The Most Famous

HISTORIANS from Poland

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This page contains a list of the greatest Polish Historians. The pantheon dataset contains 561 Historians, 19 of which were born in Poland. This makes Poland the birth place of the 8th most number of Historians behind Italy, and Russia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Polish Historians of all time. This list of famous Polish Historians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Polish Historians.

Photo of Johann Gustav Droysen

1. Johann Gustav Droysen (1808 - 1884)

With an HPI of 70.59, Johann Gustav Droysen is the most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages on wikipedia.

Johann Gustav Bernhard Droysen (; German: [ˈdʁɔʏzn̩]; 6 July 1808 – 19 June 1884) was a German historian. His history of Alexander the Great was the first work representing a new school of German historical thought that idealized power held by so-called "great" men.

Photo of Benzion Netanyahu

2. Benzion Netanyahu (1910 - 2012)

With an HPI of 69.50, Benzion Netanyahu is the 2nd most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Benzion Netanyahu (Hebrew: בֶּנְצִיּוֹן נְתַנְיָהוּ; born Benzion Mileikowsky; March 25, 1910 – April 30, 2012) was a Polish-born Israeli encyclopedist, historian, and medievalist. He served as a professor of history at Cornell University. A scholar of Judaic history, he was also an activist in the Revisionist Zionism movement, who lobbied in the United States to support the creation of the Jewish state. His field of expertise was the history of the Jews in Spain. He was an editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia and assistant to Benjamin Azkin, Ze'ev Jabotinsky's personal secretary. Netanyahu was the father of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Yonatan Netanyahu, ex-commander of Sayeret Matkal; and Iddo Netanyahu, a physician, author, and playwright.

Photo of Richard Pipes

3. Richard Pipes (1923 - 2018)

With an HPI of 63.16, Richard Pipes is the 3rd most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Richard Edgar Pipes (Polish: Ryszard Pipes; July 11, 1923 – May 17, 2018) was an American historian who specialized in Russian and Soviet history. Pipes was a frequent interviewee in the press on the matters of Soviet history and foreign affairs. His writings also appear in Commentary, The New York Times, and The Times Literary Supplement. At Harvard University, Pipes taught large courses on Imperial Russia as well as the Russian Revolution and guided over 80 graduate students to their PhDs. In 1976, he headed Team B, a team of analysts organized by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who analyzed the strategic capacities and goals of the Soviet military and political leadership. Pipes is the father of American historian Daniel Pipes.

Photo of Gottfried Achenwall

4. Gottfried Achenwall (1719 - 1772)

With an HPI of 62.99, Gottfried Achenwall is the 4th most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Gottfried Achenwall (20 October 1719 – 1 May 1772) was a German philosopher, historian, economist, jurist and statistician. He is counted among the inventors of statistics.

Photo of Otto von Gierke

5. Otto von Gierke (1841 - 1921)

With an HPI of 62.59, Otto von Gierke is the 5th most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Otto Friedrich von Gierke, born Otto Friedrich Gierke (11 January 1841 – 10 October 1921), was a German legal scholar and historian. He is considered today as one of the most influential and important legal scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries. In his four-volume magnum opus entitled Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht (German Law of Associations), he pioneered the study of social groups and the importance of associations in German life, which stood between the divide of private and public law. During his career at Berlin University's law department, Gierke was a leading critic of the first draft of a new civil code for Imperial Germany. Gierke argued that it had been molded in an individualistic frame that was inconsistent with German social traditions. Gierke became known as a vocal Germanist within the German Historical School of Jurisprudence. The draft was revised to remove Roman law influences and the German Civil Code came into effect in 1900.

Photo of Ferdinand Gregorovius

6. Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821 - 1891)

With an HPI of 62.13, Ferdinand Gregorovius is the 6th most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Ferdinand Gregorovius (German: [ˈfɛʁdinant ɡʁeɡoˈʁoːvi̯ʊs]; 19 January 1821 – 1 May 1891) was a German historian who specialized in the medieval history of Rome.

Photo of Ernst Kantorowicz

7. Ernst Kantorowicz (1895 - 1963)

With an HPI of 61.85, Ernst Kantorowicz is the 7th most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (May 3, 1895 – September 9, 1963) was a German historian of medieval political and intellectual history and art, known for his 1927 book Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite on Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and The King's Two Bodies (1957) on medieval and early modern ideologies of monarchy and the state. He was an elected member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Photo of Heinrich Graetz

8. Heinrich Graetz (1817 - 1891)

With an HPI of 60.13, Heinrich Graetz is the 8th most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Heinrich Graetz (German: [ɡʁɛts]; 31 October 1817 – 7 September 1891) was a German exegete and one of the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective. Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (now Książ Wielkopolski), Grand Duchy of Posen, in Prussia (now in Poland), he attended Breslau University, but since Jews at that time were barred from receiving Ph.D.s there, he obtained his doctorate from the University of Jena. After 1845 he was principal of the Jewish Orthodox school of the Breslau community, and later taught history at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland). His magnum opus History of the Jews was the first Jewish history which threaded together a unified national history across the global Jewish communities. It was quickly translated into other languages and ignited worldwide interest in Jewish history, and later was used as a textbook in Israeli schools. As a result, Graetz was widely considered a Zionist or proto-Zionist, but historians have also noted his support for European assimilation. In 1869 the University of Breslau (Wrocław) granted him the title of Honorary Professor. In 1888 he was appointed an Honorary Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences.

Photo of Zeev Sternhell

9. Zeev Sternhell (1935 - 2020)

With an HPI of 60.11, Zeev Sternhell is the 9th most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Zeev Sternhell (Hebrew: זאב שטרנהל‎; 10 April 1935 – 21 June 2020) was a Polish-born Israeli historian, political scientist, commentator on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and writer. He was one of the world's leading theorists of the phenomenon of fascism. Sternhell headed the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and wrote for Haaretz newspaper.

Photo of Karl Otfried Müller

10. Karl Otfried Müller (1797 - 1840)

With an HPI of 59.79, Karl Otfried Müller is the 10th most famous Polish Historian.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Karl Otfried Müller (Latin: Carolus Mullerus; 28 August 1797 – 1 August 1840) was a German professor, scholar of classical Greek studies and philodorian.

People

Pantheon has 19 people classified as Polish historians born between 1719 and 1960. Of these 19, 1 (5.26%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Polish historians include Jan T. Gross. The most famous deceased Polish historians include Johann Gustav Droysen, Benzion Netanyahu, and Richard Pipes. As of April 2024, 19 new Polish historians have been added to Pantheon including Johann Gustav Droysen, Benzion Netanyahu, and Richard Pipes.

Living Polish Historians

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Deceased Polish Historians

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Newly Added Polish Historians (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Historians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 17 most globally memorable Historians since 1700.