The centenary of the establishment of the first Department of History of the Polish Culture at the Jagiellonian University is a good opportunity to recall the scientific achievements in this discipline. In Krakow, in the second half of the nineteenth century, research on history of education, literature and culture was conducted at the Academy of Arts and Sciences and at the Jagiellonian University. However, it was not until Stanisław Kot’s scientific activity and his appointment as an associate professor that the chair in History of the Polish Culture at the Jagiellonian University was created in 1920. His seminar on the history of culture had enjoyed significant popularity and was attended by many students. In the years 1925–1939 he promoted 22 doctors and four of his students obtained a habilitation. However, due to the political involvement of Kot, the Sanation authorities decided to abolish his chair by introducing a new law on academic schools in 1933.

The establishment of the Department of the History of Science and Education at the Jagiellonian University in 1956 took 11 years of efforts and attempts by the university authorities and Krakow historians of culture, education and science to develop these directions of research at the oldest Polish research center. The pre-WW2 chair was vacant because Professor Stanisław Kot took the position of the ambassador in Rome and after the communists had gained full power in Poland, he could not return to the country. The chairs of Barycz and Hulewicz began operating in 1946, but in 1947 the communist authorities decided to eliminate them. The implementation of these decisions, however, was not carried out immediately as it was delayed in the case of Barycz’s chair until 1949, and in the case of Hulewicz’s until 1953. It was not until 1956 that the thaw allowed the authorities of the Jagiellonian University to restore the closed departments as a single one under the name of the Department of the History of Science and Education, consisting of two seminars. The author discusses the organizational structure, composition, research results, and teaching activities of the Department’s employees.

The Department of the History of Education and Culture at the Institute of History at the Jagiellonian University (Krakow) was established on February 1, 1971 in place of the Chair of the History of Science and Education. Since its beginning, it was located in the Kołłątaj Collegium at St. Anna St. 6, at first in the left wing of the building, and then – since 1980 – in its right wing. The heads of the Department in the years 1971–1997 were the professors: Jan Hulewicz, Kamilla Mrozowska and Renata Dutkowa. The Department also employed the scientific staff: Leszek Hajdukiewicz (head of the Archives of the Jagiellonian University), Julian Dybiec, Kazimierz Szczurek, Andrzej Kazimierz Banach, Krzysztof Stopka. The librarians of the Department were: Elżbieta Babuchowska, Joanna Plutecka and Krzysztof Stopka. In 1984, the librarian’s position was eliminated, and the department’s library was from that point onwards taken care of by the younger academics. Scientific research focused on the history of the Polish education: cathedral schools in the Middle Ages, secondary education in Krakow in the nineteenth century and the University of Krakow from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. Research was also undertaken on the Commission of National Education; the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences; scientific and educational patronage in Galicia during the autonomous era; Galicia as a part of the Austrian school system as well as scientific and intellectual relations between Poland and other European countries; city culture (Stary Sącz, Nowy Sącz and Zakopane); historical biography was practiced as well. The teaching staff of the Department were mainly present at the Institute of History and the Institute of Pedagogy, but they were also involved in other fields of study at the Faculty of Philosophy and History (later Faculty of History) as well as at other faculties and inter-faculty units of the university. Occasionally they also took up employment at other higher education institutions. They additionally participated in the work of committees and commissions of the Polish Academy of Sciences (and later on those of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences) as well as in editorial boards for dictionaries and bibliographies.

In the years 1997–2021, the Department of the History of Education and Culture of the Jagiellonian University was headed by the professors Julian Dybiec, Andrzej Banach and Krzysztof Stopka. Despite the fact that it was structurally part of the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University, its employees also held classes in other university faculties, including the Institute of Pedagogy, Department of Computational Linguistics at the Faculty of Management and Social Communication of the Jagiellonian University, and were in charge of the Faculty of History, Archives of the Jagiellonian University and the Museum of the Jagiellonian University. The scientific research of the team oscillated around the history of the Jagiellonian University; science, education and culture from the Middle Ages to the present day; the history of Krakow, Galicia and Poland; but also the intellectual ties of Poland with the Anglo-Saxon countries; the history of Jews and of the Roman and Greek Catholic Church; history didactics – especially in the history of the Armenians. Apart from the department heads, full-time employees in the discussed period included: Grzegorz Chomicki, Tomasz Pudłocki, Krystyna Samsonowska, Maria Stinia, and Wiktor Szymborski.