Stefan Zygmunt Czarnowski (1 September 1879 – 29 December 1937) was a Polish sociologist,

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

and professor of the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

. Czarnowski was a member of the Polish pro-independence movements, he fought in the Polish Legions and the Polish-Soviet War. At first supporter of

endecja National Democracy ( pl, Narodowa Demokracja, also known from its abbreviation ND as ''Endecja''; ) was a Polish political movement active from the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of the country until the end of ...

, he gravitated towards supporting

Polish Socialist Party The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland. It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' ...

. After studies in Leipzig under figures such as

Wilhelm Wundt Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and ...

, in Berlin with

Georg Simmel Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach l ...

and in Paris as a student and assistant to

Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...

and

Henri Hubert Henri Hubert (23 June 1872 – 25 May 1927) was a French archaeologist and sociologist of comparative religion who is best known for his work on the Celts and his collaboration with Marcel Mauss and other members of the Année Sociologique. L ...

, Czarnowski habilitated in 1926 for cultural history at the University of Warsaw, 1928 to 1929 he lectured at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. From 1930 he taught at the University of Warsaw as an associate professor of cultural history, from 1934 as a full professor of sociology and cultural history. In his sociological work, Czarnowski closely followed

Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...

's positivist concept of science, in which he researched the socio-cultural world using empirically verifiable theories and methods. At the same time he advocated an "ontological" humanism in the view that this world is a dimension constituted by symbolic communication, to be observed separately from natural phenomena. In most of his work, he appeared simultaneously as a historian and sociologist, which is why he is considered the first Polish representative of ''historical sociology''. His main work ''Kultura'' offers a series of historical-sociological studies on the emergence, transformation and renewal ofCulture and is an attempt at a synthesis of Durkheim's concept of society and

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

categories of analysis.Morawska, Ewa (1996): ''Insecure Prosperity''. Princeton University Press, S. 255. His works centered on sociology of culture and religion. He studied social movements, theory of heroes as well as history of the Celts.

References

1879 births 1937 deaths Polish sociologists Polish people of World War I Burials at Powązki Military Cemetery {{Poland-sociologist-stub Polish folklorists Polish Marxists Polish Socialist Party politicians