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Full Professorship for Tomasz Mróz
We are very glad to announce that Tomasz Mróz, the Head and Initiatior of the Ancient Φilosophy Reception research group at the University of Zielona Góra (Institute of Philosophy), was granted the title of the professor (or full professor, professor ordinarius), the highest academic rank in Poland, by the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, in December 2025. The ceremony of presenting the nominations to the new professors took place in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, official residence of the Polish head of the state, on January 7th, 2026.
The whole procedure of obtaining the professorship took almost a year. All the necessary documents were submitted to the Council of Academic Excellence (CAE) in January 2025. CAE appointed five referees to assess quantity and quality of T. Mróz’s scholarly achievements and his entire academic curriculum. The referees were professors: Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Mikołaj Domaradzki, Janina Gajda-Krynicka, Jerzy Kojkoł and Andrzej Wawrzynowicz. After receiving five positive opinions, CAE, at a session in September 2025, unanimously passed a motion to the President to grant the professor title to T. Mróz.
Congratulations!
The Ceremony of Presenting Doctoral Diplomas
In 2025 there were many important moments for the AΦR group, but one of the most remarkable of them took place on November the 20th. It was the ceremony of presenting the new doctors with their diplomas. The members of the AΦR group took part in such an event for the first time.
The degree holder was Mariam Sargsyan, (now Ph.D.!), who – after taking a traditional doctoral oath in Latin to the Rector Magnificus of the University of Zielona Góra, prof. dr hab. Wojciech Strzyżewski – was officially granted the doctoral title cum laude and the diploma by her academic supervisor, dr hab. Tomasz Mróz.
Some details of Sargsyan’s thesis and a report from her public defence can be found here, while all the information about the projects in which she participated, her activities and achievements can be found on our website tagged with M. Sargsyan or H. Jakubanis, whose life and works were the subject of her dissertation.
A full account of the ceremony on the university’s website, in Polish, can be found here.
Congratulations!
An Interview with our Vilnius Colleagues
As we announced this autumn, Research Council of Lithuania had decided to fund a research project on the reception of ancient philosophy in Vilnius University in the 20th century. Doc. dr Jonas Čiurlionis (Vilnius University) is the PI in this project, who leads the team consisting of dr Mindaugas Stoškus (VU) and dr hab. Tomasz Mróz (University of Zielona Góra).
This post is to advertise the interview with M. Stoškus and J. Čiurlionis, who talked about the project, its premises and objectives. The interview in written form has been recently published on the VU Faculty website in Lithuanian.
Both, J. Čiurlionis and M. Stoškus, focusing on Lithuanian period in the history of VU (1940-now), emphasised the need of philosophers to confront their outlooks, methods, and the very understanding of what philosophy is with ancient philosophers. They both spoke about their lecturers and how they had referred to the Greeks. We cannot agree more with them regarding their views on significance of Greek philosophy for each Western philosopher, philosophical current and national philosophical tradition. Thus it is important to research and assess the impact of Greek ideas on more recent philosophers, for the history of philosophy is not a linear development, but a constant reference to the roots of philosophical thinking. And the core aim of the project is to research who of the VU philosophers in the 20th century, why and how referred to and reflected on ancient philosophers.
A Centenary of the Kosciuszko Foundation
This year a merited institution supporting the development of Polish sciences, arts and humanities, Kosciuszko Foundation, celebrates its centennial anniversary. A decade ago Tomasz Mróz was a Kosciuszko Fellow at the University of Iowa, in the Department of Classics, whose Head at that time was Professor John Finamore.
On October 21st, 2025, in lecturing hall of the university’s library in Zielona Góra, T. Mróz delivered a talk about the history of the Kosciuszko Foundation and exchange programs for Polish scholars to pursue research visits in American academic institutions. The talk was based on the presentation provided by The Kosciuszko Foundation Alumni, but its basic aim was to encourage prospective grantees to submit their project proposals and spend a couple of months in American universities. Moreover, Mróz shared his experience of preparing his proposal, of the interview and of many practical details of his 5 months research stay at the University of Iowa. The audience at the meeting was not numerous, yet highly motivated to develop their academic careers with support of the Foundation. A brief report from the meeting was published on the website of the University of Zielona Góra and on social media of the The Kosciuszko Foundation Alumni.
The talk induced Mróz to recall some memories of his stay in Iowa, in the Department of Classics. Financial support from the Foundation allowed him not only to cover flights, accomodation, and daily expenses, but also to undertake a research trip to the University of Chicago and the Joseph Regenstein Library, where essential manuscript collection for his research was preserved, that is, the legacy of Paul Shorey (1857-1934), an American Plato scholar…
…and Mróz’s project was focused, not surprisingly, on the reception of Plato, that is, on the controversy between Shorey and a Polish Plato scholar, Wincenty Lutosławski (1863-1954), over the methods of reading Plato’s dialogues, their chronological order, etc. During his stay Mróz delivered a paper on this topic at a seminar meeting in the Department of Classics.
