Józef Dominik "Kresowiec" Bartłomiej Chołodecki (15 August 1852 – 30 January 1934) was a Polish historian. Biography Chołodecki was born in 1852 in in the Galician region of the then Austro-Hungarian empire, close to the present day city of L'viv in the Ukraine. His adopted middle name of Bialynia refers to the clan and Coat of Arms of his family. Chołodecki was the son of Celestyn, a writer and a nadleśniczy of the forestry department in Galicia, and Emilia from the house of Setti da Forli. His academic studies began at home, and continued at primary school in Stryj located in present-day Ukraine. He attended high school in Lwów, and took his maturity exam on 10 October 1870. That same year he enrolled at the University of Lwów to study law, graduating in 1874. He had to work even while attending high school due to his father's death. In 1873, a year prior to finishing his law degree, Józef applied to the Directors of the Lwów postal service. He received a position with the postal service in Czerlany, later in Niżniów, Stanisławów, and finally in Lwów. In 1880 he became the regional director of the commissars postal service in Czerniowce, he quickly rose up the ranks of the postal service until he became the director of the account departments of the Lwów postal service. He retired while at this position in 1909. Patriotic traditions Chołodecki left his home with a strong patriotic tradition. His father, who took part in two uprisings and was jailed as a political dissident as a result, as well as other close family like Tomasz Chołodecki, a veteran of the November Uprising, had a strong influence on his upbringing. At the age of 12, he took part in the January Uprising of 1863 as courier in the territories surrounding Lwów. In 1867 while still in high school he was part of an underground student organization which was later dissolved by the Austrian authorities. While a student at the University of Lwów, Chołodecki was the most active member of the highly regarded Academic Reading room (Czytelnia Akademicka), he took an active part in an assortment of Polish organizations throughout the region. In Czerniowce he became a contributor to Gazeta Polska, a newspaper run by Klemens Kościesz Kołakowski. He became a member of the board of Czytelnia Polska, founded a library and wrote a history of the Czytelnia