Unjustly forgotten scientist Wacław Mayzel (1847–1916)—co-discoverer of somatic mitosis

Descriptions of somatic cell divisions were made as early as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with varying degrees of accuracy. In this paper, we would like to present a forgotten Polish scientist Waclaw Mayzel (1847–1916), who described somatic mitosis in the corneal epithelium of the frog in 1875 almost simultaneously with the recognized discoveries of animal mitosis by Otto Bütschli and plant mitosis by Eduard Strasburger.

A Pole in the Far East: Trials and Tribulations of a Text between New York, Paris, and Warsaw (Ferdynand Ossendowski, Beasts, Men, and Gods)

International audience After the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ferdynand Ossendowski, a Polish scientist, adventurer and writer living in the Russian Empire, managed to flee the country and tell his story to the world. This account of a dangerous journey through Central Asia, titled Beasts, Men, and Gods, was published in New York thanks to the help of an American, Lewis Stanton Palen. The universally admired book was translated from English into many languages, and Ossendowski himself soon prepared a Polish version of the narrative. Although Palen was credited only as a collaborator, hisimplication in the project seems to be larger than has been so far assumed. This paper discusses hitherto unexamined letters from Palen to Ossendowski as well as details of their later cooperation to form a theory on the genesis of Ossendowski’s most famous book. It also traces the uncommon literary career of Palen who since the publication of Beasts, Men, and Gods embarked on the collaboration with several other Central and Eastern European “source-authors” whose autobiographical accounts he edited and/ or translated. While none of them seems to have later retold the events in their own language, Ossendowski did, and the most important differences between the two texts are analyzed in the context of the necessity to adjust one’s personal experiences to the foreign literary market and the implied readers’ vision of the traversed lands. Après que la révolution bolchevique a éclaté, Ferdynand Ossendowski, un scientifique, aventurier et écrivain polonais, qui vivait dans l’Empire russe, a réussi à fuir le pays et raconter son histoire au monde. Ce récit d’un voyage dangereux à travers l’Asie centrale, intitulé Bêtes, hommes et dieux (conformément à l’original Beasts, Men, and Gods), a été publié à New York grâce à l’aide d’un Américain, Lewis Stanton Palen. Le livre, universellement admiré, a été traduit de l’anglais en plusieurs langues et Ossendowski lui‑même a préparé peu après une version polonaise de la narration. Bien qu’on attribue à Palen seulement le rôle d’un collaborateur, son implication dans le projet semble plus importante qu’on ne l’avait supposé jusqu’à présent. Cet article examine des lettres de Palen à Ossendowski qui n’avaient encore jamais été commentées ainsi que des détails sur leur collaboration plus tardive pour formuler une hypothèse sur la genèse du livre le plus connu d’Ossendowski. Il retrace également la carrière littéraire de Palen qui, à partir de la publication de Bêtes, hommes et dieux, a commencé à collaborer avec d’autres « auteurs‑sources » d’Europe centrale et de l’Est, dont il a rédigé et/ou traduit les récits autobiographiques. Mais alors qu’aucun d’entre eux n’a raconté plus tard cesévénements dans sa propre langue, Ossendowski l’a fait et les différences les plus importantes entre les deux textes sont analysées à la lumière du besoin d’adapter ses expériences personnelles au marché littéraire étranger et à la vision des pays traversés que pouvaient avoir ses futurs lecteurs. Po wybuchu rewolucji bolszewickiej Ferdynand Ossendowski, polski naukowiec, poszukiwacz przygód i pisarz mieszkający w Imperium Rosyjskim, zdołał uciec z kraju i opowiedzieć światu swoją historię. Relację o niebezpiecznej podróży przez Azję Środkową, zatytułowaną Beasts, Men, and Gods (polski tytuł Przez kraj ludzi, zwierząt i bogów) opublikowano w Nowym Jorku dzięki pomocy Amerykanina Lewisa Stantona Palena. Powszechnie podziwianą książkę przetłumaczono z angielskiego na wiele języków, a sam Ossendowski niedługo później przygotował polską wersję narracji. Mimo że wkład Palena określono jedynie jako współpracę, wydaje się, że był on większy niż do tej pory sądzono. W niniejszym artykule omówiono niebadane dotąd listy Palena do Ossedowskiego, a także szczegóły ich późniejszej współpracy, aby sformułować teorię na temat genezy najsłynniejszej książki polskiego pisarza. Szkic przedstawia również nietypową karierę literacką Palena, który po publikacji Beasts, Men, and Gods podjął współpracę z innymi „autorami źródłowymi” z Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej, których autobiograficzne relacje redagował i/lub tłumaczył. Wydaje się, że Ossendowski jako jedyny z nich opisał opowiedziane Amerykaninowi wydarzenia powtórnie we własnym języku. Najważniejsze różnice między dwoma tekstami skomentowano w kontekście konieczności dopasowania osobistych przeżyć do obcego rynku literackiego i wyobrażeń, jakie o przemierzonych krajach mieli projektowani czytelnicy.

