Gdy byłam redaktorem naczelnym...

The author of the paper was chief editor of "Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki" in the years 1975-1987. These were difficult times, encompassing both the period of martial law in Poland and the dynamic years adjacent to it. Yet, paradoxically perhaps, these years were conducive to the development of the quarterly, to the consolidation ofits significant position in the world ofscience, and to the intellectual inspirations ofthe author. There were several factors that contributed to that situation: 1. The quarterly initiated a scheme for the writing and systematic publication of scholarly autobiographies by the most eminent Polish scientists ofthe 20th century. 2. An active intellectual milieu which understood the sense and the social significance of the history of science and technology coalesced around the quarterly, due to -among other things -the so-called autobiographical meetings, which , brought together the scholarly and cultural elite of those times. 3. Every now and then, issues of the quarterly were published in the major international languages, or at least thematic blocs appeared that were written in those languages, and papers by foreign authors translated into Polish were published in the quarterly as well. The author of the current paper describes the context in which some of the autobiographies of eminent scientists (such as Wojciech Świętosławski and Aleksander Wasiutyński) published in the quarterly under her stint as editor had been written and the complications that surrounded their discovery. The paper also contains letters to the author as editor ofthe quarterly. One such letter, which is of very special value, was written by the interntio- nally renowned scholar, Prof. Janusz Groszkowski, who explained why he could not accept the quarterly's invitation to write an autobiography. Other letters, e.g. the letter by Prof. Zdzisław Libera, constitute an interesting supplement to the autobiographies published in the quarterly, supplying information based on first-hand knowledge of their authors. Part of the current paper is devoted to the circumstances surrounding the plan s for publishing the autobiographies that appeared in the quarterly in a four-volume edition by the Młodzieżowa Agencja Wydawnicza (MAW (Youth Publishnig AgencyJ). The first volume, which took very lon g to appear, never found its way to bookshops, but instead was stored for pulping. The second volumes was destroyed even before being bound; there could be no talk of publishing the remaining two volumes, as the publishing house was dissolved. In the last fragment of the paper the author explains the reasons for her decision to resign from the position of chief editor of "Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki".