Leszek Kołakowski, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Leszek Kołakowski

Philosopher, historian of ideas

Date of Birth: 23-Oct-1927

Place of Birth: Radom, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland

Date of Death: 17-Jul-2009

Profession: writer, historian, Esperantist, pedagogue, university teacher, philosopher

Nationality: Poland, United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Leszek Kolakowski (; Polish: ['l???k k?wa'k?fsk?i]; 23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his three-volume history, Main Currents of Marxism (1976).
In his later work, Kolakowski increasingly focused on religious questions.
In his 1986 Jefferson Lecture, he asserted that "[w]e learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are".Due to his criticism of Marxism and Communism, Kolakowski was effectively exiled from Poland in 1968.
He spent most of the remainder of his career at All Souls College, Oxford.
Despite being in exile, Kolakowski was a major inspiration for the Solidarity movement that flourished in Poland in the 1980s and helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to his being described as the "awakener of human hopes".