Jarosław Pietrzak

Jarosław Pietrzak, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Early Modern History Institute of History and Archival Studies University of the National Education Commission, Krakow

Research Interests

• the history of women, their social and political position in the early modern period (16th–18th centuries);
• queenship and the role of queens in court life;
• transformations of court ceremonial in European and Polish contexts;
• female monasteries in the Polish lands in the 16th–18th centuries;
• the history of travel and mobility.

Profile

Jarosław Pietrzak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Early Modern History at the Institute of History and Archival Studies, University of the National Education Commission, Krakow. He received his PhD in 2014 on the basis of a dissertation entitled Księżna dobrodziejka. Katarzyna z Sobieskich Radziwiłłowa (1634–1694) [The Benefactress Princess: Katarzyna Sobieska Radziwiłł (1634–1694)], supervised by Professor Zbigniew Anusik at the Institute of History, University of Łódź.

Between 2015 and 2018 he was employed at the Institute of History of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he served as principal investigator of the National Science Centre FUGA 4 grant project The Organisation and Functioning of the Courts of Marie Casimire d’Arquien Sobieska in Poland, Italy, and France in the Years 1658–1716. Since 2018 he has held the position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Early Modern History at the Institute of History and Archival Studies, University of the National Education Commission, Krakow.

He is a regular collaborator with academic and cultural institutions, including Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów, the Museum in Nieborów and Arkadia, and the Museum of Warsaw (Heritage Interpretation Centre).

Fellowships and Research Stays

Dr Pietrzak has been a fellow of the Lanckoroński Foundation and the Lanckoroński of Brzezie Foundation: in April 2016 he carried out research in London at the British Library and the Windsor Royal Archives; in September 2021 he conducted research in Rome at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele and the Biblioteca Casanatense; and in April 2023 he worked in Bari and Modena at the Archivio di Stato di Bari, the Biblioteca Nazionale in Bari, and the Archivio di Stato di Modena. In April 2022 he undertook a research stay in Würzburg as a fellow of the Polish Historical Mission, funded by the Bavarian State Chancellery.

He has also held teaching visits at the Università degli Studi della Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy (January 2022), and at the School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History, University of Aberdeen (February 2023).

Memberships and Editorial Work

He is a member of several scholarly associations, including the Research Group on Courts and Elites at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (since 2025), the Society for Seventeenth-Century Studies (since 2025), the Krakow branch of the Polish Historical Society (since 2019), and the Polish Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (since 2016).

He serves on the editorial boards of the academic journals Eastern European History Review, Acta Historica Universitatis Silesianae Opaviensis, and Carte di viaggio.

Selected Publications

• Księżna dobrodziejka. Katarzyna z Sobieskich Radziwiłłowa (1634–1694) [The Benefactress Princess: Katarzyna Sobieska Radziwiłł (1634–1694)], Warsaw, 2015.
• Wokół Sobieskich i Radziwiłłów. Prestiż, przejawy pobożności, działalność polityczna [Around the Sobieski and Radziwiłł Families: Prestige, Expressions of Piety, Political Activity], ed. J. Pietrzak, Warsaw, 2020.
• Listy Jana Kosmowskiego do królewicza Aleksandra Sobieskiego [The Letters of Jan Kosmowski to Prince Aleksander Sobieski], source edition, Warsaw, 2021.
• From East to West, vol. 6: Women’s Journeys in the Early Modern Period to Italy (16th–18th Centuries), ed. J. Pietrzak, special issue of Eastern European History Review, 2023.

His articles have appeared in Polish academic journals including Przegląd Historyczny, Res Historica, Res Gestae, Zapiski Historyczne, Przegląd Nauk Historycznych, Italica Vratislaviensia, Wschodni Rocznik Humanistyczny, Istorija, and Saeculum Christianum.