Prof. Marian Szyjkowski a česko-polská vzjemnost I (1921-1939)

Marian Szyjkowski (1883–1952), a Professor of Jagiellonian University in Krakow and head librarian of the Jagiellonian University Library became the historic first chairman of the Department of Polish Language and Literature at Charles University in Prague ninety years ago. At the same time, this was actually not only the first department of Polish studies in this country, but anywhere in the world outside the territory of the Polish state. This study explores a cycle of questions relating to the circumstances of the establishment of Czech Polish studies and the field’s further evolution in the interwar period. Prague’s Polish studies program contributed in a significant way not only to deepening the knowledge of Polish literature and culture in the Czech milieu, but it also played an important role in cultivating Czech-Polish mutuality. And there was one man in particular who had a considerable part in this: Professor Szyjkowski from Krakow, for whom the idea of Czechoslovak-Polish rapprochement literally became both his life’s mission and his fate.