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“Oral History and the Classics” Team in Poznań
On Dec. 5th, 2023, Oral History and the Classics project team enjoyed the honour to visit Professor Marian Andrzej Wesoły at his home, in the vicinity of Poznań. Prof. Wesoły agreed to give an interview which will be included in the Oral History and the Classics collection on the website of the University of Hradec Králové.
Marian Wesoły is currently a professor emeritus of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and lectures at the Jacob of Paradies Academia in Gorzów Wielkopolski. His entire academic career in Poland was connected to Poznań and Adam Mickiewicz University. His doctoral (1977) and postdoctoral (1992) dissertations were devoted to the history of Greek philosophy. In 2008 he received the title of a full professor. He was granted several foreign scholarships, e.g. in Italy (1980: University of Padova, 1983: Italian Institute for History in Naples, 1997: Villa I Tatti), Germany (1986/87: University of Tübingen), and Greece (1993, 2000, 2012: Academy of Athens). Prof. Wesoły is a co-founder of the „Peitho. Examina Antiqua” journal. For 20 years he has regularly participated in the Eleatica-Symposia, initiated by Prof. Livio Rossetti at the Alario Foundation in Ascea, close to the ruins of ancient Elea/Velia. Finally, we should mention that on the 100th anniversary of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (2019) he was awarded Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Prof. Wesoły is a specialist in Greco-Roman and Byzantine philosophies. In his numerous works he attempts to combine philological analyses with philosophical interpretation. Moreover, he is active as a translator and one of his most recent productions is a bilingual edition and commentary of Aristotle’s Analytica Priora et Posteriora (2020).
During the interview prof. Wesoły reflected on his academic and research curriculum, but also shared his views on perspectives of his discipline, on political constraints in researching ancient philosophy, recalled his memories of the great scholars whom had the opportunity to meet and with whom he collaborated etc. When the whole recording is edited and furnished with English subtitles, it will be make public and available on the project’s website.
The interview meeting with prof. Wesoły would not be possible without his kind consent and warm welcome of the team members by his family at their home. Those were Tomasz Mróz and Jaroslav Daneš who carried out the interview, while Jan Kadeřábek, a cinematographer and a cameraman, took care of all the technicalities.
“Small Grant” from the University of Zielona Góra
Prof. Marcin Mrugalski, the Deputy Rector for Science and International Cooperationof of the University of Zielona Góra (UZ), home institution of the AΦR, awarded Tomasz Mróz with a “Small Grant” of a maximum possible value. These internal grants are distributed by the Rector annually among those researchers of UZ, who had submitted their proposals to the National Science Centre (NCN), received positive assessements from the experts, yet finally had not been granted funding. Aim of the “Small Grants” is to increase the chances of the researches in future granting competitions.
“Small Grant” funds for AΦR will be spent on developing and strenghtening a co-operation between AΦR members and the Institute of Philosophy (UZ) with colleagues from the Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University (VU), on the topic of the history of research on ancient philosophy in VU during its complex history.
Consultation Visit in FF UHK
As we have already announced here, AΦR actively cooperates in pursuing a research project funded by the Faculty of Philosophy University of Hradec Králové (FF UHK) and it is necessary to discuss issues appearing in the initial phase of our cooperation. A meeting devoted to identifying and solving such problems took place on March 28th, 2023, in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, UHK (photo of the Faculty main building on the right).
Jaroslav Daneš and Tomasz Mróz (both on the photo) agreed on the criteria of selecting scholars, Polish experts in ancient philosophy, who will be invited to share their unique, personal experiences of developing their decade long careers. It will be both interesting and instructive for young scholars and researchers to learn the objectives that previous generations had to overcome, support they received etc. Moreover, preliminary schedule of interviews was arranged and various technicalities were discussed.
A Member of AΦR Received a NAWA Scholarship
Mariam Sargsyan, already a member of the AΦR research group and a grantee in National Science Centre (NCN) project on Henryk Jakubanis (Генрих Якубанис: 1879–1949) and his works on ancient Greek philosophy, has recently received a scholarship from NAWA (Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange). The programme’s name is NAWA Preludium Bis 2 and it is intended exclusively for doctoral students working under NCN projects in doctoral schools. The aim of NAWA Preludium Bis 2 programme is to support international mobility of doctoral students by enabling them to gain academic experience in international research centres.
Considering the topic of M. Sargsyan’s dissertation, H. Jakubanis, a scholar whose career started successfully in Saint Vladimir Imperial University of Kyiv, at first she intended to spend her internship in Kyiv, in Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. After the Russian invasion on Ukraine, unfortunately, her research stay there turned out to be impossible.
