The Czech members of the Cracow Academy of Arts and Sciences (1872-1918)

The Cracow Scientific Society was founded at a time when Cracow, after having been detached from the remaining Polish territories, which had been caused by wars going on in Europe, obtained the status of a Free City. The autonomy that it was enjoying at the time created opportunities for implementation of certain reforms, initiated at the times of the Commission for National Education (1773-1794), the first ministry for public education in Europe. The establishment of a scientific society in Cracow was among the reforms initiated in that period, many of which had been never finished.

 

On July 24, 1815, the Rectors` Council of the Jagiellonian University in the Free City of Cracow decided on the establishment of the Cracow Scientific Society. The first public session of the Society was held in February 1816; since then, the Society was active almost without interruption although it happened in 1846 that Cracow lost its political independence and was incorporated into Austria.

 

Josef Jireček knew the Cracow Scientific Society very well because he had been its member for several years. After having received the Emperor`s rescript, he took action immediately. The task was not an easy one as the Academy had to be an institution of a different nature. In particular, the number of its members had to be considerably reduced, which meant that the whole was a rather delicate matter.

 

Josef Jireček`s first move was to write a letter to the Society`s President Joseph Majer and to invite him for talks to Vienna. To start with, the draft Statute had to be produced and later given the Emperor for approval.

The preparatory works were proceeding quickly despite the fact that in November 1871, Minister Jireček, who had had a very positive attitude towards the undertaking, handed in his resignation together with the whole government. The role of the negotiator with the Cracow Scientific Society fell therefore to his successor Karol Stremayer who was also charged with completing the Society`s transformation.

 

The Statute of the newly founded Academy of Arts and Sciences was approved by a decision of the Emperor Franz Joseph I, reached on February 16, 1872. The Emperor nominated his brother Archduke Karl Ludwig as the Academy`s Protector and the function of the Deputy Protector fell to Alfred Potocki, the former Prime Minister of the government in Vienna.

 

The Academy was assigned to deal with research issues relating to different fields of science: philologies (mainly the Polish and the Slavic ones), the history of literature, the history of art, philosophical, political and legal sciences, history and archaeology, mathematical, life, Earth and medical sciences. In order to make it possible for the Academy to deal with so many research topics, it was divided into three divisions: a philological division, an historical-philosophical division, a division for mathematics and natural sciences. Each division was allowed to establish its own commissions dealing with different branches of science.

 

The Statute made it obligatory for the Academy to hold plenary and divisions` sessions as well as to organize meetings of the respective commissions. The most important of them were the annual plenary public sessions. According to the respective provision of the Statute, such session was to be held each time « on May 3, the anniversary of the Academy`s establishment ».

 

It would be difficult to say what deserved more admiration in this regard – either the diplomatic skills of Alfred Potocki or the political insight of Franz Joseph I. The point is that the date of May 3 was not a neutral one. It commemorated the adoption of the Government Act, later called The Constitution of May 3, 1791, by the Great Sejm (parliament) in Warsaw. It was the second in the world (after that of the United States of America) and first ever written constitution in Europe that laid down the legal system of a state. On the first anniversary of this day, the date of May 3 was announced a public holiday in Poland. Because of a Russian military intervention that ensued, the Constitution of May 3, 1791 was in force only for a little longer that one year. The holiday was abolished and in the period of Poland`s captivity, it was prohibited.

 

The first members of the Academy were chosen from among the members of the Cracow Scientific Society. It was a 12-person group including only the local members, approved by the Emperor who also elected the first President of the Academy (Józef Majer) and its Secretary General (Józef Szujski) from this group.

 

By the end of 1872, the organization of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow was completed. It had its administration, management and three divisions that were led by their directors and secretaries. It also had three commissions, taken over from the Cracow Scientific Society, namely: the Physiographic Commission, the Bibliographic Commission and the Linguistic Commission. At that time, the Academy had only 24 active members in total who had the right to elect non-resident and foreign members. Each election had to be approved by the Emperor.

 

In February 1873, the Academy of Arts and Sciences was functioning so smoothly that it could actively participate in the celebrations of the 400th birth anniversary of Mikołaj Kopernik. What came too late was its first public plenary session. According to the Statute, it should have been held on May 3, 1873. However, this planning was impaired by the Vienna Exhibition held at exactly the same time. Its President was the Academy`s Protector Archduke Karl Ludwig. It was for this reason that the inaugural session of the Academy was held only on May7. The introduction speech was made in German by Karl Ludwig and courteously answered – in German as well – by President Józef Majer. The further proceedings were held in Polish, as in line with the Statute. After the speeches had been delivered, a list of candidates for the Academy`s new members was read out. There were five persons on this list, three of which were Czech: Josef Jireček, František Palacký and Karl Rokitansky. They were all former members of the Cracow Scientific Society, already nonexistent at the time. They were approved by the Emperor Franz Joseph in his rescript of July 7, 1873.

