EN
Józef Barbag was born on 9 April 1903, in Podolia. In 1922-1927 he studied geography at the John Casimir University in Lviv. After graduation he taught at several secondary schools and in 1953 took a post at the Institute of Geography of the University of Warsaw where in 1968 he obtained professorship. His specialties were the regional and the political geography and in these fields he published numerous papers that gained him international respect. He was the author of the first post-war textbook of the political geography and he wrote many monographs, textbooks, and articles on the regional geography of the world. For many years he was the editor-in-chief of the periodical for teachers „Geografia w Szkole” and was a co-founder of the Geographical Olympiad for school teenagers. He held responsible positions in the Ministry of Education and cooperated with the Polish office of UNESCO. He was well known abroad: he participated in numerous conferences and was invited to lecture at European and American universities. He was active in the Commission for Geographical Education and Methodology at the International Geographic Union and he was decorated, among the others, with the Commander's and Officer's Cross of Polonia Restituta and with many foreign orders for his scientific and didactic output. Professor Józef Barbag died on 19 June 1982, in Warsaw.