Early life and heritage As a child of a Polish family of Jewish origin, Gumplowicz grew up in a family that was part of a progressive Jewish group that advocated for a comprehensive social assimilation program for all Jews. Before the outbreak of the
January Insurrection of 1863, the Gumplowicz family's home was one of the outposts of conspiracy. During the Insurrection, it had become a lodging place for vulnerable youth and a refuge for the wounded. Ludwik's father, Abraham, assisted in the insurgency's planning, and his two older brothers fought alongside him. Ludwig Gumplowicz and his wife both converted to
Calvinism to escape prevailing antisemitism. Judaism was always present for Gumplowicz and his family while growing up. Therefore, the well-being of the Jewish people was essential to him. Even though his father, Abraham Gumplowicz, tried to assimilate into the community of Krakow, Jews were often seen as second-class citizens. This brought Gumplowicz many obstacles that he had to face as a Jew. He wrote several articles in which he attempted to bring attention to the issues of antisemitism and the emancipation of the Jews.
Educational life He then went on to study at the universities of
Kraków and
Vienna and became a professor of
public law at the
University of Graz in 1875. He and his wife, Franciska, had two sons. In 1875, Gumplowicz began studying law at the
Jagiellonian University in
Kraków. He then went to study in
Vienna for a year returning to Kraków to receive a doctoral law degree. He culminated in the foundation of the first Sociological Society in Graz. In 1860, he began his journalistic career. From 1869 to 1874 he edited his own magazine the
Kraj (the
Country). Then in 1875, at the age of thirty-seven, he entered the
University of Graz as a lecturer in the science of administration and Austrian administrative law. In 1882, he became an
associate professor, and in 1893 a full professor. Gumplowicz then retired from academia in 1908. As a Polish intellectual, he felt a sense of imminent doom in his homeland, the strangeness of a foreign world, and then nostalgia for their homeland, and gradually became appreciated in his adopted country, though largely going unnoticed by his own compatriots. By rejecting orthodox jurisprudence in favor of establishing sociology that had yet to be widely accepted in Austria and Germany, he remained an outsider and at odds with university circles after years of studying and teaching his beliefs. He would frequently stress his
Polish and
Jewish roots, further isolating him from university circles. == Career ==