Gerard Labuda

Gerard Labuda (Kashubian: Gerard Labùda; 28 December 1916 – 1 October 2010) was a Polish historian whose main fields of interest were the Middle Ages and the Western Slavs.

Labuda was born in Nowa Huta, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Kartuzy, Poland (before 1918 Neuhütte/ Karthaus, West Prussia / Prussian Partition of Poland, Germany), into a Kashubian family.

From 1950 he was a professor at Poznań University; rector 1962–1965; from 1951 a member of the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU); president 1989–1994; from 1964 member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN); vice-president 1984–1989; from 1959 to 1961 director of the Western Institute (Instytut Zachodni) in Poznań and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.

From 1958 onwards he edited the multi-volume Słownik Starożytności Słowiańskich (Dictionary of Slavonic Antiquities) and published historical sources.

Awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1996) and the highest Polish distinction Order of the White Eagle (2010; posthumously) .