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Tadeusz Czwojdrak

Prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Czwojdrak
Rector of the Agricultural University of Poznań
(1978-1981)

BIOGRAPHY

SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY

Tadeusz Czwojdrak was born on 3 May 1924 in Rawicz in a working class family. He finished elementary school in that town in 1937 and graduated from grammar school in 1947. He received his Master’s degree in law in 1952 at the Faculty of Law and Economics of the Piast Academy.

He started his scientific career in 1956 participating in a doctoral seminar in economic history at the Faculty of Law of the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań. In 1961 that Faculty awarded him with the title of a doctor of law on the basis of his dissertation entitled „Industry and trade in estates of the Poznań bishopric from the 16th to the 18th centuries”. He received his post-doctoral degree in general economics of agriculture in May 1965 at the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of Agriculture in Poznań on the basis of the dissertation entitled "Potato growing and processing in the Wielkopolska region until the year 1939".

He started his work at the Higher School of Agriculture in 1952, taking the position of director of the personnel department. In the years 1956 — 1961 he was the director for administration of the university. In that time he also taught courses in political sciences, law and agrarian policy at the Faculties of Forestry and Agronomy. The scientific activity of Professor Czwojdrak was connected mainly with the analysis of the development of processing industry and latifundiums of the Poznań bishopric from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

Professor Czwojdrak served numerous organisational functions. In 1965 he was appointed assistant professor. He was also appointed the head of the newly established Department of Agrarian Policy. In the years 1969 — 1971 he was the organiser and head of the Inter-faculty Teaching Unit of Social Sciences, while in 1970 he was the organiser and director of the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences, transformed into the Department of Economics and Organisation of Agriculture, later the Department of Economics and Food Economy. He served the function of the director of that Institute and next the Department replacing it until 1987, when he took the position of head of the Sub-Department of Law and Agrarian Policy at the Department of Economics and Organisation of Agriculture, which he continued until retirement in 1991.

RESEARCH ACTIVITY

He studied the development of the propination industry, inn-keeping, alcohol distillation and milling industry. He was also interested in potato growing and processing in the Wielkopolska region before 1939. Another field of research was connected with the analysis of changes in the agrarian structure under the influence of family property distribution in peasant farms in the Poznańskie province. He analysed first of all changes in the size structure of peasant farms in terms of changes in the  agrarian structure, changes in the stock held by the State Land Fund. This field of research comprises also studies on the lotting of estates in the former Prussian Province in the years 1919 — 1922 and the development of German colonisation in Polish territories in the years 1908 — 1919.

RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS

In two unpublished studies he documented persecution of the peasant population by the authorities during the communist rule in the early 1950’s. Professor Czwojdrak published approx. 30 research studies.

ORGANISATIONAL ACTIVITY

Important functions at the university:

  • 1966—1969 vice-dean at the Faculty of Agronomy,
  • 1969—1970 Vice-Rector for teaching and education activity,
  • 1978—1981 Rector of the University of Agriculture in Poznań.
    He was also the chairman and member of numerous commissions and collegial bodies at the University.

Major functions outside the university:

  • 1945 member of the Polish Workers’ Party,
  • member of the Polish United Workers’ Party,
  • member of the executive of the University Party Committee,
  • 1962—1965 and 1970—1978 the 1st secretary of the University Party Committee,
  • member of the parliament of the People’s Republic of Poland, of the 6th and 7th terms

He participated in the works of parliamentary commissions of the Economic Plan, Budget and Finances, and Foreign Trade.

AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

He was awarded e.g. with the Officer’s Cross of Polonia Restituta, the Knight’s Cross of Polonia Restituta, the Gold Cross of Merit, as well as awarded (twice) with the 2nd award of the Minister of Higher Education and many Rector’s awards.

Source:
The Jubilee Book of the August Cieszkowski Agricultural University of Poznań. Poznań 2006.