Danuta Ciesielska

The article aims to present previously unpublished memoirs of mathematician Franciszek Leja, spanning the years 1885–1958 – from his birth to his participation in the International Congress of Mathematicians in Edinburgh. Leja recalls the childhood of a peasant son struggling with poverty, his education at the folk school in Grodzisk and the public school in Leżajsk. Then he describes his studies at a gymnasium in Jarosław and at the University of Lviv (Lwów). He recalls the difficult path to obtaining a doctorate and habilitation at a time when he had to balance his scientific studies with work in Galician junior high schools (1910–1924) and briefly describes his scholarship in France and England (1912/1913, scholarship from the Kretkowski Fund). The penultimate section consists of Leja’s recollections from a 12-year period of work at the Warsaw University of Technology, where he was a professor of mathematics at the Faculty of Chemistry, and when he took over the chair of mathematics at the Jagiellonian University in 1936 and then from his scientific visit to France, which took place on the eve of the war. The last, unfinished chapter was devoted to his recollections of the arrest of Jagiellonian University professors on 6 November 1939, his clandestine teaching during the war, and his post-war visits abroad. The memoirs are preceded by Leja’s short biography. Numerous footnotes were added, expanding and correcting the information provided in the original text and illustrations.

The article was inspired by a group photo of twelve young Polish scientists, taken in the summer of 1907 in Göttingen. Some of the men portrayed in it – then still scholarship holders and students – gained worldwide fame a few years later, and almost all of them became famous scientists in pre-World War II Poland. The original of the photo, ref. no. ZF.263, was stored in the Archives of Polish Mathematicians in Sopot and is currently in the Central Mathematical Library of the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CBM IMPAN) in Warsaw. This photograph is a valuable memento for the history of Polish science. The article aims to reestablish the actual faces and names connection of the people in the photo since even renowned experts in photography had problems with their proper identification. The text gives examples of publications with a reproduction of the photo ZF.263 (or part of it) where some people are identified incorrectly.

The main goal of the research project is an evaluation of the impact of studies and scientific visits of Polish scientists in the world mathematical centre, which was Georg-August Univeristy in Göttingen, on their careers.

The results presented in this report focuses on the scholarship holders of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków and the Jagiellonian University. A time-frame for the article are the dates of visit of the first and the last scholarship holders in Göttingen. A brief history of the Osławski’s Fund, Dr. Władysław Kretkowski’s and Kazimierz Klimowski’s Fund and the fellows – mathematicians: Leon Chwistek, Antoni Hoborski, Stanisław Kępiński, Stanisław Ruziewicz, Włodzimierz Stożek, Władysław Ślebodziński and Franciszek Włodarski are presented in the article. The archival documents cited in the article are presented in print for the first time.

An analysis of the reasons that urged young Polish scholars to choose Göttingen for their foreign studies is given. An evaluation of the impact of their studies in Göttingen on their future research areas was done.

An introduction to the article is a very brief history of mathematicians, mathematics and mathematical education in Georg-August University in Göttingen in the period 1885–1914.

This article is a partial report of research on mathematical education at the Jagiellonian University in the period 1860‒1945. We give a description of the selected lectures: Calculus of Probability by Michał Karliński, Analytic Geometry by Franciszek Mertens, Marian Baraniecki’s lectures, Higher seminar (Weierstrass preparation theorem) by Kazimierz Żorawski, Principles of Set theory by Zaremba and Analytic function and Number theory by Jan Sleszyński. Moreover, short biographical notes of professors of mathematics of the Jagiellonian University Michał Karliński, Franciszek Mertens, Marian Baraniecki, Stanisław Kępiński, Kazimierz Żorawski, Stanisław Zaremba and Jan Sleszyński ‒ are given.

The main purpose of the article is to present the role of the Dr. Władysław Kretkowski Fund in the development of mathematics in Kraków. Kretkowski graduated in mathematics from Sorbonne (1867) and he received his PhD from the Jagiellonian University (1882). He was a private docent at the Polytechnic and University of Lvov. Kretkowski donated his huge fortune to mathematicians in Kraków. From 1911 to 1920 the Kretkowski Fund sponsored very modern mathematical lectures and seminars at the Jagiellonian University. Kretkowski also donated his extensive library for the use of the mathematical seminar in Kraków. This paper lists the lectures financed from the Kretkowski Fund as well as the research fellows of the Fund (with the time and place of studies). This is followed by a presentation of the state of the Kretkowski Library, now the property of the Institute of Mathematics of the Jagiellonian University. The article provides also a brief biography of Władysław Kretkowski (1840–1910).