Gerard Labuda – a Sketch of a Portrait of a Scholar

One of the most outstanding Polish historians, Gerard Labuda (1916-2010) was connected with the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań and the Polish Academy of Sciences for many years. The article presents his scholarly profile and provides an overview of the fields of his research and activities for science.

Ideology and Symbolism of Monarchic Power in the Research of Aleksander Gieysztor and Gerard Labuda

This paper discusses Aleksander Gieysztor’s and Gerard Labuda’s research on the problem of ideology and symbolism of power and presents the main directions of their studies in this field.

Aleksander Gieysztor and Gerard Labuda as Researchers in Universal History

In concordance with the scholarly profile of the Warsaw historiographical school of the time, Aleksander Gieysztor’s early research, which begun in the 1930s. was devoted to the Carolingian monarchy and the origins of the crusade movement. It was not until after the Second World War that Gieysztor turned his attention to the Slavic studies, conducted from the very beginning by the Poznań historiographical school, to which Gerard Labuda remained faithful throughout his research career. Labuda was primarily interested in Western Slavdom, the origins of Slavic states (Samo’s Empire) and the political and legal aspects of the functioning of early states in Central Europe. Aleksander Gieysztor’s studies on Slavic Europe focused mainly on early medieval Rus’ and on comparative research confronting the phenomena of the history of culture and the history of state and social institutions in Central and Eastern Europe with analogous phenomena and processes known from Carolingian and post-Carolingian Europe.