Piotr S. Wandycz

Piotr Stefan Wandycz (born 1923) is a Polish-American historian, President of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, and professor emeritus at Yale University, specializing in Eastern and Central European history.

Biography

Born in Kraków in 1923 Second Polish Republic, Piotr S. Wandycz left the country during World War II on September 17 1939, when the Soviet army invaded eastern Poland. He and his family crossed into Romania, and in 1940 went to France. Graduating from the Polish Lycee in Villard de Lanshe studied at the University of Grenoble (1941-42] . In late 1942 he reached the United Kingdom where he served in the Polish army until 1945. Second Lieutenant. After the war he studies at the University of Cambridgewhere he received B.A. and MA.and the London School of Economics (Ph.D. 1951) . Later he moved to the United States where he taught at Indiana University before coming to Yale University in 1966 as an associate professor. He was promoted to a full professorship in 1968 and was named the Bradford Durfee Professor in 1989. At Yale, he has served as director of graduate studies in Russian and East European studies and in history, chair of the Council on Russian and East European Studies and director of the Language and Area Center. He is the author of 18 books and over 400 articles, book reviews, etc.

Piotr S. Wandycz is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences; hon.member of the Polish Historical Association his many other honors include the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and honorary degrees from University of Wroclaw, Sorbonne Jagiellonian University and Catholic University of Lublin.

Works

Piotr Wandycz is an oted authority on Eastern and Central European history. His many books include "France and Her Eastern Allies, 1919-1925", which won the American Historical Association's George Louis Beer Prize; "The Twilight of French Eastern Alliances, 1926-1936", which received the Wayne S. Vucinich Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies; and "The Price of Freedom: A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present", which was a 1992 History Book Club selection.

References

* [http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/wandycz.html Piotr S. Wandycz homepage at Yale]
* [http://www.piasa.org/news5.html President of PIASA, Prof. Piotr S. Wandycz, Received High Honors in Poland]

Further reading

* M.B.B. Biskupski (Co-authored with Neal Pease and Anna Cienciala), "Piotr S. Wandycz - Pionier badan w Ameryce nad dziejami Polski i Europy srodkowo-wschodniej Piotr S. Wandycz: A Pioneer in Research in America Concerning Poland and East Central Europe" in Studia z Dziejow Rosji i Europy srodkowo-wschodniej 30 (1995): 5-13.