Kuraszkiewicz, Władysław

Kuraszkiewicz, Władysław, b 22 February 1905 in Volodava, Lublin gubernia, d 10 March 1997 in Poznań, Poland. Polish linguist and philologist. A graduate of Lviv University and the Jagellonian University in Cracow (1934), he was a professor at Poznań University from 1950 to 1975. The author of several important studies on the history of Polish and East-Slavic languages, his contributions to Ukrainian linguistics include the monograph on Ukrainian charters Gramoty halicko-wołyńskie XIV–XV wieku: Studium językowe (Galician-Volhynian Charters of the 14th and 15th Centures: A Linguistic Study, 1934) and numerous studies of the dialects of the Carpathian Mountains, Kholm region, and Podlachia. Based on his own field research, these latter studies combine precise and detailed observations with polemics against Vsevolod Hantsov’s, Olena Kurylo’s, and later George Yurii Shevelov’s conceptions of the aboriginal distinctions between northern and southern Proto-Ukrainian dialects. They have been summarized in his books Zarys dialektologii wschodnio-słowiańskiej (Outline of East-Slavic Dialectology, 1954) and Ruthenica (1985).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]