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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 November 2021
Abstract
Eminent Polish Arabist, Iranist and Turkologist,Tadeusz Kowalski (1889–1948), was not a native ofKraków but was born in Châteauroux, France. When hewas three years old, his family settled in Kraków.As the future showed, Kowalski connected the rest ofhis life with this city. He had particularly strongties to the Jagiellonian University and the PolishAcademy of Arts and Sciences. In Kraków he left hislegacy (the private archive), which is preserved inthe Archive of Science of the Polish Academy ofSciences and of the Polish Academy of Arts andSciences.
Keywords: Tadeusz Kowalski, Oriental studies in Kraków,Jagiellonian University, Polish Academy of Arts andSciences, Archive of Science of the Polish Academyof Sciences and of the Polish Academy of Arts andSciences in Kraków
One hundred years ago, in 1919, eminent Arabist,Iranist and Turkologist, Tadeusz Kowalski, took overthe newly created Chair of Oriental Philology at theJagiellonian University – the first one inindependent Poland. He was not a native of Krakówand was born on June 21, 1889 in Châteauroux,France. His father, Teofil Kowalski (1843–1895), aPolish emigrant, worked in the French textileindustry; his mother Kazimiera, née Kuszpecińska(1858–1927), was a daughter of a Higher Court judgein Kraków (Lewicki, 1990, p. 283). When TadeuszKowalski was three years old, his family settled inKraków, which at that time was in theAustro-Hungarian Empire (Dziurzyńska, Ďurčanský,& Kodera, 2007, p. 277). As the future showed,he connected the rest of his life with this city.Here he completed St. Anne's Secondary School andhere, after Oriental studies in Vienna, Strasbourgand Kiel, he obtained his habilitation at theJagiellonian University in 1914.
In Kraków, after receiving his doctorate in 1911,Tadeusz Kowalski married Zofia Medwecka (1890–1976),then a student of medicine in Vienna. During theWorld War I the Kowalskis lived for a year inKościelisko (near Zakopane) and later in Kraków andin Vienna. In 1918 they settled permanently inKraków (Lewicki, 1990, pp. 284–285). Their children:daughter, Anna (1920–2009), ethnographer, and son,Kazimierz (1925–2007), zoologist and President(2000–2006) of the Polish Academy of Arts andSciences (hereinafter: PAAS), were born here. Whileliving in Kraków the family moved several times.
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