Władysław Kowalenko

The founder and the first Rector of Higher School of Maritime Trade

He was born in 1884 in Minsk. The different stages of his education were more affected by the war: the Russo-Japanese and I and II World War. Study, which began in St. Petersburg ended after I World War at the University of Poznan in 1925, when he defended his doctoral thesis.

His research interests focused on the tradition of sea ports in Poland and the Baltic role in the development of Polish ports. Habilitation thesis was related to archeology. At the same time, Władysław Kowalenko was engaged in the work of teaching at secondary schools, both in working with youth and in teaching environment.

Professor Władysław Kowalenko is one of the founders of the research centers on the Coast. Thanks to his dynamic work in 1945 there was founded the Higher School of Maritime Trade School in Gdynia. In 1945 he became its first rector.

For political reasons he was dismissed in 1948 and moved to the University of Poznan, where he assumed the leadership of the Maritime History Department, which has been specially created for him. Soon, already in 1950 he moved to the Western Institute, where he took charge of the Section of the History of Pomerania and Western Slavs.

He published many outstanding works, including "Review of the West", devoted mainly to links with the Baltic Slavs. In 1954 he began work on the Dictionary of Antiquities Slavic, initially at the Institute of the West and then in the Department of Slavic of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He died in 1966 after years of hard devotion to scientific work.