In these circumstances the plans had to change and eventually M. Sargsyan’s scholarship will be spent in Germany, at the Martin Luther University in Halle, and to be more precise, at the Aleksander Brückner Centre for Polish Studies (ABZ), from April to July 2023. Scholars connected to ABZ research both historical and present-day developments in Polish politics, society, language, and culture in multidisciplinary perspective. Professor Yvonne Kleinmann, who is the Head of ABZ, agreed to be an academic supervisor of M. Sargsyan’s scholarship.
The main goal of M. Sargsyan’s internship is to research historical and cultural circumstances of Jakubanis’ life and to enrich her thesis with literature hardly available in Poland. It will significantly contribute to producing a comprehensive biographical, historical and philosophical study of this historian of philosophy.
The list of M. Sargsyan’s tasks in Halle includes: preparation and presentation of a paper at the Colloquium of East-European History (Interdisziplinäres Kolloquium Osteuropäische Geschichte / Polenstudien) and participation in the activities of ABZ.
A Cooperation in a Research Project with the University of Hradec Králové
In January 2023 at the Faculty of Philosophy University of Hradec Králové (FF UHK) a new research project starts. It is one of the winners of the Internal Grant Competition of FF UHK for International Research Teams. The aim of this competition was to stimulate and develop international research collaboration of FF UHK scholars with partners abroad.
Principal investigator in the project is doc. Mgr. Jaroslav Daneš, Ph.D. who works as an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences (FF UHK). His research interests include ancient Greek political theories, esp. theory of war in philosophy and tragedy, and related issues. Doc. Daneš has visited Institute of Philosophy, University of Zielona Góra, several times on various occasions (as Erasmus+ teacher, as a conference participant, and recently as a member of an academic committee of the International Workshop for Doctoral Students in Philosophy).
The title of doc. Daneš’ project is Oral History and Classics. In short, the project aims to record and collect individual histories of European classical scholars from various countries, including those who devoted their careers to researching ancient philosophy, and thus to uncover the history of this discipline in the experience of scholars. A database of interviews with distinguished scholars will be assembled and subsequently analysed to reveal the connections between personal histories and the history of the discipline, including historiography of ancient philosophy. A Polish collaborator of doc. Daneš in this project is Tomasz Mróz (UZ), whose share in project is estimated as 30%.
A Monograph Book on Stanisław Lisiecki (and his Plato)
In a book series published by Marek Derewiecki a new volume has appeared. T. Mróz is the author and the title of the book is Stanisław Lisiecki (1872-1960) and His Plato (pp. 150). This book is a second one in the series and it complements volume one, which consisted mostly of unpublished materials produced by S. Lisiecki during his long and laborious life.
Apart from the foreword and concluding remarks, the book is divided into two main parts. The first part presents Lisiecki’s biography as fully as it has never been presented before. Numerous sources from the archival and manuscript collections from the libraries of Warsaw and Cracow were deployed to compose this chapter. Private, family materials were also used, including the photograph inside the book, an essential part of which was artistically remade to depict Lisiecki on the cover. His biography was divided into three chapters, which are separated from each other by two important facts in his life: leaving the clergy in 1921 and the outbreak of the World War II in 1939. The longest chapter is the middle one, between these two dates, because it was Lisiecki’s most productive period and it was possible to use numerous testimonies to document it.
Part two of the book discusses Lisiecki’s interpretation of Plato’s philosophy and its development. This part is divided into three parts as well. It presents Lisiecki’s views on the philosophical and spiritual evolution of Plato in three stages: Plato as a Socratic thinker, Plato in his mature works and Plato as an old sage. It was not possible to present Lisiecki’s views on all the important dialogues, for example on the Symposium or the Phaedrus, because his legacy is fragmentary and his comprehensive synthetic study on Plato had been destroyed during the war. Nevertheless, Plato in Lisiecki’s views is a half-religious thinker, an inspired poet and a visionary, whose creative personality was most fully expressed in his theory of the Good. The Good was sometimes identified by Lisiecki with God or with Providence and it transgressed dialectical formulation. Although Plato’s theory of reincarnation was assessed by Lisiecki as going too far, he found in it a consolation and an explanation of many phaenomena, for example, the inequality of talents among people.
Despite his admiration for Plato, Lisiecki did not avoid criticising him. Plato was for him a topical thinker and his dialogues – an intellectual challenge. We may say that Lisiecki, as many before him, was carried away by Plato’s enthusiasm, but he never lost sight of the deficiencies of Platonism.
This book is the final result of the research project on S. Lisiecki as a researcher of ancient Greek philosophy, sponsored by National Science Centre.
New Member of AΦR Group
AΦR research group is happy to welcome a new member: Mariam Sargsyan (on the right). On Oct. 1st, 2021, she started to work on her doctoral dissertation on Henryk Jakubanis’ research on ancient philosophy. Her doctoral scholarship is sponsored by Polish National Science Centre as part of the project: Henryk Jakubanis (1879-1949) as a Researcher of Ancient Philosophy and Its Reception.
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