Sławomir Górzyński is a Polish historian whose research focuses on the social elites of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and of the Polish lands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as on heraldry, genealogy, epigraphy and historical memory. These fields do not function separately in his work: they are joined by an interest in reconstructing people and societies through coats of arms, genealogies, official records, inscriptions, funerary monuments, iconography, sites of memory and archival evidence.
He studied history at the University of Warsaw from 1981 to 1986; his master's thesis was supervised by Professor Aleksander Gieysztor. From 1987 to 1992 he pursued doctoral studies at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He received his doctorate in 2006 for a dissertation on the Polish aristocracy in Galicia, his habilitation in 2013, and in 2023 the title of Professor of the Humanities in the discipline of history.
Heraldry as social history
Heraldry remains a central field of his research, understood not as an autonomous study of signs but as a tool for analysing social structure, law, memory and the public representation of individuals and families. His work ranges from noble and state heraldry to territorial and municipal heraldry, ennoblement heraldry and the functioning of armorial signs under different political and legal systems.
A major strand concerns ennoblements in the Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish aristocracy in Galicia and the recognition of earlier noble status by the partitioning states. Among the resulting works are Nobilitacje w Galicji w latach 1772–1918 and Arystokracja polska w Galicji. Studium heraldyczno-genealogiczne; a substantially expanded second edition of the latter is now in preparation.
Nobility, landed elites and office-holders
Another long-term field is the social history of the nobility, aristocracy and landowning class. Since the 1980s, especially in collaboration with Professor Tadeusz Epsztein, he has worked on twentieth-century Polish landowners, including the multi-volume Spis ziemian Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w roku 1930 and Ziemianie polscy XX wieku.
In the same tradition he is preparing, with Professor Krzysztof Mikulski, Urzędnicy mazowieccy ziemscy i grodzcy. Spisy, combining classical source criticism with large-scale use of court books and digital tools.
The Radziwiłłs and the elites of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Research on the Radziwiłł family and, more broadly, on the elites of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania occupies a distinct place in his work. It includes studies such as the recognition of Radziwiłł nobility in Galicia and the scholarly series Fasci Radzivilliani, developed since 2021. Górzyński is its scholarly editor and the author of introductory texts to successive volumes. His recent work also includes a study of the inscription on the coffin of Prince Janusz Radziwiłł.
Epigraphy and spaces of memory
Epigraphy has been present throughout his academic career. An inscription is treated not merely as a text to be read and edited, but as a complex historical witness to the individual, the family, social status, religion and the construction of memory. Current work includes studies of inscriptions and heraldic programmes on gates at Krasiczyn, Łańcut and Nowy Wiśnicz and, with Dr Iwona Dacka-Górzyńska, a book on the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw as a pantheon of memory.
Poland and France
Polish history and heritage in France form one of the most durable strands of his research. His work has covered the cemeteries of Montmartre, Saint-Vincent, Batignolles, Montrésor, Menton, Nice and Montmorency. A major current project is the study of Père-Lachaise as a Parisian pantheon of Polish emigration, together with an edition of Polish inscriptions.
The French strand also reaches back to the sixteenth century. With Professor Jakub Z. Lichański, Górzyński is studying the Polish-French political and intellectual project surrounding the election of Henry of Valois as king of Poland, with particular attention to the writings of Forcadel, Baudouin and Jan Zamoyski.
Publishing, scholarly service and digital humanities
In 1991 he co-founded Wydawnictwo DiG and became its editor-in-chief. Since 2010 he has edited the Yearbook of the Polish Heraldic Society; he also edits Rocznik Skierniewicki and the Fasci Radzivilliani series. Publishing books and sources is treated as an integral part of historical scholarship.
In recent years digital humanities have become increasingly important in his work: knowledge systems, digital source corpora, genealogies, photographic collections, heraldic data and digitised court books. The aim is not to replace the source with technology but to connect sources so that new historical questions can be asked.
A common thread
Heraldry, genealogy, landed elites, the Galician aristocracy, the Radziwiłłs, Polish cemeteries in France, inscriptions, old armorials and digital court books are united by one question: how can dispersed traces be brought together to reconstruct people, families and societies, and the ways in which they wished to be remembered?
Scientific memberships: founding member of the Polish Heraldic Society; member of the Warsaw Scientific Society (Division II), the International Academy of Genealogy, the Académie Internationale d’Héraldique, the Heraldisch-Genealogische Gesellschaft ADLER in Vienna, and the Société française d’héraldique et de sigillographie (SFHS).