Background
Kurtyka was born in Krakow and obtained his degree in the History and Philosophy Department of the Jagiellonian University.
Kurtyka was born in Krakow and obtained his degree in the History and Philosophy Department of the Jagiellonian University.
He finished his Doctor of Philosophy in 1995 and was habilitated in 2000.
He had been a historian at the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1985 where he specialized in Polish medieval and communist era history, modern history and historical methodology. He was a contributor to Wielka Encyklopedia PWN and Polski Słownik Biograficzny (Polish Biographical Dictionary) and the author of more than 140 academic publications. Between 1989 and 2000 he was the presidents of the Krakow office of Solidarity in the Historical Institute Personal Area Networks. After the Institute of National Remembrance (a Polish government-affiliated research institute which investigates both Nazi and Communist crimes committed in Poland) was created in 1998, Kurtyka was the first president of its Krakow branch.
In April 2005 he was recommended by the Board of the Institute for the position of the president and was approved by the Polish Sejm and Senate in December of that year.
He took his oath of office on December 29, 2005. Kurtyka was on the of the Tupolev Tu-154 flight of the 36th Special Aviation Regiment carrying the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński which crashed near Smolensk-North airport near Katyn, Russia, on April 10, 2010, killing all aboard.
Days before he died he called for "the results of the Russian investigation into Katyn massacre to be declassified and for the Russian archives to be opened". The post which was left open by his death was considered particularly problematic due to the difficulty there would be in replacing him.
After a mass in the Saints Peter and Paul Church in Krakow he was buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery on April 23, 2010.
In 2007, Kurtyka was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Merit, third degree and in April 2009 he was awarded the Commander"s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski. On April 16, 2010, he was posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
In the People"s Republic of Poland, Kurtyka was a member of the democratic opposition to communism and an activist with the Independent Students Union and the trade union Solidarity.
