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In the epidemic-related texts printed by Gdańsk publishing houses in the 16th and 17th centuries, we can also find prescriptions. Over time, they gave way to short tax notes on anti-epidemic drugs attached to official forms. Ten publications from 1564–1663 were analyzed, and by comparing their contents, a list of 47 prescriptions and 144 drug names was compiled. The significant difference in the number of prescriptions and drugs was linked to the specificity of the Gdańsk pharmacy market in that period. On the example of works by Bartholomaeus Wagner, Jacob Schadius, Valerius Fidler, Johann Mathesius and prints signed by official city physicians, the evolution of anti-epidemic publications in Gdańsk was characterized and compared with the Gdańsk taxes then in force. The publications by Bartholomaeus Calckreuter and Gerbrand Hajo were cited as a context.
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Clerical persons conducted a variety of botanical research in Poland and Polish lands. The purpose of this article is to describe their achievements in this field of science. No comprehensive study of the clergy’s contribution to the development of this branch of science has been made so far. The study is based on the biographies of botanists and amateur botanists from The Biographical Dictionary of Polish Botanists which is being prepared for publication. The Dictionary comprises 1,773 biographies, including 69 clerical persons. Among these 69 people, the largest group form Catholic priests (21), followed by Jesuits (12, including 1 ex-Jesuit), Protestant clergy (6), and Piarists (6, including 2 ex-Piarists). The fewest were archbishops and subdeacons (1 person each). Among the botanists active in Poland and Polish lands, no clergy of non-Christian denominations were identified. The share of clergy in the total number of botanists was not substantial. They were in the majority only during the period when medical botany flourished (from the mid-14th century to the last quarter of the 16th century). Among the many branches of botany, floristics was most often practiced by the clergy, with as many as 36 people publishing works in this field, followed by ecology (14 people), popularization of botany (7 people), and phycology (5 people). Other branches of botany were less frequently practiced: medical botany and systematics – by 4, ethnobotany, phytogeography, physiology, mycology, nature conservation, and paleobotany – by 3, history of botany and pteridology – by 2, and anatomy, bryology, cytology, dendrology, lichenology, morphology, botanical engraving – by 1 person. With the increase in the number of botanists and the rapid development of experimental-laboratory branches of botany, the importance of clergy in the development of plant science in Poland has started to decline.
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This article aims to analyze (from autopsy) mathematical motifs in the frontispieces to selected seventeenth-century Polish technical-military treatises (by Adam Freytag, Kazimierz Siemienowicz and Józef Naronowicz-Naroński). The frontispiece is considered here an iconographic source for the history of science and technology. The rationale for investigating this topic is the process of the progressive mathematization of technical knowledge in Europe in the 15th-18th centuries. It is the first study of this subject with regard to Polish technical-military writing. Only one other article is devoted to this issue (Delphine Schreuder, When Mars Meets Euclid. The Relationship between War and Mathematical Sciences in Frontispecies of Fortification Treatises, 2021), but it does not cover the works of Polish authors. There are also several general studies (mainly in art or architectural history) on frontispieces to fortification treaties (Armin Schlechter, Engraved Title Pages of Fortification Manuals, 2014, Jeroen Goudeau, Harnessed Heroes: Mars, the Title-page, and the Dutch Stadtholders, 2016). The analysis of the typographic compositions of the discussed frontispieces revealed three main motifs: 1. the connection between the art of war and mathematical knowledge, as far as the knowledge of fortification and artillery is concerned; 2. the degree to which those disciplines - both of which combine the practice of the battlefield with theory - were mathematicized; 3. the crucial importance of drafting and measuring instruments for these sciences. The article’s final section addresses the issue of the rhetorical and persuasive function of the frontispieces.
