński, Władysław Konopczyński (1880-1952). in: Słownik biograficzny polskiego obozu narodowego, pod redakcją Krzysztofa Kawęckiego, Warszawa 2020, p. 189
In autumn 1907, he left for Lwow, where - apart from participating in Askenazy's seminar - he attended lectures by historians Ludwik Finkel and Bronisław Dembiński, philologist Józef Kallembach and philosopher Kazimierz Twardowski. He had no problems with the commencement of his doctoral dissertation in spring 1908, as he was already the author of four serious historical treatises. After a year of hard work, he completed his doctorate. It was the first part of the work Poland during the Seven Years' War published by Szymon Askenazy in the series Monographs on Modern History. The dissertation was positively reviewed by Bronisław Dembiński and Ludwik Finkel, and the author passed the exams in common history, Polish history and philosophy with great success. The doctoral promotion took place on 16 November 1908 at the Francis I University in Lwow.
Immediately after his doctoral degree was awarded, Konopczyński left for Kraków, where he started to apply for his tenure. In January 1911, he started his postdoctoral degree on the basis of the second part of the book Poland during the Seven Years' War and numerous earlier articles and studies. On 27 April 1911, the post-doctorate colloquium was held. The professors Wacław Tokarz and Wacław Sobieski were the reviewers of the dissertation. The habilitation lecture was held on 29 April 1911 and was entitled: England in the face of the fall of Poland before the first partition. The young historian delighted the audience with his erudition, knowledge of sources and professionalism. The resolution of the Council of the Faculty of Philosophy of 26 May 1911 to award Konopczyński veniam legendi in the field of modern history was approved on 2 August 1911 by the Ministry of Confessions and Education of Austro-Hungary.
Since 1911 Konopczyński, as a private associate professor joined the Jagiellonian University. His most important task was to collect materials for the works he already started and planned. Between 1912 and 1913, apart from Polish archives, he visited London, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Marburg, Paris, Munich, Vienna, Moscow and Kiev. He considered the monumental Konfederacja Barska [Bar Confederation] as opus magnum of his search, the book that was published 25 years later and treated as a work of his life.P. Biliński, Władysław Konopczyński (1880-1952). in: Słownik biograficzny polskiego obozu narodowego, pod redakcją Krzysztofa Kawęckiego, Warszawa 2020, p. 188-190
When the World War I broke out, Konopczyński was in Gdynia, from where he was expelled to Sweden. During the deportation, the Professor forgot to take his personal belongings, but he was still carrying a suitcase filled with materials to the Bar Confederation. He stayed in Scandinavia for about a year and a half, but devoted most of his time to archival research, which later resulted in a scientific dissertation on Polish-Swedish and Polish-Danish relations. He returned to Krakow in February 1916.
In January 1917 the possibility of employment at the Jagiellonian University opened for Konopczyński. First, he competed for the job with Wacław Tokarz, and later with Oskar Halecki, Ludwik Kolankowski and Stanisław Zakrzewski. On 10 July 1917, after a stormy discussion at a meeting of the Council of the Faculty of Philosophy, it was decided to employ Konopczyński.P. Biliński, Władysław Konopczyński (1880-1952). in: Słownik biograficzny polskiego obozu narodowego, pod redakcją Krzysztofa Kawęckiego, Warszawa 2020, p. 190-191
He was a polyglot who knew 14 languages.
Apart from teaching, Konopczyński was passionate about scientific work. In his huge historical writing legacy, the main work (written in the interwar period and prepared for 25 years) was the already mentioned Bar Confederation (vol. 1-2, 1936-1938). Many smaller works and source publications were created along with this monumental monograph, including the diaries of Wojciech Mączeński (1911), Teofila Sapieżyna nee Jabłonowska (1914) and Stanisław Lubomirski (1925), and compendia of sources: Polityka i ustrój Generalności Konfederacji Barskiej (1928), Materiały do dziejów wojny konfederackej 1768-1774 (1931), Konfederacja barska. Selection of texts (1928). Moreover, the article published in the Historical Quarterly entitled Przegląd źródeł do Konfederacji Barskiej (1934) still remains useful. An excellent biography of the confederate chief Kazimierz Pułaski (1931) was created in the process of the monograph, The biography was translated into English and published in the United States.P. Biliński, Władysław Konopczyński (1880-1952). in: Słownik biograficzny polskiego obozu narodowego, pod redakcją Krzysztofa Kawęckiego, Warszawa 2020, p. 191-192
The other field Konopczyński's research was Polish foreign policy in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the period between the world wars he published: Poland and Sweden and Poland and Turkey. The legal and political were the issues raised in the Origins and establishment of the Constant Council (1917), very early and yet considered by many researchers to be Konopczyński's most mature work in the historical-legal field. To some extent the biography of Stanisław Konarski (1926) can be included in the same genre due to the role of political and political thought of the outstanding Piarist. The sketch History of English Parliamentarianism (1923) and the study Government and Parliament in the former Republic of Poland (1930) are still relevant. The historian collected more detailed political and political outlines in the volume From Sobieski to Kościuszko. Sketches, trinkets, historical trifles (1921).
While still an associate professor, Konopczyński tried to coordinate teamwork on the whole of Polish history. He devoted an extensive article to this cause, entitled "Dziejopisarstwo zbiorowe u obcych i u nas" (1916). However, the proposal, which was repeated several times, did not find wider resonance among historians. The scholar himself did not evade teamwork and participated in creating such syntheses as: Poland in Common Culture (1918), Wielkopolska [Great Poland] in the Past (1926), Pomerania and Chelmno Land (1927), Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (1933), Pologne Suisse (1938), Repertorium der diplomatischen Vertreter aller Länder (vol. II, 1936).
In 1924, he published four books of source texts for junior high school students: The Reign of Jan Kazimierz, The Saxon Times in Poland, Poland during the Turkish Wars and The Reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski. Apart from these minor works, together with Oskar Halecki, Waclaw Sobieski and Jozef Krajewski, he contributed to the creation of several major collective works, such as: Political history of Poland in the years 1648-1775 (1923). In 1938, he became involved in the largest undertaking of that time, namely the publication of the Great General History, in which he wrote the part that covered the times of absolutism 1648-1788. His last important work written before World War II was the History of Modern Poland (1936).
In 1931, he founded Polski słownik biograficzny (The Polish Biographical Dictionary) and served as its first editor, seeing seven volumes through press, 1935–1949, before being forced by Poland's postwar communist government to resign his editorship. Konopczyński's great merit lays in the initiation and commencement of the publication of the largest collective work of Polish inter-war historiography. In 1930, under the auspices of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Temporary Editorial Committee was established with Konopczyński as its chairman. His intention was not to create a monograph, but to provide basic facts and a comprehensive source basis for a given person. That would allow a wide range of readers to delve into more detailed research. From 1934, Konopczyński, as the editor-in-chief, began to collect biographies for the first volume of the dictionary, which included entries for the letters A and B. He planned to produce 20,000 biographies in 20 volumes published over 20 years. Many of his former and contemporary students also contributed to this work, including Emanuel Rostworowski, Władysław Czapliński, Józef Feldman, and Józef Andrzej Gierowski.
He wrote histories of Poland and of the modern world. In his own time, he participated as a member of the Polish delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 and as a representative of Popular National Union in the Sejm between 1922 and 1927 during the Second Polish Republic. He argued for the recognition of the role of Roman Dmowski in the fight for Polish independence.