 

Josef Jireček (1825-1888) became a member of the Philological Division. He was an expert on the Czech literature, an ethnographer and an historian. Apart from being a scientist, he was also active in politics as the Minister of Education, a Member of Parliament and a Member of the Council of State.

 

František Palacký (1798-1876) became a member of the Historical-Philosophical Division of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow. As an historian and a politician, he was one of the main contributors to the Czech rebirth in the XIX ^th century. His most important work is The History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia, published in Czech and in German.

 

The third person from this group – Karl Rokitansky (1804-1878)- became a member of the Division for Mathematics and Natural Sciences. He was one of the most noted experts on anatomy and pathology, a professor of the university of Vienna. In 1848, he became the Honorary Rector of the University in Prague.

 

The mere fact that the first foreigners had been elected as members of the Academy was a perfect example of the criteria according to which the Academy selected its active members. From among the humanists, it accepted those researchers whose research had been linked to Polish matters and issues. As for members of the Division for Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the Academy invited scientists enjoying exceptional recognition in the world. These criteria were binding throughout all the following  years.

 

Until the end of World War I, the Czech representatives of social sciences were the biggest group among the foreign members of the Academy. As for the foreign members, it were the Poles from the territories annexed by Russia and Prussia as well as those living in exile in other countries who made up the biggest group.

 

The Academy elected two other humanists as its members during the session held on October 31, 1877 and these were: Václav Svatopluk Štulc (1814-1887) and Antonin Randa (1834-1914). The Emperor Franz Joseph approved of these two decisions only a year later in a document of November 9, 1878. This might have been caused by the political attitude of Štulc who had been against the House of Habsburg.

 

Václav Svatopluk Štulc became a member of the Philological Division. He was a true Czech patriot, a poet, a writer and a magazines` editor. In addition to this, he was a prelate in Visegrád. The Polish milieu knew him well thanks to his former activities at the Cracow Scientific Society where he had many close friends. He translated Polish literature into Czech, i.a. books of Adam Mickiewicz.

 

Antonin Randa became a member of the Historical-Philosophical Division. He was an outstanding expert on civil law. His works had a great impact on the Austrian legislation and – however indirectly – on the Polish legislature, too, in particular on the law of the ownership and compensation. He had received a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Bologna and from the Jagiellonian University of Cracow.

The next Czech scholar who became a member of the Academy of Arts and Scientists in Cracow was Václav Vladivoj Tomek (1818-1905), an historian, an archivist, a politician and a teacher. It was the Historical-Philosophical Division that elected him which happened on May 2, 1881. Six months later, on November 14, this election was approved by the Emperor. The person who – already in the years before - facilitated the contacts of Tomek with the Polish scientific milieu in Cracow was František Palacký.

 

Tomek was a doctor of Philosophy and since 1882, a professor of history at the Czech university in Prague. His most important works are the monumental Chronicles of the City of Prague (12 volumes published between 1855 and 1901), The History of the University of Prague and The History of the Czech Kingdom.

 

On May 14, 1888, the Cracow Academy again elected a Czech scholar as its active member. This time, it was a professor of Czech and Slovak philology at the university in Prague Jan Gebauer (1838-1907), who was to replace Václav Štulc, who had died a few months earlier. The Emperor approved the election on November 24, 1888. Gebauer was a specialist for the old-Czech language. He had written a detailed (three volumes) Historical Grammar of the Czech Language and  The Vocabulary of the Old Czech Language. In 1900, he received a doctorate honoris causa from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.

 

Further Czech members of the Cracow Academy were elected at the session on December 4, 1899. This time, again humanists became new members: Zikmund Winter (1846-1912), Emil Ott (1845-1924) and Jaroslav Goll (1846-1929). Their candidatures were accepted by the Emperor on May 17, 1900.

 

Zikmund Winter became a member of the Philosophical Division filling the position vacated by the death of Josef Jireček. He was a writer, an historian and a secondary school teacher. As a literary talented person, he was the author of short stories relating to the history of Bohemia. His books: The Historical Arabesques, published in 1888, The Prague Images (1893), The Old-Prague Short Stories from the XVI ^th and XVII ^th centuries were extremely popular. So were many others.

 

Emil Ott and Jaroslav Goll became members of the Historical-Philosophical Division. They were professors of the Czech university in Prague as well as its rectors.

 

Emil Ott was a renowned expert on civil law and also an historian of law, enjoying recognition both in Bohemia and abroad. He belonged to several international law societies and organizations.

 

Jaroslav Goll, an historian, a poet, an essayist and an editor of Czech poetry, was also an acclaimed scientist. He established his own school of historiography at the Czech university in Prague that focused on analyzing the history of Bohemia as juxtaposed against the history of Europe.