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Despite the enormous progress in the development of medical sciences in recent decades, surgery is still associated with manual dexterity. The oldest surgical procedures were performed primarily with the hands, and only later with the use of tools that came up as a result of the adaptation of everyday devices. Scientific and technological progress, along with the growing experience of surgeons, influenced the evolution of surgical instruments, which changed both quantitatively and qualitatively. As in other areas of human activity, the most useful surgical tools have constantly evolved and have survived to our times in a form reminiscent of their most ancient precursors. Others, which did not work in practice, today are a curiosity and a trace which allows us to follow the development of surgical thought in the past.
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Wojciech Orliński, Kopernik. Rewolucje, Wydawnictwo Agora, Warszawa 2022, ss. 434Piotr Łopuszański, Mikołaj Kopernik. Nowe oblicze geniusza, Wydawnictwo Fronda, Warszawa 2022, ss. 446Two new biographies: Kopernik. Rewolucje (Warszawa 2022) by Wojciech Orliński and Mikołaj Kopernik. Nowe oblicze geniusza (Warszawa 2022) by Piotr Łopuszański, along with this year’s 550th anniversary of the astronomer’s birth, have triggered the reflection on how to write about Copernicus’s life and work. The article discusses popular and scientific biography as a genre and narrative model in the history of science and scrutinizes the criteria of “good biographical stories”. The work recalls examples of biographical writing on Renaissance thinkers (Leonardo da Vinci and Girolamo Cardano) and the techniques the authors used to humanize their protagonists for modern readers. The second part of the article focuses on analyzing the new Copernican biographies, noting the authors’ presence in the text, narrative strategies, and their attitude to sources and existing historiography. The final remarks concern the possibility of unifying the polyphonic discourse in Copernican studies and sharing new research with a wider audience.
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Herodotus and other Greek authors about loyalty and betrayal in the besieged city This study attempts to determine the frequency of the betrayal of a besieged city in the world of Herodotus. The Histories is an excellent source of knowledge about the attitude of Greeks towards disloyal fellow citizens opening the city gates to the enemy, at a time when siege machines were not yet known, and betrayal (along with hunger and deception) was practically the only chance to conquer the city. Consequently, the question arises: do broader historical and literary studies (testimonies from subsequent decades and centuries) allow us to see the correlation between the popularity of the phenomenon of city betrayal and the development of siege technique. Was the role of betrayal decreasing with time when tools appeared that could assault the city walls? The article is an attempt to answer the question about the importance of loyalty to the local community in the face of war in the context of changing external conditions.
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There is no doubt that justifying Caesar’s subsequent military campaigns using the argument of barbarians’ disloyalty is too frequent to treat them in a different way than the immanent part of his literary creations. Valuation of their conduct in terms of loyalty – deception had to be based on a pattern having strong cultural roots, otherwise it would not fulfill its role. Explaining specifics of Caesar’s war narrative solely by the requirements of political propaganda does not appear to be sufficient, so cultural context should be considered as well. The author casts in doubt the possibility of direct transferring the Greek concept of ‘barbarity’ into Caesar’s narration, paying attention to the Roman perception of the ‘other’ as understood by Georg Simmel instead. Consequently, it is possible to explain why some Gauls were described as loyal, while others were portrayed as prone to betrayal, although they belonged to the same cultural circle. The essence of the difference was the attitude towards Roman rule, not only the non‑Roman origin or different lifestyle. Determinants such as the perennial fear of Gauls (metus Gallicus) and the conviction of Rome’s unique destiny can not be also omitted, especially since they are closely related to the first aspect.
