Henryk Łowmiański was a Polish historian and academic who was an authority on the early history of the Slavic and Baltic people. A researcher of the ancient history of Poland, Lithuania and the Slavsin general, Łowmiański was the author of many works, including most prominently the six-volume monumental monograph :pl:Początki Polski|Początki Polski.
Scholar years
Łowmiański was born to father Konstantego and mother Kazimiery née Rudzińskich. After receiving his doctorate on the "Wschody" miast litewskich w XVI wieku in 1924, Łowmiański became the first history Ph.D in the University of Stefan Batory. Prior the World War II, working as an academic archivist wrote a two-volume Studia nad początkami społec-zeństwa i państwa litewskiego, and a treatise Uwagi w sprawie podłoża społec-znego i gospodarczego Unii Jagiellońskiej. In the meantime he took over the Chair of the History of Eastern Europe in 1932 until the termination of the university in 1939. In 1945, at the invitation of the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Kazimierz Tymieniecki, he took over the Chair of the History of Eastern Europe, later renamed the Chair of the History of the Nations of the USSR in 1951, until 1968. In 1946 was appointed as a full professor. He researched the early history of Poland and of the Eastern Slavs, publishing Podstawy gospodarczego formowania się państw słowiańskich and Zagadnienia roli Normanów w genezie państw słowiańskich before his most important work, the six-volume monumental monograph :pl:Początki Polski|Początki Polski between 1963-1984. From 1953 he was the head of the medieval history department of the newly established Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences and from 1956 an ordinary academic member of the PAN. In the years 1951-1956 / 1957 he was the head of historical departments at the AMU in Poznań, and in the years 1956 / 1957-1968 he was the director of the Institute of History at AMU. He was also a member of number of scientific societies, including Society of Friends of Science in Wilno, Shevchenko Scientific Society, Poznań Society of Friends of Learning among others. Besides major books, his bibliography includes around 300 items, and the first volume of his selected works about Lithuanian and Belarusian historyStudia nad dziejami Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskieg was published in 1983. According to Maciej Siekierski, the "continuing timeliness and scholarly value of these works are a tribute to the great historian". According to :pl:Stanisław Alexandrowicz |Stanisław Alexandrowicz, Łowmiański had a universal authority already during his lifetime, being considered as an expert on historical sources, the history of Lithuania, Slavic and Baltic people in the Middle Ages, economic and social relations of medieval Poland, and statehood formation in Central and Eastern Europe. During the mourning ceremony by the academic community spoke reputable historian Gerard Labuda, assessing his role in the Polish historiography as equal to Jan Długosz and Joachim Lelewel.
Personal life
His wife was Maria Łowmiańska, Polish philologist with historical interests, also graduate from USB.
