Balzer, Oswald Marjan

Born Jan. 23, 1858, in Chodorow; died Jan. 11, 1933, in Lvov. Polish historian. Member of the Kraków Academy of Sciences (1888). Professor at the University of Lvov from 1887.

Balzer studied at the Universities of Lvov and Kraków between 1878 and 1881. He was the founder of the Polish Scientific Society in Lvov (1901) and editor (1891–94) of the journal Kwartalnik historyczny. He is the author of works on the history of Poland and the history of law of the Slavic peoples. Balzer was an exponent of the so-called evolutionary theory of the formation of the state. His critical articles were published in Russian translation as Toward the History of the Social and State Structure of Poland (1908).