It all would not have been possible without a kind invitation from Professor John Finamore (on the left) who was at that time the Head of the Department of Classics and was very helpful for Mróz to settle in Iowa City, feel comfortable in the Department and do his research work in accordance to the plan. Thank you, John! It was a beneficial semester.
A Successful Project Proposal in Vilnius!
We are very glad to announce that the project proposal submitted by doc. dr Jonas Čiurlionis of Vilnius University to Research Council of Lithuania turned out to be successful! The title of the project in Lithuanian is Antikinės filosofijos recepcija XX a. Vilniaus universitete what translates into English as Reception of Ancient Philosophy in the 20th century Vilnius University.
Project will be pursued at the Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University (FsF VU), in 2025-2029. The scope of the project covers reception of ancient philosophy among scholars of Vilnius University, starting with the interwar, Polish period of its history, followed by the Soviet times after the World War II, concluding with research on ancient philosophy in free Republic of Lithuania.
The plan of the project includes organising a mid-term seminar meeting in Zielona Góra, an international conference in Vilnius, not to mention conference presentations and journal papers by all the three researchers employed in the project. And they are doc. dr Jonas Čiurlionis, Ph.D., head of the project and senior researcher, dr Mindaugas Stoškus, Ph.D., researcher, both of FsF VU, accompanied by dr hab. Tomasz Mróz, Ph.D., as senior researcher (UZ).
Polish Political Platos in Brill’s Companion
Brill’s Companion to the Legacy of Greek Political Thought edited by David Carter, Rachel Foxley, and Liz Sawyer is one of the latest volumes in the series (vol. 8, Leiden-Boston 2024). Contributors to this volume investigated a range of responses to issues surrounding the legacy of Greek political thought, exploring the ways in which political thinking has evolved from antiquity to the present day.
One of the chapters in this book was authored by Tomasz Mróz who discussed variety of Polish interpretations of Plato’s political works in studies written by nineteenth-century Polish authors (Plato’s Political Works in Nineteenth-Century Polish Thought, pp. 335-363), including historians of philosophy, philosophers and social thinkers. Their diverse views on the Republic of Plato reflected the wealth of ideas which are present in Plato’s opus. In spite of their various intellectual backgrounds and goals, all these authors found inspiration in Plato’s work for the implementation of his political ideas into their own arguments touching upon contemporary social or political issues, including the questions of democracy, socialism and gender equality.
Let’s say a few words about the authors presented in Mróz’s chapter to give a glance of its content: Bolesław Limanowski (1835-1935), a socialist thinker, regarder Plato as a progressive philosopher, despite his disregard for democracy. For Wojciech Dzieduszycki (1848-1909), a conservative politician, Plato’s socialist and feminist ideas were too destructive for society to be implemented. Wincenty Lutosławski (1863-1954), a famous Plato scholar, considered Plato’s socialism as a natural consequence of his metaphysics and only a transitional step in his development. Stefan Pawlicki (1839-1916), a neo-Scholastic philosopher, claimed that even Plato’s most controversial political ideas (communism and feminism) had stemmed from his deep moral beliefs, but all their shortcomings were later to be corrected by Christianity. Eventually, Eugeniusz Jarra (1881-1973), a historian of legal philosophy, emphasised gender equality and the possibility of social promotion as progressive ideas supporting democracy.
PS.: this chapter was edited and improved by Una Maclean-Hańćkowiak and is presented on Kudos platform.
Oral History Team in the Summer
Summer ’25 has come to an end, the work of “Oral History and Classics” International Research Team ended formally in December ’24, but the co-operation on the final results of the project is still going on. The members of the team met in Jan Kadeřábek’s studio in Dymokury, Czech Republic. J. Kadeřábek – Czech film director without whose participation it would have been impossible to shoot all the interviews with classics’ scholars, including three in Poland (M. Wesoły, B. Dembiński, B. Brzuska) – invited Jaroslav Daneš and Tomasz Mróz to do some work together on English subtitles to the first of the Polish interviews – with professor Marian Wesoły.
J. Kadeřábek and his wife, Veronika, own a gardening facility in Dymokury, Dymopark, including cactusarium and place for social and family events. More important for the project, however, is his studio with all the equipment and software for professional film edition. It was there that J. Daneš and T. Mróz worked to make the interview with prof. Wesoły available for international audiences. Hopefully, it will be posted in the internet soon and the rest of the interviews will follow.
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