KOTARSKA Jadwiga

Born on 20 January 1929 in Bydgoszcz; daughter of the civil servant Franciszek Kędzior and Maria, née Zygmunt. She spent her childhood in Bydgoszcz, where she attended grammar school from 1945 to 1950. Between 1950 and 1953, she studied Polish philology at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Torun. She then worked as an editor at Polish Radio in Bydgoszcz until 1962. She graduated with a master's degree from UMK in 1959. On 1 February 1963 she was appointed senior assistant at the Higher School of Education (WSP) in Gdansk. Her research focused on the history and poetics of Old Polish poetry. She made her debut in 1966 with a review of Günter Kratzel's book Das Thorner Kantional von 1687 und seine Deutschen Verlagen. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Deutsch-Polnischen Liedbeziehungen im Zeitalter der Polnischen Reformation , which appeared in "Pamiętnik Literacki" (no. 2). She defended her doctoral thesis, Popularna liryka miłosna XVII wieku w kręgu tradycji czarnoleskiej (Popular Love Poetry of the Seventeenth Century in the Context of the Czarnolas [Kochanowski] Tradition), at UMK in 1968. She was supervised by Prof. Bronisław Nadolski. She was then appointed lecturer at the Department of the History of Old Polish Literature at WSP in Gdansk (in 1970 it became the Department of the History of Old Polish Literature at the University of Gdansk [UG], and then the Department of the History of Old Polish and Enlightenment Literature at UG). She was awarded a habilitation degree from UG for her study Erotyk staropolski (Old Polish Erotica) and was subsequently appointed senior lecturer. Between 1978 and 1981, she was associate dean at the Faculty of Humanities, before serving as director of the postgraduate programme in Polish Philology at UG between 1981 and 1991. From 1981 to 1993 she was also employed at Bydgoszcz WSP. She was editor of the UG literary history journal "Prace Historycznoliterackie Zeszytów Naukowych Wydziału Humanistycznego UG" between 1989 and 1993. She participated in many academic conferences and organized lecture series for high schools on Old Polish literature. She was made state-appointed professor in 1999. She joined the Gdansk Scientific Society (Gdańskie Towarzystwo Naukowe) in 1968 and Société Internationale d’Histoire Comparée du Théâtre, Opera et du Ballet in Paris in 1989. She was awarded the prize of the Minister of Higher Education and Technology on several occasions (1970, 1971, 1980, 1981 and 1999). After retiring she remained active as a scholar. She was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit in 1980, the Order of Merit of the Gdansk Region in 1984, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1994 and the Medal of the Commission of National Education in 1994. She married the UG professor and Polish philologist Edmund Kotarski in 1956. She lives in Gdansk.