BOROWSKI Andrzej

Born on 11 November 1945 in Grybów in the Lesser Poland region; son of the engineer Eugeniusz Borowski and the economist Czesława, née Krwawicz. Between 1959 and 1963 he was a pupil at the King Jan III Sobieski Grammar School (No. 2) in Krakow. After completing advanced secondary education, he took a degree in Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University (UJ). He graduated with a master's degree in 1968 and was subsequently accepted to the doctoral programme at the Institute of Polish Philology (IFP). He made his debut in 1962 with the essay Technika a humanizm (Technology and Humanism), which appeared in the periodical "Filomata” (no. 156), while his debut academic was a review of B. Nadolski's Ze studiów nad życiem literackim i kulturą umysłową na Pomorzu w XVI i XVII wieku (Studies on literary life and intellectual culture in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Pomerania) in a 1969 issue of "Ruch Literacki" (vol. 6, which was in fact published in 1970). He published further articles, studies and reviews in the same journal in 1969, 1980, 1986, 1987 and 1997, also serving on its editorial committee. From 1970 he was an assistant at the Department of Early Polish and Enlightenment Literature (Zakład Literatury Staropolskiej i Oświeceniowej) at the Institute of Polish Philology at UJ. He taught classes on the full-time, part-time and postgraduate Polish studies programmes, as well as the rhetoric programme at UJ. For several years he also taught at teacher training colleges in Krakow (Kolegium Towarzystwa św. Rodziny), Krosno and Przemyśl that were supported by the Jagiellonian University's Institute of Polish Philology. In 1976, he was awarded a doctoral degree for his thesis Związki literackie i kulturalne polsko-niderlandzkie w XVI/XVII w (Polish-Dutch literary and cultural connections in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), which was supervised by Prof. Tadeusz Ulewicz. He subsequently became a lecturer at the Jagiellonian University's IFP. He served as director of the extra-departmental K. Estreicher Centre for Polish Bibliography at the Jagiellonian University from 1976 until 2003. In 1979/80, he was simultaneously a lecturer in Polish language and literature at the Slavonic studies seminar at the State University of Ghent and a lecturer in Polish literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He subsequently gave lecturers and talks at the Ruhr University in Bochum, the University of Zurich, Université de Bourgogne in Dijon, Institut Nationale des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, at Centre des Civilisation Polonaise Université Paris–Sorbonne IV, and at the Institute of Slavistics (SAS) in Bratislava. Between 1974 and 1993 he regularly gave lectures under the auspices of the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society (Towarzystwo Literackie im. A. Mickiewicza) for middle school pupils and teachers in towns in southern Lesser Poland, including Oświęcim, Wadowice, Bielsko-Biała and Żywiec. He was a founding member of the Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity (NSZZ „Solidarność”) at the Jagiellonian University in 1980, serving as chair of the branch of the union at the Faculty of Philology in 1980/81. In both 1983 and 1985 he was in London on three-month fellowships from The Lanckoroński Foundation that enabled him to conduct research at the Warburg Institute. He was awarded a habilitation degree for his book Pojęcia i problem „renesansu północnego”. Przyczynek do geografii historycznoliterackiej humanizmu renesansowego północnego (The Concept and Problems of the "Northern Renaissance": Towards a literary-historical geography of the humanism of the Northern Renaissance). He was appointed senior lecturer in March 1989 before being made associate professor at the Department of Early Polish and Enlightenment Literature Zakładzie at the Institute of Polish Philology at UJ in October 1993. He was a fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Institute for Human Sciences) in Vienna for seven months, where he worked on a Polish translation of E.R. Curtius' Europäische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter (published in Polish translation in 1996; it appeared in English as "European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages" in 1973). In 1991 he became director of the Institute of Polish Philology at UJ, while also serving as chair of the Institute Council. Between 1993 and 2006, he was a member of Committee on Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Komitet Nauk o Literaturze Polskiej PAN), serving on its Presidium. Between 1993 and 2002 he was a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Research (IBL PAN). From 1993 he was co-editor with Janusz S. Gruchała of the academic textbook series Lektury polonistyczne. (Polish Studies Readers). He published in the periodicals and journals "Znak" (1994, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2002), "Napis" (1997), "Miscellanea Łódzkie" (1999), "Nowa Polszczyzna" (1999), "Barok" (2000; where he was also on the editorial board) and "Organon" (1999/2001). From 1999 he served as director of the Chair of Early Polish Literature at the Institute of Polish Studies (which in 2004 became the Faculty of Polish Studies) at UJ. The same year, he was appointed full professor at the State Higher Vocational School (Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa) in Tarnów, while also serving at the University of Warsaw between 2002 and 2005. Between 1998 and 2011 he was editor-in-chief of the then biannual (now a yearbook) journal "Terminus", published by the Faculty of Polish Studies at UJ and focused on Antique traditions in Early Modern culture. He subsequently remained a member of the editorial board, while also contributing articles and essays to the periodical. He also published in the bi-monthly "Alma Mater" (2001, 2003 and 2006). In 1999/2000, he was chair of the International Scientific Committee for Polish Studies (Międzynarodowy Naukowy Komitet Studiów Polonistycznych), which was established in the wake of the First World Congress of Polish Studies (I Międzynarodowy Zjazd Polonistów). From 1999 he was a member of the Literary History Commission of the Krakow branch of PAN (Komisja Historycznoliteracka Krakowskiego Oddziału PAN), chairing it between 2003 and 2005. He was also a member of the PAN Neo-Latin Commission and its Commission for the History of the Renaissance and Reformation (Komisja Dziejów Odrodzenia i Reformacji) from 2003. Between 2000 and 2015 he was deputy chair of the Council of the College of Liberal Arts (Akademia Artes Liberales – AAL) and served as the spokesperson of the rector of UJ in relation to this inter-university postgraduate college. He was a member of the Scientific Council of Polski słownik biograficzny (The Polish Dictionary of Biography) in 2005 and also served on the editorial boards of the journals "Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce" (in 2010), "Bez Porównania" (in 2010) and "Studi Slavistici" (in 2011). In 2005, he became a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (Polska Akademia Umiejętności – PAU), becoming an active member in 2011 then serving as its deputy chair between 2012 and 2018. For many years he served as the chair of the Regional Committee of The Olympiad in Polish Literature and Language (Komitet Okręgowy Olimpiady Polonistycznej). In 2014 he joined the Publications Board of the Foundation for Polish Science (Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej – FNP). Since 2018 he has represented the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU) in the Fellowship Commission of the Lanckoroński Foundation, also serving as the chair of this organ. Although he retired in 2016, he continues to conduct research and lectures on the Postgraduate Programme in Rhetoric (Podyplomowe Studium Retoryki) at UJ. He was awarded the collective prize (second class) of the Minister of Science, Higher Education and Technology in 1979, the prize of the Minister of National Education (third class) in 1989, and the UJ Rector's prize on nine occasions between 1988 and 2009. In 2016 he was awarded both the Prize of the President of the Council of Ministers and the Prize of the Minister of Science and Higher Education. He received the Cross of Merit (Silver in 1997, Gold in 2001), the Medal of the Committee of National Education in 2008 and the Long-Service Medal in 2016.
In 1968 he married the Polish studies scholar Barbara Koźmińska. He has two daughters, Maria Borowska-Sobotkowa and Joanna Borowska-Bagińska. He lives in Krakow.