Memorabilia Zoologica NS

This volume of Memorabilia Zoologica contains Benedykt Dybowski’sunpublished letters to Janusz Domaniewski from 1917 to 1918. These letters area valuable contribution to the biography of both naturalists, as well as to the historyof Polish scientific institutions. The correspondence complements works devotedto the history of Warsaw zoological collections, mainly of the Zoological Cabinetof the University of Warsaw. It comprises, among other things, a lot of informationabout the “evacuation” of the collection into the depths of Russia in 1915. Thepresented material includes an interesting description of other nature collectionsin Poland, Russia and Ukraine, as well as the activities of scientific journals, boardsand committees.The correspondence brings closer the fate of many scientists – often calledup to the army, detained, living at risk of starvation, threatened with robbery, censoredand usually deprived of the possibility of scientific work. Numerous remarkson the development of the Siberian fauna, evolutionism, its reception in Polandand Russia, acclimatization, the concept of species and taxonomy are invaluabletestimony to the history of natural sciences at the turn of the 19th and 20thcentury.Dybowski’s letters written at the end of the First World War, referring toactions for independence, are important documents for the analysis of the politicaland economic situation on Polish lands in that crucial period. In his correspondence,Benedykt Dybowski devoted a lot of attention to scientific institutions ofthe future Poland and its education system.In his letters we find expressions of his long-lasting passion for promotingEsperanto as a universal language and a carrier of equality between people, anticlericalism,the fight against alcoholism, gambling and all other social vices, thepromotion of milk drinking and many other utopian ideas characteristic forDybowski – an eccentric and romantic figure.This volume is the first where Benedykt Dybowski’s correspondence is published.We are planning to include further unpublished letters of this scientist insubsequent volumes.

23 cm.