Janusz Kurtyka

Who was Janusz Kurtyka?

Janusz Marek Kurtyka was a Polish historian, and from December 2005 until his death in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash, the second president of the Institute of National Remembrance.

Kurtyka was born in Kraków and obtained his degree in the History and Philosophy Department of the Jagiellonian University. He had been a historian at the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1985 where he specialized in Polish medieval and communist era history, modern history and historical methodology. He finished his PhD in 1995 and was habilitated in 2000. He was a contributor to Wielka Encyklopedia PWN and Polski Słownik Biograficzny and the author of more than 140 academic publications.

In the People's Republic of Poland, Kurtyka was a member of the democratic opposition to communism and an activist with the Independent Students Union and the trade union Solidarity. Between 1989 and 2000 he was the presidents of the Kraków office of Solidarity in the Historical Institute PAN.

After the Institute of National Remembrance was created in 1998, Kurtyka was the first president of its Kraków branch.