Bożena Popiołek

Bożena Popiołek, Prof. dr hab. Professor and Head of Department Department of Early Modern History Institute of History and Archival Studies University of the National Education Commission, Krakow

Research Interests

• early modern Polish and European history;
• history of mentalities and the cultural history of the Baroque;
• the noble family and women’s history in early modern Poland;
• Old Polish testamentary studies;
• manuscript news-sheets and the early modern circulation of information;
• clientelism and the structure of magnate courts in the Saxon era.

Profile

Professor Bożena Popiołek is Head of the Department of Early Modern History at the Institute of History and Archival Studies, University of the National Education Commission, Krakow. She received her doctorate in 1993, her habilitation in 2003, and the title of full professor in 2010. From 2012 to 2015 she served as Director of the Institute of History and Archival Studies, and from 2015 to 2019 as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities.

Her doctoral dissertation, written under the supervision of Professor Stanisław Grzybowski, examined the life and political activity of Elżbieta Sieniawska née Lubomirska (c. 1669–1729), Castellan of Cracow. Her habilitation, Kobiecy świat w czasach Augusta II [The Women’s World in the Reign of Augustus II], Krakow, 2003, established her as one of the leading Polish historians of women, mentalities, and the cultural fabric of the Saxon era.

Her research brings together the history of mentalities, the social history, and cultural history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She has devoted particular attention to the noble family, women’s experience, the discourse of wills and testaments, and the relational structures of patronage and clientele that organised political and social life under the Saxon kings.

Research Grants

Professor Popiołek has directed three major research projects funded by the National Science Centre, each carried out at the University of the National Education Commission, Krakow. These projects have shaped the present research agenda of the Center for the Study of Culture and Mentalities in Early Modern Poland and have brought together a team of scholars working on the social, cultural, and material history of the Saxon era.

• The Correspondence of Elżbieta Sieniawska née Lubomirska, Castellan of Cracow: Editorial Preparation and Content Analysis (2012–2016).
• Benefactresses and Clients: The Specificity of Female Patronage and Client Relations in the Saxon Era (2015–2020).
• The Noblewoman’s Court in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth During the Saxon Era: Structure, People, Culture, Functions (2021–2025).

Awards and Honours

Professor Popiołek has received numerous awards for her scholarly and organisational work. Among the most significant of these honours are the following:

• the Joachim Lelewel Prize of Division I of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2021) for the best book in history, awarded for Dobrodziejki i klienci. Specyfika patronatu kobiecego i relacji klientalnych w czasach saskich [Benefactresses and Clients: The Specificity of Female Patronage and Client Relations in the Saxon Era], Warsaw, 2020;
• the Award of the Minister of Education and Science (19 February 2022) for significant scholarly achievement, on the basis of the same monograph;
• the Second Karol Modzelewski Prize (2023) for the best book in history, awarded for Rytuały codzienności. Świat szlacheckiego dworu w osiemnastowiecznej Rzeczypospolitej [Rituals of Everyday Life: The World of the Noble Court in the Eighteenth-Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth], Warsaw, 2022;
• the Award of the Minister of Science and Higher Education (19 February 2025), as team leader, for significant scholarly achievement;
• the Silver Cross of Merit (2004), awarded by the President of the Republic of Poland;
• the Award of the Minister of Science and Higher Education (2004) for Kobiecy świat w czasach Augusta II.

Selected Publications

Professor Popiołek is the author of more than one hundred and fifty scholarly and popular publications devoted to the social, cultural, and mental history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the following monographs:

• Królowa bez korony. Studium z życia i działalności Elżbiety z Lubomirskich Sieniawskiej (ok. 1669–1729) [A Queen Without a Crown: A Study of the Life and Activity of Elżbieta Sieniawska née Lubomirska (c. 1669–1729)], Krakow, 1996.
• Kobiecy świat w czasach Augusta II. Studia nad mentalnością kobiet z kręgów szlacheckich [The Women’s World in the Reign of Augustus II: Studies in the Mentality of Noblewomen], Krakow, 2003.
• „Woli mojej ostatniej testament ten…”. Testamenty staropolskie jako źródło do historii mentalności XVII–XVIII wieku [“This Testament of My Last Will…”: Old Polish Wills as a Source for the History of Mentalities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries], Krakow, 2009.
• Dobrodziejki i klienci. Specyfika patronatu kobiecego i relacji klientalnych w czasach saskich [Benefactresses and Clients: The Specificity of Female Patronage and Client Relations in the Saxon Era], Warsaw, 2020.
• Rytuały codzienności. Świat szlacheckiego dworu w osiemnastowiecznej Rzeczypospolitej [Rituals of Everyday Life: The World of the Noble Court in the Eighteenth-Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth], Warsaw, 2022.
• Benefactresses and Clients: Women’s Patronage and Clientelism in the Saxon Era, Warsaw, 2022 (English-language edition).

She has also co-edited two volumes of the correspondence of Elżbieta Sieniawska née Lubomirska, Castellan of Cracow, prepared together with Urszula Kicińska and Agnieszka Słaby and published in Warsaw in 2016.

Editorial and Advisory Roles

Professor Popiołek serves on the editorial board of Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej and on the scientific council of Theatrum historiae (University of Pardubice, Czech Republic). She has organised and chaired numerous international conferences, including the long-running series Borders and Borderlands: At the Crossroads of Cultures and Traditions (Krakow–Prešov) and The Family in Pre-Modern Times.

Academic Memberships

Professor Popiołek is a member of the International Society for Court Studies, the Commission on the History of Women of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Polish Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Polish Historical Society (Krakow), the Research Group on Courts and Power Elites of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Society of Friends of the History and Monuments of Krakow.

Doctoral Supervision

Professor Popiołek has supervised doctoral dissertations on a range of topics in early modern Polish history, including noble marriage, the discursive construction of femininity, female household management, parliamentary politics in the late seventeenth century, dowry and inheritance practices, and family relations in the light of testamentary sources.