Władysław II Jagiełło

(born circa 1351—died May 31/June 1, 1434, Grodek, near Lwów, Galicia, Pol.) Grand duke of Lithuania (1377–1401) and king of Poland (1386–1434), founder of the Jagiellon dynasty. He had to defeat rivals, including his cousin Vytautas, in order to secure his rule in Lithuania. He married the Polish queen Jadwiga (1386) after agreeing to Christianize Lithuania and unite it with Poland. He regained Ruthenia from Hungary (1387) and made the prince of Moldavia his vassal. He signed a treaty (1401) recognizing Vytautas as duke on the condition that Poland and Lithuania pursued a common foreign policy, and together they broke the power of the Teutonic Order.

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German Breslau

City (pop., 2000 est.: 633,857), southwestern Poland. Located on the Oder River, it originated in the 10th century at the crossroads of the trade route linking the Black Sea to western Europe. In 1138 it became the first capital of Silesia. The Tartars destroyed Wrocław in 1241. Rebuilt, it passed to Bohemia with the rest of Silesia in 1335 and to the Habsburgs in 1526. In 1741 it fell to Prussia under the rule of Frederick II (the Great), and it eventually became part of Germany. During World War II Wrocław was besieged (1945) by Soviet troops. The city was assigned to Poland by the Potsdam Conference of 1945. Heavily damaged during the war, it was rebuilt and is now a major commercial city.

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(born April 7, 1884, Kraków, Pol., Austria-Hungary—died May 16, 1942, New Haven, Conn., U.S.) Polish-British anthropologist. He is principally associated with studies of the peoples of Oceania and with the school of thought known as functionalism. After taking degrees in philosophy, physics, and mathematics in Poland, Malinowski happened upon James George Frazer's The Golden Bough and went to study anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (1910–16). Doing research in the Trobriand Islands, he lived in a tent among the people (see Trobriander), spoke the vernacular fluently, recorded “texts” freely on the scene as well as in set interviews, and observed reactions with an acute clinical eye. He was thus able to present a dynamic picture of social institutions that clearly separated ideal norms from actual behaviour and in doing so laid much of the basis for modern anthropological field research. He taught at the London School of Economics (1922–38) and Yale University (1938–42). He wrote several works that are now considered classics of anthropology, including Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) and Magic, Science and Religion (1948).

Learn more about Malinowski, Bronisław (Kasper) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born April 7, 1884, Kraków, Pol., Austria-Hungary—died May 16, 1942, New Haven, Conn., U.S.) Polish-British anthropologist. He is principally associated with studies of the peoples of Oceania and with the school of thought known as functionalism. After taking degrees in philosophy, physics, and mathematics in Poland, Malinowski happened upon James George Frazer's The Golden Bough and went to study anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (1910–16). Doing research in the Trobriand Islands, he lived in a tent among the people (see Trobriander), spoke the vernacular fluently, recorded “texts” freely on the scene as well as in set interviews, and observed reactions with an acute clinical eye. He was thus able to present a dynamic picture of social institutions that clearly separated ideal norms from actual behaviour and in doing so laid much of the basis for modern anthropological field research. He taught at the London School of Economics (1922–38) and Yale University (1938–42). He wrote several works that are now considered classics of anthropology, including Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) and Magic, Science and Religion (1948).

Learn more about Malinowski, Bronisław (Kasper) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

AW, aW or aw may stand for:

AW

• Active Worlds
• Addison-Wesley, publishers
• Ahrweiler district in Germany
• Agape World Fellowship
• Alan Wake, an upcoming videogame being developed by Remedy Entertainment.
• Allied Waste Industries Inc, stock symbol on NYSE
• Another World, an American soap opera
• Arctic Warfare, a British sniper rifle
• Aruba, the ISO 3166-1 2-letter country code
• A&W Restaurants or A&W Root Beer
• Dirgantara Air Service (Indonesia) (IATA code)
• Schreiner Airways (Netherlands) (ATA code)
• Advance Wars a portable strategy game.
• Atomic Weight
• Armstrong Whitworth
• Arvin Wali
• Ibanez AW Series acoustic guitars
• Aviation Warfare Systems Operator, a rating in the United States Navy
• Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal F.C. in England
• Aviation Week

aW

• attowatt, an SI unit of power

Aw

• Tropical wet-and-dry climate (warm to hot all year with wet summers and dry winters)

aw

• Water activity (aw) relative availability of water in a substance.

See also

• .aw, the ccTLD for Aruba