Ludwik Krzywicki
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Ludwik Krzywicki (1859–1941) was a Polish anthropologist, economist, and sociologist. One of the early champions of sociology in Poland, he approached historical materialism from a sociological viewpoint. He was a professor at the University of Warsaw from 1919 to 1936.
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[edit] Early years
Ludwik Krzywicki was born into an aristocratic but impoverished family in 1859. He showed an From an early age, he was interested in psychology, philosophy and natural sciences. He used to study to work of Darwin, Taine, Ribot and Comte.
[edit] Education
He studied mathematics at the University of Warsaw in Poland. After obtaining his degree, he enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine. He was expelled from the University on account of his political activities. After he was expelled, he went abroad, first to Leipzig, Germany, then to Zurich, Switzerland, and finally to Paris in 1885, where most of the Polish Socialist émigrés in Europe lived. It was in Paris that he began to study anthropology, archaeology and ethnology.
[edit] Contributions
He was one of the first scholars to research Lithuanian hill forts. Between 1900 and 1914 he conducted archeological digs in Samogitia and elsewhere, photographing and excavating fortress hills. In 1908 he published Żmudż starożytnia (Ancient Samogitia), in which he sought to correlate his findings with chronicles that mentioned the castles and fortifications that he was investigating. In the same year he published an article entitled, W poszukiwaniu grodu Mendoga, dealing with where he believed the castle of King Mindaugas had been located. Krzywicki donated a large part of his findings to the Culture Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1939.
One of his most important contributions was the theory of the "migration of ideas": that ideas, which are created from and spread thanks to social needs and social expectations, can "migrate" to other places or times, which are not yet capable of expressing them autonomously. When that happens, if those new ideas succeed in embodying needs and expectations encountered at this new place, they will take root and accelerate socio-economic development.
[edit] Return to Poland
He returned to Poland in 1893 and continued his political activity. He was arrested many times, notably when he took part in the 1905 revolution. During this period, he edited the paper of the Socialist Party. He took a doctorate in Lvov with a dissertation of an ethnographic nature. Before the First World War, he lived in great hardship, but when the war broke out he was back in the front line of social activity, taking part in various workers' and trade union organisations even though his relationship with the Socialist Party had cooled off somewhat.
[edit] Later years
After the First World War, he abandoned all political activity and focused on scientific research, intending to conclude the works he had never had the serenity or time to finish. However, he did take part in the management and organisation of scientific bodies. He was the vice-director of the Central Statistics Office, he taught at the University of Warsaw (1919-1936) and other institutions of further education and directed the Socio-Economic Institute.
He was injured in an air raid on Warsaw during the Second World War and the bomb which destroyed his apartment also caused the loss of the majority of his papers and manuscripts. His working conditions became increasingly worse. He died of heart disease shortly afterwards in 1941.
