Abstract
My freedom, the freedom of a child, came to an end when I was enrolled in the regional Gymnasium. The principal of the Gymnasium at the time was Klemens Sienkiewicz, a Ruthenian, a grey-haired jovial gentleman with a liking for Pilzner beer, and reminding one more of a country squire than a teacher. One of the oldest teachers was Władysław Węgrzyński, who was a veteran of the uprising of 1863, and, as an historian, had written a monograph on the castle Golesz at Podzamcze. Of the rest I recall Kawecki, who wrote a drama about Kalina and the schools; Jerzy Żuławski, author of the play Eros i Psyche (“Eros and Psyche”), among other works; the poet Wiśniewski, son-in-law of the principal; Jedlicz, who later became a translator and the artistic director of the Lwów theater; Womela, who was quoted by Irzykowski in Pałuba; the poet Eminowicz….
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Notes
- 1.
The Ruthenians are an East Slavic people from the region of the northern Carpathians bordering on present-day western Ukraine, southern Poland, Slovakia, and Romania.
- 2.
The “January Uprising”, a great Polish national rebellion (1863–1865) against the Russian overlord.
- 3.
Antoni Kalina (1846–1906), Polish slavicist, ethnologist, and philologist.
- 4.
Jerzy Żuławski (1874–1915), Polish writer, playwright, and poet; a pioneer of Polish science fiction.
- 5.
Karol Irzykowski (1873–1944), Polish writer, literary critic, and film theoretician. His novel Pałuba (“The Hag”) appeared in 1903.
- 6.
A low-powered rifle formerly used for indoor target shooting.
- 7.
The offices of the starosta.
- 8.
A Polish town on the Baltic coast dating from the Middle Ages, for several centuries prior to 1945 under Prussian or German rule. Its name literally means “by the shore”.
- 9.
Then Breslau.
- 10.
“By the Rose”
- 11.
Stanisław Kramsztyk (1841–1906), Polish scholar of Jewish origin, physicist and mathematician, popularizer of science.
- 12.
Possibly the Prince Georg of Bavaria who lived from 1880 to 1943.
- 13.
The Polish parliament, which still functioned to some extent in partitioned Poland.
- 14.
Emperor of Austria and king of Hungary.
- 15.
The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a region overlapping present-day southern Poland and western Ukraine made up that part of divided Poland ruled by Austria from 1772 to 1918.
- 16.
Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński (1874–1941), Polish gynecologist, writer, poet, critic, and translator of over 100 French literary classics into Polish. Enfant terrible of the Polish literary scene of the first half of the twentieth century. Murdered by the Nazis in July 1941 in the “Massacre of Lwów Professors”.
- 17.
Formally, Eug´enie.
- 18.
A word of Greek origin signifying freedom.
- 19.
Originally a village near Athens known for the Eleusinian mysteries.
- 20.
One of only two Polish-language universities in Galicia, the other being Lwów University.
- 21.
Andrzej Towiański (1799–1878), Polish religious philosopher and mystic.
- 22.
Masuria is an area in northeastern Poland famous for its many lakes.
- 23.
Emil Zegadłowicz (1888–1941), Polish poet, novelist, art scholar, and translator.
- 24.
However, in 1968 a monument to Emil Zegadłowicz was unveiled in Wadowice.
- 25.
Polish playwrights, poets, or novelists of the time. In particular, Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868–1927), influenced in his early twenties by Nietzsche and satanism, was a poet of the decadent naturalistic school and associated with the symbolist movement.
- 26.
Maria Rodziewiczówna (1863–1944), Polish writer of the interwar years. Her works often idealized rural life and the peasantry.
- 27.
Austrian writer and journalist, satirist, aphorist, essayist, playwright, and poet. Regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the twentieth century. One of his aphorisms: “Children play soldiers—that makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?” Attacked hypocrisy, psychoanalysis, corruption in the Habsburg empire, the nationalism of the pan-German movement, laissez-faire economic policies, and many other subjects. Lived from 1874 till 1936.
- 28.
A reference to Boy-Żeleński’s translations of French literary works—see above.
- 29.
Ellen Karolina Sofia Key (1849–1926), Swedish feminist writer.
- 30.
Aleksander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799–1837), great Russian Romantic poet. Regarded as the founder of modern Russian literature.
- 31.
Pan Tadeusz, an epic tale in verse, considered by many the national epic of Poland, and set as compulsory reading in Polish schools to this day.
- 32.
Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Polish Romantic poet. Ranked with Pushkin as among the greatest poets writing in Slavic languages.
- 33.
Antoni Malczewski (1793–1826), Polish Romantic poet, known for his only work Maria, a narrative poem of dire pessimism.
- 34.
A Falstaffian character in Sienkiewicz’s famous trilogy of novels.
- 35.
Other characters in Sienkiewicz’s trilogy.
