Oskar Halecki (26 May 1891 – 17 September 1973) was a Polish historian, social and Catholic activist. Doctor Honoris Causa of the
Polish University Abroad (1973).
Life and career
Halecki, whose first name is sometimes spelled Oscar in English-language sources, was born in Vienna to a Polish officer serving in the Austrian Army. His father, Oscar Chalecki-Halecki, achieved the rank of lieutenant field-marshal. His mother was Leopoldina deDellimanic.
After graduating with a doctorate from the
Jagiellonian University (1909–1913), he served briefly as a research assistant to Bronisław Dembiński in Warsaw, before continuing his education at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...
(1914–1915). He secured his first teaching position in 1915 as a docent at his alma mater, the Jagiellonian University. He was disqualified from military service due to poor eyesight. In his early years, Halecki wore
pince-nez, which combined with his mustache gave him an aristocratic appearance. Halecki moved to the
Warsaw University in 1918, where he was appointed to a chair of East European history.
After the
Armistice
An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from t ...
was signed, Halecki was appointed secretary general of a committee of experts attached to the Polish Delegation at the
Paris Peace Conference. Even though he had been appointed as dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian (1920), Halecki spent a decade in international service. In 1921, he was appointed as a member of the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
Secretariat in Geneva, where he spent three years organising that body's
Committee on Intellectual Co-operation. He then spent a year in Paris as Chief of the University Section in the league's Institute on Intellectual Co-operation and then spent several years working on its various commissions. After a ten-year absence, Halecki returned to his professorship at the University of Warsaw until 1939 during which he also served as dean of the Faculty of Humanities (1930–1931). In 1938, he went to the United States as a visiting scholar of the
Kosciuszko Foundation, giving over forty lectures at colleges and universities.
Halecki was attending a conference in Fribourg when Germany
invaded Poland, which triggered the Second World War. Rather than returning to occupied Poland, he went to Paris, where he organized the
Polish University in Exile and served as its president, taught at the
Sorbonne and edited the émigré periodical ''La Voix de Varsovie''. When Germany
invaded France in 1940, Halecki escaped to the United States with the help of
Stephen Mizwa and the
Kosciuszko Foundation, where he spent two years as a visiting professor of history at
Vassar College before he became executive director of the new
Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, which was conceived as an American outpost of the
Polska Akademia Umiejętności
The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning (, PAU), headquartered in Kraków and founded in 1872, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences (the other being the Pol ...
.
Bronisław Malinowski was its first president, and Halecki became its president from 1952 to 1964.
Halecki became a professor of Eastern European history at
Fordham University
Fordham University is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in New York City, United States. Established in 1841, it is named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its origina ...
from 1944 to 1961, and he was also affiliated with the
University of Montreal from 1944 to 1951 and an adjunct professor at
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
from 1955 to 1961, where he contributed to the prestige of Columbia's Institute on East Central Europe. After his "retirement" in 1961, he was a visiting professor at
Loyola University in Rome (1962–1963),
University of Fribourg (1963),
University of California at Los Angeles (1963–1964), and
Good Counsel College (1964–1967).
As a historian, Halecki was an expert on the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...
, which laid the foundation for his thesis that Eastern Europe, distinct from Russia was no less European than Western Europe and that they were both part of one great European community of people that shared the same spiritual ideals and cultural traditions. His work led to the gradual acceptance of the concept and name of East Central Europe. His magnum opus was a two-volume history of the Jagiellonian Union, published in 1919–1920. Much of his retirement was occupied with working on a biography of
Jadwiga of Anjou that was published two decades after his death.
Halecki also served on the controversia
"Committee of Ten"in
Scarsdale, New York, which claimed communist influence in the public school curriculum in the 1950s.
[A Sort of Utopia, Scarsdale, 1891-1981 by Carol A. O'Connor, Pp. 261-262]
Among the many students he mentored were
Thaddeus V. Gromada,
Taras Hunczak, and
Eugene Kusielewicz.
