Krakau. Mitten in Europa [DE]

Nowhere is the history of civilisation and culture reflected so faithfully as in the history of cities. The latter are so fascinating that they have even merited their own genre: “city biographies”. Prof. Jacek Purchla’s Krakow in Central Europe has now been published in two albums. The new version brings out the literary, “biographical” aspect of the book. Professor Purchla’s cultural history of Krakow covers the entire spectrum of the city’s history – from the earliest times to the present. This is the only complete synthesis so far.

Krakow is one of those cities on our continent where the past and tradition fundamentally determine contemporary development, and history defines its identity. It is also, between Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Bratislava, Vienna and Budapest, the only such large city with historically shaped metropolitan functions.

Prof. Jacek Purchla, PhD , full professor of humanities; active member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences; chairman of the Polish Committee for UNESCO and representative of Poland in the UNESCO Executive Council in Paris. Chairman of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2016-2017. Head of the Department of Economic and Social History at the Cracow University of Economics, as well as the European Heritage Institute of the International Cultural Centre, of which he is the founder and was the director from 1991 to 2017. Chairman of the Academic Council of the Jagiellonian University. Honorary doctorate of the National University of Lviv Polytechnic. He conducts research on urban development, social history and art history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the theory and protection of cultural heritage. Author of more than four hundred scientific works, including many books. Member of numerous organisations and associations, including the Comité international d’histoire de l’art (titular member), expert of the European Commission on the European Heritage Label project. From 2000 to 2016, he chaired the Council for the Protection of Monuments under the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. President of the Society of Lovers of Krakow History and Monuments and editor of the Krakow Yearbook. Elected vice-president of Europa Nostra in 2018.
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