Bożena Stelmachowska

5.12.1889 – 21.11.1956

Philosopher, ethnographer, museologist

A distinguished researcher and expert in the traditional culture of the Kashubs and Słowińcy.

1919-1925 – studies in Poznań

1925 – PhD degree

1939 – post-doctoral degree

1946 – professorship

She began studies at the University of Poznań in the year it opened. She studied archaeology, ethnology and ethnography. The latter field was the one to which she devoted her further academic career. Already during her studies she began working as a library assistant at the Department of Ethnography. Then for six years she was working at the Baltic Institute in Toruń and after that at the Western Slavic Institute of the University of Poznań (as a volunteer). At the same time she was working as a curator at the municipal museum.

She specialised in research on the folk culture of the Kashubs and Słowińcy. She enjoyed fieldwork, which she meticulously documented. Her research was highly valued by the regionalists from Pomerania. Thanks to it the disappearing traces of the folk culture of these regions survived.