Józef Marcinkiewlcz was one of the most promising young Polish mathematicians of the inter-war period. He was born to a peasant family on March 4th, 1910, in Skółka County in the Białystok region.

In 1930 he began studies at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Stefan Batory University in Wilno (now Vilnius). Already during the second year of his studies he began to work with the Prof. A. Zygmund, who characterized him in the following terms: "When I recall Marcinkiewicz, I see in my mind's eye a tall handsome youngster, who is lively, sensitive, cordial, ambitious, and possessing a great sense of humor. He was sociable, didn't avoid parties and in particular loved dancing and playing bridge. His health was not the best, he was prone to respiratory infections and had to take care of himself. He took an interested in sports (possibly because of his health) and was a good swimmer and skier. He had other intellectual interests beside mathematic and had been of two minds, upon entering the university, whether to choose mathematics or Polish literature."

In 1933 he received the M.Sc. in Mathematics. He spent the following year in the army and then returned to Wilno. He became a Assistant in the Mathematics Department. In 1935 he received his Ph.D. for work which was an extension of his master's thesis. He spent the academic year 1935-36 in Lwów (now Lviv) where he collaborated with Kaczmar and Schauder, work that resulted in a publication regarding multiplicators of the Fourier series as well as a publication regarding general orthogonal series.

In the Fall of 1936 he returned to Wilno and worked as a Senior Assistant. In 1937 he received his Habilitation Doctorate. In the Spring of 1939 he received a scholarship and left for Paris. Starting with the new academic year 1939/40 he was to assume the chair of the Mathematics Department at the University of Poznan. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the war shattered those plans.

The advances made by Marcinkiewicz pertain to the following branches of mathematics: theory of functions of real variables, the theory of complex functions, trigonometric functions, and probability. It would be difficult to discuss these results here in detail or even to just describe them because of their specificity. He did introduce a new type of spaces currently termed M (Marcinkiewicz), which was a generalization of the Bp spaces of Bezikowicz periodic functions; in the realm of probability calculus the Marcinkiewicz theorem is often cited. And a certain type of integrals, the Marcinkiewicz Integrals even now - 40 years after his death - are finding ever new applications.

Marcinkiewicz was not only a scholar, he was a fervent patriot. At the news of impending war and mobilization in Poland, he returned thither. He was taken prisoner during the campaign of September 1939 never to be seen again. The date of his death is not known. It's assumed that his life ended in the Spring of 1940. Marcinkiewicz's premature death was a huge loss for Polish mathematics. To honor him a prize has been founded in his name; it is awarded annually for the best work by a young mathematician.