Between positivism and classical historism: historical views of Ksawery Liske

Abstract

Ksawery Liske (1838–1891), a researcher of 16th century history, publisher of sources, organizer of scientific life in Lvov and tutor of the next generations of researchers, was known as a propagator of achievements of German history science. Studies in Wroclaw, Berlin and Lips made him the expert in the principles of critical historiography, which he skillfully passed to his students at the Lvov University. The scientific output of Liske was characterized by constructing a wide historical background, great knowledge of the literature on the subject and originality of conclusions based on thorough source studies. On the basis of Liske’s scientific output, i.e., monographic dissertations, reviews, prefaces to source publications as well as participation in ongoing scientific discussions one may conclude that his theoretical views on history and the way of perceiving the history process inscribe him into the current of classical historism as a research model.