The fonds of Professor Bronisław Geremek have been deposited at the Historical Archives of the European Union by his son Marcin Geremek (depositor) in September 2024 under the terms of a deposit contract signed on 20 June 2024 between the depositor and the HAEU, represented by their Director Dieter Schlenker. The decision to deposit Bronisław Geremek’s European papers to the HAEU was taken in line with his significant contribution, in both academic and political fields, to the construction of Europe.
The fonds covers the academic and political career of Bronisław Geremek, social historian of medieval Europe and European civilisation, recipient of 23 honorary doctorates worldwide, one of the leaders of Solidarność (Solidarity) trade union (1980-1989), member of the Polish Parliament (1989-2001) and a long term chairman of its Foreign Affairs Committee, Foreign Minister of Poland (1997-2000), Member of the European Parliament (2004-2008), recipient of the 1998 Charlemagne Prize.
The inventory was established by Wojciech Białożyt, associate historian at the HAEU, in the first half of year 2025.

The fonds is composed of paper files collected and produced between 1946 and 2008 covering Bronisław Geremek’s career as a social historian of medieval Europe and a Polish and European political figure.
Sections of the fonds include: personal documents, academic and political activities, correspondence, press clippings, artifacts (distinctions, awards, commemorative objects), in memorian documents.
The fonds includes the high school diplomas, graduation documents from the Faculty of History of the University of Warsaw (1955) and employment documents from the Polish Academy of Sciences. An important part of the fonds covers a correspondence that Bronisław Geremek was exchanging with historians from around the world during his academic career, including those affiliated with the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris and related to the ‘Annales’ historical research school (e.g. Fernand Braudel, Jacques Le Goff, Maurice Lombard) as well as other major figures of the European and global historiography (e.g. Fritz Stern, Heinrich Winkler). The fonds includes Bronisław Geremek’s hand-written notes, background and information files related to his historical research on exclusion and marginality in the Middle Ages. The collection includes, too, articles of Bronisław Geremek published in the European academic journals in Poland, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom during his academic career, particularly before 1980, as well as his lectures, such as an inaugural lesson at Collège de France within his International Chair 1992/1993: "Social history: exclusion and solidarity." The fonds contains accordingly letters with leading Polish historians of the 2nd half of the 20 century (e.g. Witold Kula, Tadeusz Manteufel, Henryk Samsonowicz, Benedykt Zientara). Several letters included in the fonds cover the academic activity of Bronisław Geremek’s wife, Hanna Geremek, a papyrologist and researcher of antiquity at the University of Warsaw.
The collections of correspondence refers, too, to the political activities of Bronisław Geremek on the international stage after 1989 including letters exchanged with major figures of the Polish public life at the time.
The fonds includes a significant collection of media clippings covering years of Bronisław Geremek active engagement in the Polish and European political life (1989-2008) collected by Bronisław Geremek’s offices in the Sejm (lower chamber of Parliament of Poland) and in the European Parliament. This set includes interviews, articles and speeches of Bronisław Geremek discussing the origins and developments of Solidarity union and the Polish struggle for freedom between 1981-1989. The Polish political transition after 1989 and the future Polish EU accession published in the European media, particularly after the Association Agreement between Poland the European Economic Community in 1991until 2004 is also covered. The items in this group of documents relate to different aspects of European integration process in the 1990s and 2000s, including most notably the EU Eastern enlargement in 2004.
The collection includes Bronisław Geremek’s hand-written draft notes related to his public interventions at the time at the European Parliament and in broader context of the his involvement in the European project.
The fonds contains a set of distinctions, awards, and diplomas covering the period of 1989-2008 and related to Bronisław Geremek’s political responsibilities, including as a member of the European Parliament within the parliamentary group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), 2004-2008.
The fonds includes a Condolences Books in memory of Bronisław Geremek which was made available by the European Parliament offices in Brussels and Paris after the passing of Bronisław Geremek on 13 July 2008 as well as a set of condolences letters from institutions and prominent academic and political figures mailed to the family of Professor Bronisław Geremek, the Polish Foreign Ministry and the European Parliament. The collections contains also documents, photographs and videos covering the state funeral of Bronisław Geremek on 21 July 2008 with the participation of Polish state authorities, president of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering and former president of the European Parliament Simone Veil.

Academic utilisation and partial reproduction (in the form of photocopies or digitalized photographs only) of the documents is authorized in accordance with the provisions in force at the HAEU.

Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian

Artifact, Photograph, Poster, Textual, Video