It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of Professor Włodzimierz Kazimierz Bonusiak, Professor of Humanities, eminent historian, long-serving academic teacher, and former Rector of the University of Rzeszów, who passed away during the night of 12–13 October 2025.

Professor Włodzimierz Bonusiak was a distinguished historian, an expert in political and economic history, and one of the founding figures and long-standing Rectors of the University of Rzeszów. He also served as Rector of the Higher School of Pedagogy in Rzeszów, Dean of the Faculty of Sociology and History, an outstanding lecturer and educator, mentor to many generations of students, and supervisor of several hundred theses and 39 doctoral dissertations. Seven of his doctoral students went on to obtain their habilitation, and two received the title of professor.

Born in Kalisz on 21 February 1942, he completed his studies in history at the Faculty of Philosophy and History of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 1965. In 1974, he moved to Rzeszów, where he began working at the Rzeszów University of Technology. He defended his doctoral dissertation in Poznań in 1975 and received his habilitation in 1981. The following year, he was appointed associate professor at the then Higher School of Pedagogy in Rzeszów.

During his academic career, he held numerous leadership positions, including Rector, Vice-Rector, Dean, Vice-Dean, Director of the Institute of History, and Head of the Department of Contemporary History. In 1990, he was appointed Extraordinary Professor, and in 1993, the President of the Republic of Poland conferred upon him the title of Full Professor.

Professor Bonusiak was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the universities of Chernivtsi and Drohobych in Ukraine. He was active in many academic and social organisations, serving among others as President of the Rzeszów Scientific Society, member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, member of the National Board of the Polish Society for Popular Knowledge, and member of the Scientific Council of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation – Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. In the 1980s, he was also a member of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) in Rzeszów.

He was a pioneer in research on the policies of occupying powers in Poland’s Eastern Borderlands during the Second World War, and he also studied the fate of Polish forced labourers in the Third Reich, as well as the history and contemporary state of Polish-German and Polish-Ukrainian relations. He led research teams preparing monographs of towns and regions in the Subcarpathia region (including The History of Rzeszów), and was the author of Polish history textbooks covering the interwar period up to modern times – his final publication appeared in 2025.

In the 1990s, Professor Bonusiak was actively involved in the creation of the University of Rzeszów, becoming one of its founding fathers. He served as Rector of the University of Rzeszów from 2002 to 2008, and later as Director of the Institute of History (2008–2012). Even after retirement, he remained scientifically active and closely connected with the University.

He passed away in Rzeszów on 13 October 2025.

To his Family, Friends, and Colleagues, we extend our heartfelt condolences.