Lecture by Professor Jan Waszink at the UWr Library
The Department of Old Dutch Literature of the Chair of Dutch Studies at the University of Wrocław, under the direction of Professor Stefan Kiedroń, cordially invites you to a lecture by dr hab. Jan Waszink (Leiden University, the Netherlands / Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences). The lecture, entitled “Hugo Grotius: Father of International Law (400 Years of De jure belli ac pacis, 1625)”, will take place on 23 October 2025 at 5:00 p.m. in the Cultural Salon of the Library of the University of Wrocław (ul. Fryderyk Joliot-Curie 12, 50-383 Wrocław). The event is held within the framework of the “Visiting Professors” programme of the Initiative for Excellence – Research University (IDUB).
Bio
Dr hab. Jan Waszink (PhD: University of Amsterdam, 2002; habilitation: Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 2024) is one of the foremost experts on the political and philosophical thought of Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), the founder of the principles of international law. As a Neo-Latin philologist, Jan Waszink has published numerous articles on the classical culture of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Low Countries, including studies on politics, diplomacy, and the poetry of the Golden Age. His doctoral dissertation, supervised by the eminent Dutch Neo-Latin philologist Professor Christiaan Lambert Heesakkers and entitled The Politica of Justus Lipsius. Introduction, Edition, Translation, explored the political theories of Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), the distinguished philosopher and founder of Neo-Stoicism.
Jan Waszink is the founder and editor-in-chief of the series Bibliotheca Latinitatis Novae (Leuven University Press, Belgium), in which he published, among other works, a scholarly edition and annotated translation: Hugo Grotius, Annals of the War in the Low Countries. Edition, Translation and Introduction by J. Waszink, Leuven UP 2023 – a publication that formed the basis of his habilitation. He has directed and/or participated in numerous international research projects, including the Dutch grant Nederlands Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO-VENI) at Radboud University Nijmegen (The Annales and Historiae by Hugo Grotius); the project Mapping the Latin Enlightenment at the University of Western Australia in Perth; and the NCN Opus project Secularisation of the West: Tacitism from the 16th to the 18th Century. As of 2023, his citation record (excluding self-citations) stands at 289 (Google Scholar) and 1,165 (Academia.edu), with a Hirsch index of 9.
About the lecture
In 1625, 400 years ago, the child prodigy (with 11 years a student in Leiden, with 15 years dr. juris) and later a famous author of works about political theory and law, Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), published the famous work De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace, Paris 1625). This work had, for the first time, clearly formulated the general rules on ocean waters; therefore Grotius was called “the father of international law”. His first attempt to this was Mare Liberum (The Free Sea, Leiden 1609), where he argued that the Portuguese and the Spanish were not the only nations “to rule” over world’s seas. From now on the Dutch, fighting against the Spanish imperium, had broken its monopoly position. This was the beginning of the Dutch Golden Age.
The Wrocław University Library is a perfect venue for this lecture, as here (in the Old Prints Department) a magnificent collection of books from the 16th and 17th century is to be found (more than 300.000 works; one of the biggest collections in Europe); among them also works of Grotius, even with a dedication of his own hand.
Date of publication: 15.10.2025
Added by: M.K.
