Poznańscy historycy prawa i Instytut Zachodni
The Poznań Historians of Law and the Institute for Western Affairs

Summary/Abstract: During the interwar period an autonomous scientific school of historians of law was created in Poznan by scholars grouped around Zygmunt Wojciechowski and the milieu of the initiators of the Polish Western thought. Its research traditions were continued after 1945 at Poznan´ University and in the intense activity of the Institute for Western Affairs. The Poznan historians of law took active part in research on the German Nazi occupation of Poland during the Second World War and in studies of the Regained Territories (in the aspect of their historical heritage and current political-economic issues). In the second half of the 1940s the Institute for Western Affairs was one of the most important Polish research centres. In the Stalinist period the scientific milieu of the Institute was subjected to numerous restrictions in terms of finances and censorship, and even to certain political repressions. Nevertheless, Zygmunt Wojciechowski continued to fulfill his leading role at the Institute to the end of his life. The article discusses the basic directions of research undertaken by the historians of law within the framework of activity of the Institute for Western Affairs.

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