Prof. Alina Kowalczykowa was born in Warsaw in 1936. After graduating from the University of Warsaw in 1957, she started working at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1957–2006). She completed her postdoctoral thesis in 1976 (Romantyczni szaleńcy was published in book form) and was made professor in 1991. From 1973, she worked at various universities: first in Kielce (she was dismissed on disciplinary grounds in 1982), then in Łódź and Rzeszów. In 1981, she became one of the founding members of the Society for the Support and Propagation of Science, and in 1988 she joined the PEN Club (serving as its secretary general between 1991 and 1995). In 1994, she founded the Association of Teachers of the Humanities “Prowincja” (i.e., “province”). She received the Polcul Award (1985), the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1997), and an honorary doctorate (doctor honoris causa) from the University of Białystok (2018). Her most important books include: Romantyczni szaleńcy [Lunatics of romanticism] (1977); Ciemne drogi szaleństwa [The dark paths of lunacy] (1978); Programy i spory literackie w dwudziestoleciu [Literary programmes and disputes in the interwar period] (1982); Pejzaż romantyczny [Landscapes of romanticism] (1982); Warszawa romantyczna [Warsaw and romanticism)] (1987); Piłsudski i tradycja [Piłsudski and tradition] (1991); Słowacki (1994); Dramat i teatr romantyczny [Drama and theatre of romanticism] (1997); Juliusz Słowacki (2003, from the A to Polska właśnie series); Świadectwo autoportretu [Testimony to a self-portrait] (2008), Żeromski w Niepodległej [Żeromski in independent Poland] (2014); Pisma rozproszone i zarzucone [Dispersed and abandoned writings] (vol. 1, 2014; vol. 2, 2016). She coedited the Słownik literatury polskiej XIX wieku [Dictionary of Polish literature in the 19th c.] (1991).