«USURIOUS DEXTERITY AND FRAUDULENT CUNNING»: STANISLAV TARNOWSKY ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PROSPEROUS NOBILITY OF GALICIA IN THE CONDITIONS OF FORMATION OF A FREE MARKET SOCIETY

The article is devoted to the analysis of the essay “Portions” (“Porcyi”) authored by the famous Polish scientist, politician and publicist S. Tarnowski (1837-1917), which was published in November 1874 and revealed changes in social position, economic activity and behavior of wealthy Galician nobles, who, taking advantage of the plight of the peasantry, were actively engaged in usury, earning a solid income. The author states that remaining outside the “noble origin of the owners of estates”, these nobles actually turned into rural extortionists, who are essentially no different from the representatives of the “merchant’s craft” (commissioners, brokers, moneylenders, etc.), genus classes which did not provide for honor and conscience. This, according to S. Tarnowsky, caused enormous damage to the “Polish cause”, as it destroyed the barely planned agreement between the nobility and the peasantry.

Another outlook on Russia. Letters from the “Russian Archive”

The article presents previously unpublished letters written by Andrzej Walicki (15.05.1930–21.08.2020), a worldly renowned Polish historian of Russian thought, to Professor Michael Maslin, the head of the Department of the History of Russian Philoso­phy at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Walicki’s letters (1997–2019) together with books, articles and other materials formed his gift to the abovementioned Department. Walicki himself referred to these materials as “my small Russian archive”. The letters are written in excellent Russian and require no additional revision or stylistic improvement. This publication retains the letters in their full originality including some phrases of Pol­ish origin. These unique epistles reveal Walicki’s individual creative worldview. The let­ters contain new information about the details of Walicki’s biography and his work in Poland, Russia, USA, Great Britain, Japan, Australia. The letters provide a unique per­spective on the “flow of ideas”, which was Walicki’s personal conception of understand­ing and interpretation of the Russian intellectual history from the Enligh­tenment through the Russian religious and philosophical Renaissance of the twentieth century. The letters discuss his interactions with Sergei Gessen, Isaiah Berlin, Leszhek Kolakowski, Czeslaw Milosz, George Kline, James Scanlan, Leonard Shapiro, Martin Malia, Richard Pipes, Nicholas Riasanovsky, James Billington etc. A special attention is paid to the critique of the Western and especially Polish Russophobia based on various superstitions and stereo­types about Russia as well on a lack of knowledge, various kinds of bias and blunders. Of considerable interest are Walitsky’s expert assessments of the ge­neral state of the scien­tific historiography of Russian philosophy, its fundamental diffe­rences from Soviet dog­matic Marxism, of which the Polish scientist was a consistent critic.

Литературные аллюзии и языковые параллели у Николоза Бараташвили и Адама Мицкевича (стихотворение Мерани и поэма Фарис)

“Of the Georgian romantics, the greatest poet and the greatest philosopher is Nikoloz Baratashvili” – these words of Professor Giorgi Dzhibladze best express the genius of Nikoloz Baratashvili, who at the age of 26 ended his turbulent and tragic life, having failed to fulfill his dreams because of the physical trauma, unable to embody her great love in reality, although Ekaterina Chavchavadze-Dadiani (the object of his unrequited love) saved his poetry from oblivion: it was she who gave the great Georgian writer Ilya Chavchavadze Baratashvili’s manuscript, thanks to which she actually returned the great poet’s Georgian literature to this time, unfortunately, is almost forgotten. In our opinion, Nikoloz Baratashvili could get acquainted with Faris by Adam Mitskevich through Russian translation. This circumstance led some scholars (Iona Meunargia, Kit Abashidze) to believe that the Georgian Merani was allegedly created under a certain influence of the poem of the Polish poet. Such a view of this issue, in our opinion, is devoid of a real foundation, primarily due to the fact that these two works in their artistic form show a very distant, almost insignificant similarity, while the ideological relationship is indisputable. The poetic spirit of Mitskevich was undoubtedly close to Nikoloz Baratashvili. A. Mitskevich dedicated his poem to the Polish scientist Vaclav Razhevsky, who suffered the same fate as the hero of the poem. V. Razhevsky conducted scientific research in Arabia, where he died. Mickiewicz paints a heroic image of a rider who is not afraid of anything; Baratashvili, on the other hand, describes the despair of his rider, who is in a state when nothing in the world matters to him and who prefers death to life, but meaningful death, sacrificed to descendants. The genius of the author of Merani is manifested precisely in the fact that in the harsh, gloomy atmosphere of his time, he still managed to discern that a person in the future will still win, that the time will come and justice will triumph: there will be a holiday on his street. N. Baratashvili was able to unite reason and faith, and in their selfless, titanic confrontation with blind fate, he saw the highest meaning and justification of human existence. Merani for all Georgian poetry is the same crown as The Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli. If classic epic thinking found its fullest reflection in Rustaveli’s poem, Merani is a brilliant example of lyrical self-expression characteristic of romantic poetry.

