Born in Khodoriv (present-day Ukraine) on the 23rd of January, 1858. He received a doctorate of law at the Jagiellonian University and continued his academic career at the University of Lviv, becoming its professor in 1887. He lectured there until his death, gaining a reputation of one of its most important scholars, which was also attested to by, for instance, the very body of the alumni of his highly appreciated seminar. While in Lviv, he was also the director of the National Archive of Town and Land Records; he co-founded and headed the Lwów Scientific Society, and was also active on the local Historical Society. In recognition of his services to Lviv, Balzer received the title of honorary citizen of the city. He belonged to the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the academic circles he was famous not only as an expert on the Polish statehood and law, but also as an important polemicist in the debate concerning the actual value of the heritage of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s system of government, which reached its peak in the second and third decade of the 20th century. He received the honorary doctorates at five universities (the University of Lviv, Charles University in Prague, University of Warsaw, University of Poznań, and Stephen Báthory University of Vilnius). He also represented Galicia during the court settlement of the territorial dispute with Hungary regarding the Morskie Oko, a lake of exceptional natural beauty located in the Tatra Mountains. Thanks to the favourable verdict, the lake remained within the borders of Galicia, while Balzer himself won the esteem of broad circles of the Polish society eager to see that area of the Tatras as part of Galicia, perceived as the Polish province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1921 Balzer also received the Order of the White Eagle. He died in Lviv on the 11th of January, 1933. His works include Genealogia Piastów (1895), Historia ustroju Austrii w zarysie (1899), and Królestwo Polskie 1295-1370 (3 vol., 1919-1920).
