Abstract

Leszek Kolakowski, an eminent philosopher known mainly outside his native Poland for Main Currents of Marxism, was an enormously influential public figure in Poland. He was awarded the Order of the White Eagle when Poland was liberated and went into exile in 1968, first to North America, where he continued to give active support and advice to Solidarity, and then to Oxford. Kolakowski, who became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1980, was buried in Poland with military honours and a minute's silence in the national Parliament. Obituary by Steven Lukes FBA.