Zbigniew Pełczyński

Zbigniew Pełczyński OBE
Pełczyński in 2009
Born	(1925-12-29) 29 December 1925 (age 91) Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland
Academic background
Alma mater	University of St Andrews University of Oxford
Academic work
Discipline	Political science Philosophy
Sub discipline	Political philosophy Hegel
Institutions	University of Oxford Pembroke College, Oxford

Zbigniew Pełczyński, OBE (born 29 December 1925) is a Polish-born British political philosopher and academic. He is an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he taught politics from 1957 to 1992. He has been instrumental in providing opportunities for qualified scholars from Poland and other post-communist countries to study at British universities, especially at Oxford and Cambridge.

Pełczyński was born in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland. He fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and was taken prisoner by the Germans. After the war Pełczyński settled in Britain, where he attended St. Andrews University in Scotland. In 1956, he completed his D.Phil. thesis at Oxford University on Hegel's minor political works.

After 1956, Pełczyński made regular visits to Poland and was instrumental in developing several programmes for the education of students from communist Europe at Oxford. In 1982, he was instrumental in establishing a scholarship program for Polish students at Oxford. Then in 1986, through collaboration with the Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros, who had earlier established the Open Society Foundation, scholarships became available for Hungarian students at Oxford and the Stefan Batory Foundation was established in Poland. The programme widened with participation from Cambridge University, Manchester University, and other British universities. In the United States, Pełczyński became well known for having been the politics tutor at Oxford University for the Rhodes Scholar and future President Bill Clinton. Other famous students include prime minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radek Sikorski and journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson.