Lwowskie studia Stanisława Kota – droga do doktoratu

Abstrakt

Stanisław Kot, one of the creators of the history of education as a scientific discipline, studied at the University of Lvov between 1904 and 1909. His special line was classical philology, Polish philology and, for two terms, legal studies. The hitherto written relevant historical and educational literature does not address these issues in detail – Kot’s professional life in Cracow is far better known and elaborated. However, on the basis of the analysis of the Lvov archival material from the State District Archive in Lvov (primarily student catalogues and examination protocols for doctoral examinations), it is possible to reconstruct the course of studies of this well-known historian of education until the very last stage of his doctoral achievements, i.e. his successful defense of his dissertation in 1909. The scope of this study was fairly wide. The comprehensive and extensive knowledge in the history of literature, both Polish and general, history, pedagogy, philosophy and psychology that he gained in Lvov, as well as the excellent knowledge of the Polish language and classical languages, formed a firm base for Kot to pursue professional career on his own. It was the Lvov scholarly environment that shaped him as a researcher and scholar and made it possible for him to not only debut as a scholar but also to encounter and come into contact with scholars from the academic centers of Cracow. Thanks to his brilliantly-written doctoral dissertation, supervised by Wilhelm Bruchnalski and Józef Kallenbach from Lvov, and to his first publications in the   periodical “Muzeum” (which he presented at a pedagogical seminar prepared by Bolesław Mańkowski), S. Kot quickly gained a reputation as a precise scholar among the university circles of the town. Also in the later period of his professional career he remained in close contact with his former university lecturers and cooperated with them, for example, on the work on the successive volumes of the publication of book series Biblioteka Narodowa (National Library).