Halecki was married to Helen de Sulima-Szarlowska, who died in 1964.
Honors and recognition
Halecki received honorary doctorates from the
University of Lyon, the
University of Montreal,
De Paul University,
Fordham University
Fordham University is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in New York City, United States. Established in 1841, it is named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its origina ...
, and
Saint Peter's College. He was Papal Chamberlain and Knight of the Grand Cross, Order of Malta; Commander of the Order of Polonia Restituta; Commander of Saint Gregory; Commander, Hungarian Croix de Merite; and Chevalier,
Légion d'honneur. Halecki received the
Polish American Historical Association's first Haiman Award (1966) for outstanding contributions to Polish American studies. In 1981, the Polish American Historical Association established the Halecki Prize, given to recognize an important book or monograph on the Polish experience in the United States.
Bibliography
Publications by Halecki:
''Dzieje unii jagiellońskiej'' (2 vols., 1919-1920)
* (fr) ''Un empereur de Byzance æ Rome : vingt ans de travail pour l'union des églises et pour la défense de l'empire d'orient : 1355 - 1375'' (1930)
* (fr) ''Rome et Byzance au temps du grand schisme d'occident'' (1937)
*''East Central Europe in postwar organization'' (1943)
*''The Crusade of Varna: A Discussion of Controversial Problems'' (1943)
*''Borderlands of Western Civilization: A History of East Central Europe'' (1952) ()
*''History of Poland'' ()
* (fr) ''Histoire de Pologne'' (1945)
*''Imperialism in Slavic and East European History'' (1952)
*''Pius XII: Eugenio Pacelli: Pope of peace'' (1954)
*''From Florence to Brest 1439–1596'' (1958)
*''The Limits and Divisions of European History'' (1962)
*''The Millennium of Europe'' (1963)
*(posthumous) ''Jadwiga of Anjou and the rise of East Central Europe'', edited by Thaddeus V. Gromada (1991)
Publications about Halecki:
''The American Catholic Who's Who'', Vol. 14: ''1960 and 1961''
*Thaddeus V. Gromada, "The Contributions of Oscar Halecki to American Historical Scholarship," ''Nationalities Papers'', Vol. 4, no. 2 (1976): 89–97.
*Thaddeus V. Gromada, "Oscar Halecki, 1891-1973," ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 33, no. 1 (1974): 203-20
in JSTOR
*Oskar Halecki, "Oskar Halecki, Historian," in Walter Romig (ed.), ''The Book of Catholic Authors (Third Series): Informal Self-Portraits of Famous Modern Catholic Writers'' (Walter Romig & Co., 1945), 157–163.
*Kenneth F. Lewalski, "Oscar Halecki," in Hans A. Schmitt (ed.), ''Historians of Modern Europe'' (Louisiana State University Press, 1971), 36–61.
*Justine Wincek, "Oscar Halecki," ''Polish American Studies'', Vol. 24, no. 2 (1967): 106-10
in JSTOR
*Thaddeus V. Gromada (ed.), ''Oskar Halecki 1891-1973: Eulogies and Reflections'' (Tatra Eagle Press, 2013).
* Королёв Геннадий. Antemurale польской историографии: Оскар Халецкий о ягеллонской идее, федерализме и пограничье Запада // Ab Imperio. – 2015. – No. 2. – С. 363–382.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Halecki, Oskar
1891 births
1973 deaths
Writers from Vienna
20th-century Polish historians
Polish male non-fiction writers
University of Vienna alumni
Jagiellonian University alumni
Academic staff of the University of Warsaw
Polish emigrants to the United States
Fordham University faculty
Columbia University faculty
Members of the Lwów Scientific Society
Diplomats of the Second Polish Republic
Members of the Polish Academy of Learning
Commanders of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Historians of Polish Americans
Polish Byzantinists
Scholars of Byzantine history
Polish recipients of the Legion of Honour