Jan Kochanowski is a major representative of the Polish Renaissance and the most significant poet in Slavic literatures before the nineteenth century. He was born c. 1530 in Sycyna near Radom to a middle-class noble family, and died in August 1584 in Lublin. After completing elementary education at local schools, he studied at the Kraków Academy (later known as Jagiellonian University) between 1544 and c. 1547. After that date he may have studied in Wroclaw (then Breslau), Leipzig, and Wittenberg. In 1552 he visited Königsberg, the capital of the Duchy of Prussia, a Lutheran state ruled by the Polish king’s cousin, Duke Albrecht von Hohenzollern. At that time, Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) was an important academic, cultural, and publishing center. In 1552–55, 1556–57,…

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Citation: Wilczek, Piotr. "Jan Kochanowski". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 November 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12589, accessed 28 March 2024.]

12589 Jan Kochanowski 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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