- 36.
Hassling-Ketling of Elgin, another fictional character from Sienkiewicz’s trilogy—an expatriate Scot who comes to Poland to serve in the army of the King of Poland.
- 37.
A kind of two- or four-wheeled carriage.
- 38.
Józef Schoenborn.
- 39.
Stanisław Jan Cyganiewicz (also called Zbyszko I) (1880–1967), strongman and professional wrestler in the US in the 1920s. In Poland he had been a noted intellectual, having studied music, philosophy, and law while growing up in Vienna. His brother Władek (also called Zbyszko II) (1891–1968) was also a noted strongman and wrestler.
- 40.
Toy building blocks of stone, produced from around 1880 by the businessman Friedrich A. Richter in Rudolstadt, Germany.
- 41.
Krynica-Zdrój, a spa town and winter sports center in the Beskid Mountains of south-eastern Poland, in what is now the Małopolska Voivodeship.
- 42.
Count Kurt von Bardeleben (1861–1924), German chess master. Best known for a game he lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in 1895.
- 43.
An old Italian card game played with the 22 tarot cards in addition to the standard 52.
- 44.
Piotr Chmielowski (1848–1904), a Polish philosopher, literary historian, and critic.
- 45.
An institute for the promotion of Polish science, combining a library, publishing house, and museum. Founded in Lwów in 1817 by Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński.
- 46.
Felicja Steinhaus.
- 47.
Acronym formed from the initials of Narodowa Demokracja (ND), the National Democratic Party, the main nationalistic, anti-Semitic, Polish political party.
- 48.
Regional administration.
- 49.
In Austria.
- 50.
When the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian empires had disintegrated, and Poland had once more become independent.
- 51.
Count Stanisław Tarnowski (1837–1917), Polish nobleman, historian, literary critic, and prominent public figure. Imprisoned by the Austrian authorities 1863–1865 for participation in Polish agitation for independence. Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków 1871–1909.
- 52.
“Nobody should be judge in his own case;” “I hurt nobody when I pursue my rights;” “A later law supersedes earlier ones;” “The father is the one to whom the marriage record points.”
- 53.
The poem in question, Horace’s second epode, begins Beatus ille qui procul negotiis… (“Happy is he who far from the world of commerce…”).
- 54.
In 1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French officer of Alsatian Jewish descent, was convicted of spying for Germany and sent to the penal colony at Devil’s Island. When it emerged 2 years later that a French major named Ferdinand Esterhazy was the culprit, and not Dreyfus, the evidence was suppressed, and false documents were drawn up by high-ranking military officials who wanted to frame Dreyfus. When the cover-up leaked out, the intense political and judicial scandal that ensued split French society. Dreyfus was eventually exonerated and reinstated as major in the French army.
- 55.
Moritz Benedikt (1849–1920), an Austrian newspaperman.
- 56.
Major Georges Picquart (1854–1914) brought evidence of fabrications to his superiors, and, when ordered to keep silent, leaked the information to the Dreyfusard press.
- 57.
Lieutenant-Colonel Armand du Paty de Clam (1853–1916), main accuser of Dreyfus.
- 58.
Bertha von Suttner, an Austrian peace activist, wrote Die Waffen nieder! in 1889.
- 59.
Auschwitz, in German.
- 60.
Partitions of the then Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1772, 1793, and 1795. With the third partition, Poland ceased to exist as a self-governing nation till 1918.
- 61.
Józef Szujski (1835–1883), Polish politician, historian, publicist, poet, and professor at the Jagiellonian University.
- 62.
Placyd Zasław Dziwiński (1851–1936), mathematics professor at Lwów Polytechnic. The Lectures on Mathematics (Wykłady z matematyki) is the work for which he is known.
- 63.
F. Bendt, Katechismus der Differential- und Integralrechnung, Leipzig, Weber, 1896.
- 64.
Adam von Burg (1797–1882), professor of higher mathematics and mechanics at the University of Vienna.
- 65.
Albert Schwegler (1819–1857), German philosopher and theologian. Published Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss in 1848.
- 66.
Journalist and writer. Moved from the United States to Japan in 1900 at the age of 40, where he wrote books about Japan and published collections of Japanese legends and stories.
- 67.
Polish writer, active in the Polish Socialist Party, engaged in activities subversive to the Russian empire. Lived from 1858 to 1945.
- 68.
The highest range in the Carpathians, forming a natural boundary between Poland and Slovakia.
- 69.
A mountain in the southwestern part of the Tatra Mountains with a curved tip, whence its name.
- 70.
“Marine Eye”, the largest lake in the Tatra Mountains.
- 71.
In 1772.
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Steinhaus, H. (2015). The Gymnasium. In: Burns, R., Szymaniec, I., Weron, A. (eds) Mathematician for All Seasons. Vita Mathematica, vol 18. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21984-4_2
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