Józef Obrębski - Etnolog i socjolog warszawski
Jozef Obrebski: Ethnologist and Sociologist of Warsaw

Summary/Abstract: Jozef Obrebski studied ethnography and ethnology with Kazimierz Moszynski and Kazimierz Nitsch in Cracow and social anthropology with Bronislaw Malinowski in London, but did his independent work in Warsaw, where in 1934-1946 he was active among both sociologists and ethnologists. Until 1939 Obrebski worked in the Institute for the Study of Nationalities, and under its auspices conducted ethno-sociological fieldwork in the Polesie region. He was also Vice-director of the National Institute for Rural Culture, where he focused on peasant universities and memoirs, and village migration. Obrebski was active in the Polish Sociological Institute and became editor-in-chief of the Sociological Library, as well as co-editor of Przegląd Socjologiczny. He lectured on sociology at the Free University in Warsaw and Lodz. In 1940-1944, he was active in clandestine structures of academic life in Warsaw under the Nazi occupation. After World War II Obrebski at first held the Chair of Ethnology of Lodz University, but continued his career at Warsaw University. But soon he left Poland for good; this stage in his career began with guest lectures in the U.K., continued with field work in Jamaica and subsequent work for the United Nations in New York, where he spent the final twenty years of his life. The only Warsaw (and Polish) institution with which he established contacts in the later period (in 1960) was the Polish Sociological Association.

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