PEDAGOGICAL INTERACTION AS A SUBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC REFLECTION OF S. BALAY

The article is devoted to the analysis of pedagogical interaction as one of the leading problems in the theoretical heritage of the prominent Ukrainian-Polish scientist Stepan Balay. It is shown that Stepan Balay's pedagogical psychology is an integral system of views, which studies the patterns of pedagogical interaction and formation of the child's personality for the purposeful implementation of the pedagogical process, taking into account its age and individual characteristics, peculiarities of human psychic activity in the process of development and self-development. The systematic vector of the educational psychology of S. Balay is its humanistic orientation on the upbringing of the child's personality. The significant importance of S. Balay's creativity for the development of psychological science is determined by the justification of the consistent concept of the psychology of education, which is marked by a systematic vision of the process of development of the child, understanding of the pedagogical process as a subject-subject interaction, proclaiming love for the child as the basis of education. The originality of the scientist's views on solving the problems of psychology of education and upbringing is substantiated. The significance of the ideas of the psychology of education of S. Balay for the development of the theory and practice of pedagogical psychology, their role in the context of the tasks of modern education was described.

Revision of the first Carboniferous palaeofloristic locality discovered in Argentina

The first Carboniferous palaeofloristic locality recognized in Argentina is situated to the south of the Sierra Chica de Zonda in San Juan Province, Argentina. The fossiliferous site known as Retamito or Río del Agua provided plant remains which were studied by the Polish scientist Ladislaus Szajnocha in 1891. Szajnocha proposed an early Carboniferous age for the assemblage and described some species of lycophytes and sphenophytes, and foliage of cordaitalean and probable pteridosperms. Subsequent studies of this outcrop and its palaeontological content have been few, and a new interdisciplinary approach is needed. The succession is interpreted as fluvial-deltaic in origin, with intercalation of shallow marine deposits, which provided diagnostic plant components of the Nothorhacopteris/Botrychiopsis/Ginkgophyllum Biozone of the late Carboniferous in Argentina. Palynological assemblages recovered from the same strata contain bisaccate taeniate pollen and spores (e.g. Striatosporites heyleri) that support an age probably not older than early Moscovian.

Урбанонимическая омореферентность в устной русской речи

The idea of the Polish scientist, Jerzy Kaliszan, regarding the omo-reference of the facts of word-formation and form-formation in the Russian language is developing on the basis of Russian urbanonyms; it has been established that the formation of targeted linear inner city objects determines the internal dynamism of the grammatical system of the language, expands the fund of verbal resources, increasing the nomination possibilities and expanding the national linguistic picture of the world.

Polskie akcenty w publicystyce Aleksandra Sołżenicyna

Poland and Polish people are shown in the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writing in the context of complicated Polish-Russian relations. In Repentance and Self-limitation the author criticises Polish nation for being unable to repent and admit making mistakes in the past in a historical context. At the same time he claims that Russians have a natural ability to repentance, that is a condition of a moral renewal of a nation. Nevertheless, the overall picture of the Polish nation in Solzhenitsyn’s writing is positive. This Russian Nobel prize winner highlights Polish courage, pride and their undeterred struggle for freedom. In The Gulag Archipelago the author eternalises a Polish scientist named Jerzy Wegierski, a prisoner of a forced labour camp, who had been Solzhenitsyn’s friend till his death. It is also very important to highlight Solzhenitsyn’s respect and attitude toward the Pope John Paul II. The article is an attempt to recall and analyse Polish features in the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writing.