1882 Florian Znaniecki was born on January 15, 1882 in Świątniki (then under the Russian partition) as the oldest one of three children of Leon (1850-1903) and Amelia Znaniecki, nee Holz (1855-1932). Their ancestors, originally owners of landed eatates, became later estate menagers. Leon Znaniecki, at first the owner of the Świątniki estate, lost it when Florian was a little boy and later became its manager.
1895-1902 His childhood education Znaniecki recieved at home. Since 1995 he studied in a Russian gymnasium in Warsaw, complementing the school curriculum by participating in pupils’ self-learning cicrcles. His high school time was also one of his literary attempts. The baccalaureate Znaniecki got in 1902 in Częstochowa.
1902-1904 As a high-school graduate Znaniecki started to study philosophy at the Warsaw University, but got relegated soon because of joining a student protest against restrictions of academic freedom. Znaniecki remained in Warsaw gaining some recognition as a poet and philosopher in artistic and literary circles.
1904-1910 Appaled by the shallowness and snobbery of the Warsaw intellectual milieu Znaniecki left for Switzerland to studiously break with his previous way of life and his literary pipe dreams and start a creative intellectual work in the service of national values. After a short stay in Paris he got back to Switzerland to study philosophy and philology in Geneva and Zurich. In the meantime he married Emilia Szwejkowska, a student of the Geneva university. Emilia soon got back to Poland, where their son Juliusz was born in 1908. Florian returned to the Sorbonne to prepare his thesis. Because of the death of his superviser, Frédéric Rauh, he decided to complete it in Cracow Jagiellonian University, where in 1909 he defended a thesis titled The Problem of Values in Philosophy (Zagadnienie wartości w filozofii), published a year later.
1911-1914 Znaniecki settled in Warsaw and was offered a position of the Director of the freshly established Society For the Welfare of Emigrants. Basing of the materials the society gathered, he published a periodical called Polish Emigrant (Wychodźca Polski) and a report for the tsarist government Seasonal Emigration. Simultanously he continued his philosophical activity publishing a book Humanism and Cognition (Humanizm i poznanie) and a couple of extensive papers, which brought him a recognition in the philosophical millieu of Warsaw. In 1914 William Thomas, a social psychologist and sociologist fromthe University of Chicago, who studied ethnic minorities in the USA made contact with Znaniecki while visiting Warsaw. The result was an invitation for Znaniecki to cooperate in his project in Chicago.
1914-1918 The cooperation between Znaniecki and Thomas resulted in a joint work The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918), to which Znaniecki wrote an introduction titled The Methodological Note. During that period Znaniecki wrote and published also a different book, The Cultural Reality. In his personal life there have beeen important changes, too: in 1915 his wife Emilia died in a car accident and a tear later he married a lawyer, Eileen Markley (1887-1978).
1918-1932 In 1919 Znaniecki applied to the Ministry of Educaton in Warsaw for the position of professor of philosophy or sociology in the reborn Polish state. His offer was accepted by the newly-formed Poznań University offering him a chair in philosophy. Znaniecki accepted the proposal and 1920 went to Poznań. He organized a new department called Sociological Seminar and a Chair of Sociology and Philosophy of Culture. This led to starting sociological studies, at first informally, since the academic year 1927/28 as a regular course of study. One of the main research fields of The Sociological Institute, a scientrific association founded by Znaniecki, were empirical studies based on autobiographies representing various social classes and milieus.
In the Poznań period Znaniecki managed to write and publish four books in Polish: The Fall of Western Civilisation (Upadek cywilizacji zachodniej) (1921); Introduction to Sociology (Wstęp do socjologii) (1922); Sociology of Education (Socjologia wychowania) (1928-30); The Town in the Consciousness of its Citizens (Miasto w świadomości jego obywateli) (1931); and one in English – The Laws of Social Psychology (1926).
Znaniecki was also a founder and editor of the first Polish sociological journal Przegląd Socjologiczny (Sociological Review). His papers appeared in numerous Polish and foreign journals. His family is extended with the birth of a daughter, Helena (1935-2003).
1932-1934 The academic years 1932/33 and 1933/34 on the invitation of the University of Columbia Znaniecki spent in New York as visiting professor.
1934-1939 Znaniecki continued his university activities in Poznań. He published Men of Today and Civilisation of the Future (Ludzie teraźniejsi a cywilizacja przyszłości) (1934), The Method of Sociology (1934) and Social Actions (1936).
1939-1952 Znaniecki spent the summer of 1939 in New York at the renewed invitation of the Columbia University. While returning home in September the war broke out and his ship went beck to the USA. His wife and daughter joined him shortly thereafter. In 1940 he was offered a chair by the University of Illinois in Urbana- Champaign and was granted an American citizenship soon after. Znaniecki conducted scientific and didactic activities until his retirement in 1950. In his Champaign times he published his three more books: The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge (1940), Cultural Sciences. Their Origin and Development (19520 and Modern Nationalities (1952).
1952 Znaniecki died in Champaign as a result of a heart disease. He was also buried there at the Rose Lawn cemetary. His last, unfinished book Social Relation and Social Roles was published posthumously (1965).