 

Two years later, on November 29, 1901, Jan Kvičala (1834-1908) and Jaromir Čelakovský (1846-1914) were elected as members of the Cracow Academy. The Emperor accepted both candidatures in the document dated May 13, 1902. Kvičala became a member of the Philosophical Division and Čelakovský – a corresponding member of the Historical-Philosophical Division.

 

Jan Kvičala, a classical philologist, a teacher and a politician belonged to those employees of the university in Prague who – after the university had been split into two parts, namely a Czech one and a German one –remained at the Czech university. He was the first professor of classical philology at this university. He initiated an editorial series in the framework of which Czech translations of ancient literature were published. He himself was a translator and the author of critical editions of texts written by Salustis and Herodot as well as of comments to the works of Plato, Homer, Sophocles and many others.

 

Jaromir Čelakovský was a political activist, too. He had been educated in law but- as an historian and archivist by the choice of heart - he worked as a professor of law at the Czech university in Prague. He was also the Rector of this university. In addition to this, he was the Director of the Royal Main Archives of the City of Prague and the President of the Historical Society in Prague. In his research, he dealt mainly with the history of the Czech law.

 

The Emperor`s rescript approving the election of the next member of the Cracow Academy was dated May 11, 1903.This time, it was František Vejdovský (1849-1939), a professor of zoology and comparative anatomy of the Czech university in Prague. The Division for Mathematics and Natural Sciences elected František Vejdovský during the session held on November 17, 1902. At that time, the new member of the Cracow Academy was an already well-known author of publications on anatomy, morphology and taxonomy. In the following years, he gained world recognition thanks to his pioneering works on cytology and embryology. He was an appreciated scientist, held a honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge, and was a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and Société de Biologie in Paris. He was also a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Zagreb, Société Zoologique in Paris, Zoological Society in London and many others.

 

Another eminent Czech scientist who had enjoyed international recognition comparable to that of František Vejdovský was chemist - Bohuslav Brauner (1855-1935), was elected by the same Division for Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Cracow Academy of Arts and Sciences at its session on December 4, 1908, and became its member on May 21, 1909, pursuant to the respective document of the Emperor. In his research, he paid a special attention to the chemical properties of the lanthanides – he determined their atomic masses and placed them in the Mendeleev`s periodic table. He proved that beryllium is a divalent element and anticipated the existence of promethium (a radioactive chemical element that does not occur in nature).

 

Bohuslav Brauner held a honorary degree awarded by the Medical University in Manchester and was an honorary member of the local Chemical Society, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in New York and a member of the International Commission of Atomic Masses.

 

The last Czech scientists who had been elected as members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow before the end of the World War I were two humanists: Karel Kadlec (1865-1928) and Václav Vondrák (1859-1925).

 

Karel Kadlec – a lawyer, an historian of law, a teacher and a writer was elected as a corresponding member of the Historical-Philosophical Division during the session held on December 10, 1910, which was confirmed on May 19, 1911. Kadlec, who also used the pseudonym Bohdan Přehořovský, was a professor of the history of the Slovak legislation at the Charles University in Prague. He was the co-author of the Czech constitution. The focus of his scientific papers was the history of the Czech law as well as that of other Slovak countries. He was a member of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, the Serbian Academy of Arts and Scientists in Belgrade and the Yugoslavian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb as well as the Ukrainian Scientific Society in Kiev.

 

Václav Vondrák was a Czech Slavicist, a professor of the Slavic literature and languages at the university in Vienna. He was elected a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow on February 8, 1918, and as quickly as three months later (on May 17), this election was accepted. Vondrák`s research focused on the comparative grammar of the Slavic languages, the Czech language and the Old Church Slavonic language. He was the author of many publications and the editor of the relics of Old-Slavic writing. His books were published in Czech and in German.

 

The founding of the Czech Royal Academy of Sciences in Prague in 1890 resulted in the expansion of the cooperation of Czech and Polish scientists. The initiator of taking action in this direction was Josef Hlàvka (1831-1908), the first President of the Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences. He found a true ally in Stanisław Smolka, who had been the Secretary General of the Cracow Academy in the years 1890-1903. First of all has been extended exchange of publications. All the members of the Czech Academy regularly received issues of the „Bulletin“ and the „Reports“ of the Cracow Academy. Besides, members of the Czech Academy had a privilege to receive for free on demand each publication they needed from among those published by the Academy in Cracow.

Both Academies – the one in Cracow and the one in Prague – decided to organize a common archaeological expedition to Egypt whose initiator was the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow. By that time, it had already had significant achievements in this field due to the excavation works of Tadeusz Smoleński, carried out in the Upper Egypt and in the Libyan Desert. It was Jaromir Čelakovský who joined the undertaking from the Czech side. A decision was reached to encourage the interest of the Academy in Vienna for this project. As a result of this, the expedition to Egypt set out in 1910. The scholars from Cracow, Prague and Vienna took part in it. It was one of the most interesting Czech-Polish undertakings realized before World War I.