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Plato in Poland book available in OA
This post is only to announce that the book by T. Mróz, Plato in Poland 1800-1950. Types of Reception – Authors – Problems (Academia Verlag/Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden Baden 2021), as a result of the agreement with the publisher, is now available free in open access on the Nomos Verlag website here and in the repository of the University of Zielona Góra, here. Enjoy!
“Oral History and the Classics” Team in Warsaw
On May 22th, 2024, Oral History and the Classics project team was honoured to pay a visit to Doctor Barbara Brzuska, who kindly agreed to be interviewed in her apartment in Warsaw. Dr Brzuska is another Polish scholar who gave her consent to answer our questions. She is a specialist in Latin, Latin literature, and – most importantly for AΦR – has published numerous works on the history of reception of antiquity in modern times and on the history of teaching classical topics in the 19th and 20th centuries, researching a variety of phaenomena of classical receptions among writers, poets, and philosophers. Let us add that we have previously managed to interview two Polish specialists in ancient philosophy, namely prof. Bogdan Dembiński in February 2024 in Katowice and prof. Andrzej Wesoły in December 2023 in Poznań. These two meetings have already been announced here and here. All these Polish interviews, plus Czech and Italian ones, furnished with English subtitles, will be included in the Oral History and the Classics collection on the website of the University of Hradec Králové.
Dr B. Brzuska is now a retired lecturer of classical culture and instructor of Latin language. Her entire academic career was related to the University of Warsaw. One of her most important works was a study of the history of classical languages and culture in the Main School of Warsaw, a university that was working for a very limited time of a few years in Warsaw under Russian rule. This study, apart from a comprehensive investigation of its topic, offers much more to the readers, for it includes the background of the school and its later influences.
During the interview Dr Brzuska emphasised the role of popular works for wider audiences in instilling the interest in classics. It was also her case, for those were the books by Jan Parandowski (1895-1978) that attracted her to the classical world and subsequently inspired to learn classical languages. She recalled her memories of her university years and outstanding professors, with Kazimierz Kumaniecki (1905-1977) in the first place. Dr Brzuska, as a teacher of Latin with decades long experience, shared her views on the evolution of teaching methods and on the contemporary digital aids for learning, which can be of great help and a trap at the same time.
The interview was carried out by T. Mróz, while Jan Kadeřábek, a cinematographer and a cameraman, took care of all the technicalities. Both were very thankful for the casual and friendly atmosphere which was created by their kind and warm host and interviewee.
On the photo:
Dr B. Brzuska, T. Mróz and J. Kadeřábek
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.
On W. Tatarkiewicz’s (Mis)fortunes
The Days of Foreign Languages took place again at the University of Zielona Góra, and it was their VIIth edition. Their general topic this year, that is, lack, absence, deficiency, violence, exclusion etc., did not come as a surprise in current circumstances.
Two members of AΦR group took part in this event. Mariam Sargsyan delivered a paper in Russian on various metaphors with which the notion of “consciousness” is described, but it was Adrian Habura whose presentation was devoted to the reception of ancient philosophy.
His paper discussed the problem of happiness and well-being in Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s (1886-1880) life and his autobiographical notes, esp. the chapter titled Beneficial misfortunes (Korzystne niepowodzenia). Habura confronted it with Tatarkiewicz’s treatise Analysis of Happiness and some other of his ethical writings. He attempted to demonstrate that Tatarkiewicz, almost like a Homeric hero, many times in his life turned his misfortunes into success, and how Aristotle’s philosophy and Tatarkiewicz’s own research on Aristotle – from his Ph.D. thesis in Marburg to mature works in Warsaw – helped him develop his attitude to the problems of human life in general, and how his theory of happiness was rooted in Greek philosophy, above all in Aristotle.
A View of Plato’s Paths in Poland
A lengthy, 480 pages, monograph book by T. Mróz was published in Academia Verlag’s series “Academia Philosophical Studies” as vol. 75. The title of the book is Plato in Poland 1800-1950. Types of Reception – Authors – Problems.
Some material from the book, including table of contents, is available on publisher’s website. The book attempts to make Polish Plato reception available to non-Polish readers. The years 1800-1950 cover essential phaenomena in modern Polish philosophy, for they encompass periods of reception of Western philosophical trends and the development of the Lvov-Warsaw school, neo-Messianism and neo-Scholasticism. The book discusses how each of these phaenomena contributed to interpreting Plato. The material is divided into three main parts focused on various types of reception.
The book is a final outcome of a project sponsored by Polish government within the National Programme for the Development of Humanities funding scheme. An essential collaborator in this project was Una Maclean-Hańćkowiak, who patiently edited the author’s style.
Wojciech Dzieduszycki as a Greek-Style Sage
Another paper from AΦR group was included in previously presented volume of “Civitas”. In her paper Anna Droś presented “A Conservative Thinker and a Greek-Style Sage”, a professor of Lvov University and a politician, count Wojciech Dzieduszycki (1848-1909), who was compared by his contemporaries to Socrates and who actually followed Socrates’ eccentric ways of behaviour, and especially his negligence for clothing.
Socrates was an ideal of a philosopher and a conservative for Dzieduszycki. In Socrates he saw a political thinker, a devoted citizen, and interpreted his views as a cure for deficiencies of modern world.
Full paper, in Polish, can be downloaded here.
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