Born in Poland in 1925, he participated in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Germans. He arrived in Britain in January 1946 and studied political science at the University of St Andrews and then Oxford.
After a political thaw in Poland in 1956, Pełczyński made regular visits to his homeland and developed several programmes for the education of students from communist Europe at Oxford. In the 1980s, he established a scholarship programme for Polish students at British universities.
His students at Pembroke College in Oxford included future US President Bill Clinton and future Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
In the 1990s Pełczyński served as an advisor to the Polish government and was a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on the training of civil servants. He also founded the School for Young Social and Political Leaders in Warsaw.
He held high-ranking Polish and British state distinctions, including the Order of the British Empire.
His biography, entitled Zbigniew Pelczynski: A Life Remembered, written by David McAvoy, was published in 2012.
(mk/pk)