Polish Academy of Learning

Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences

The seat of the Polish Academy of Arts and Science in Kraków at 17 Sławkowska Street
Abbreviation	PAU
Formation	1872 (1872)
Type	national academy
Headquarters	Kraków
Region served	Poland
President	Andrzej Białas
Website	http://www.pau.krakow.pl

The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning (Polish: Polska Akademia Umiejętności), headquartered in Kraków, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences. It is co-owner of the Polish Library in Paris.

The Academy traces its origins to Academy of Learning founded in 1871, itself a result of the transformation of the Kraków Learned Society, in existence since 1815. Though formally limited to the Austrian Partition, the Academy served from the beginning as a learned and cultural society for the entire Polish nation. Its activities extended beyond the boundaries of the Austrian Partition, gathering scholars from all of Poland, and many other countries as well. Some indication of how the Academy's influence extended beyond the boundaries of the Partitions came in 1893, when the collection of the Polish Library in Paris, the largest collection of Polish materials amassed by the Great Emigration, was transferred to the ownership of the Academy, and a branch was founded in Paris, though this latter step had been preceded by the establishment of the Rome Expedition (annual trips to Roman archives).

After the First World War, the Academy was renamed "Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences," (PAU) and become the official representative of Polish learning, which entailed its participation in works of international learned organizations. Among other things, the PAU was a founder member of the Union Académique Internationale (UAI). The period between the world wars was the time of greatest activity at the PAU, especially in the sphere of publications: over 100 publication series were then in print, among them the monumental Polish Biographical Dictionary (Polski Słownik Biograficzny). It was also in that period when the Scientific Station in Rome replaced the Rome Expedition.

The PAU was divided into four sections:

In 1942 a successor body of the Polish Academy of Learning, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, was established in New York City by Bronisław Malinowski, Oskar Halecki and other scholars associated with the Academy, which had been forcibly closed down by the occupying Germans. Following the collapse of communism in Poland, the Polish Academy of Learning was revived and became affiliated with the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (as the latter had meanwhile been renamed).