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During the long reign of the Great King Artaxerxes II (404–359 BC) there was a number of events very interesting for the research on the subject of loyalty and betrayal. Shortly after Artaxerxes took the Achaemenid throne, his younger brother Cyrus, called the Younger, revolted against him. Cyrus was the ruler and commander‑in‑chief in Anatolia and it was the region where he revolted. While keeping his revolt secret, he did not reveal his disloyalty towards the King. After gathering the army he marched against Artaxerxes to overthrow him. In the battle fought at Cunaxa, near Babylon, Artaxerxes won the victory while Cyrus died in the battle (401 BC). Among Cyrus’ followers in his expedition against the King were, among others, Orontas and Ariaeus. Orontas was subordinate of Cyrus, who previously revolted against him in Anatolia and then returned to his favors, while during the expedition against the King was accused of plotting against Cyrus for Artaxerxes. As a result he was executed in Cyrus’ camp. Ariaeus too was Cyrus’ subordinate and he commanded part of his army at Cunaxa. Soon after the battle ended he made an agreement with Tissaphernes, one of the commanders of Artaxerxes’ army, and joined the King’s camp. Tissaphernes, in turn, distinguished himself in his invariably loyalty to the King, but some years later (395 BC) was executed by the King’s order. In the 360s against Artaxerxes revolted a number of commanders and dignitaries in Anatolia. There were Datames, Ariobarzanes and Orontas. During Datames’ warfare, he was betrayed by his father‑in‑law and commander of his cavalry Mithrobarzanes, and then by his oldest son Sysinas, who both joined Artaxerxes’ camp. Ariobarzanes, in turn, was left by his son Mithridates, who betrayed him to the King. As regards Orontas, after he had revolted against Artaxerxes, he betrayed to him those who revolted with him, demonstrating his loyalty to the monarch. All the abovementioned data, taken together, provide a good insight into the subject of loyalty and betrayal in the Achaemenid Empire, allowing us to better known and understand the subject.
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Tomasz Łubieński (1784–1870) is a hero of the Napoleonic campaings, active politically and enonomically in the Congress Kingdom. After the November Night, he worked to stop the insurrection movement and reconcile with Russia. His military activity in 1831 raises doubts as to his full involvement. The only member of the November Uprising generalship, after an audience with Nicolas I, was released, and then he continued his opportunist career. The dominant feature of the attitude was calculation, permeating a double betrayal (of the king‑tsar, a revolted nation) and, in accordance with principle of two consciences, double loyalty to the Russian monarch and own fellow countrymen.Zygmunt Sierakowski (1827–1863), during his penal service on the Orenburg line, decides to take up te career of a tsarist officer in order to use the opportunities thus gained for the benefit of the national irredent. After graduating from the Academy of the General Staff in St. Petersburg, a specialized employee of the Ministry of War tries to be “Wallenrod of the reform of the tsarist empire” as well as “Wallenrod of the Polish independence underground”. Loyalty to the Cause resulted in a “double existence” on the verge of mental exhaustion, and his heroic sacrifice made him a martyr for his countryman, an example of treason, falsehood and hypocrisy for Russians.
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Ponad 100 lat temu, w dziesięcioleciu poprzedzającym pierwszą wojnę światową, Wacław Kruszka pisał, że Polak w Ameryce jest kulturowo inny niż Polak w Polsce, ale mimo to odczuwa braterstwo duchowe i lojalność wobec bycia „Polakiem”. To przywiązanie do ojczyzny przodków przejawiało się już w diasporze poprzez starania o zachowanie polskiej kultury i wspieranie ruchów niepodległościowych. Niespełna dekadę po opublikowaniu tych uwag przez Kruszkę polska diaspora po raz kolejny udowodniła swoją lojalność, zbierając armię do walki na polach bitew Europy, aby osiągnąć, a następnie chronić tę niepodległość. Niniejszy artykuł niektóre z tych wysiłków, zwłaszcza stworzenie Błękitnej Armii, jej działania na polach bitew we Francji, a następnie jej rozmieszczenie w Polsce w celu przeciwstawienia się inwazji bolszewickiej w latach 1919–1921.
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The Battle of Lwów in November 1918 is considered one of the most important events of the Polish‑Ukrainian War, which subject was the possession of the Eastern Galicia. In contrast to most of the existing studies devoted to the conflict, the article attempts to scrutinize the attitudes of the Polish population of Lwów towards street fights. Although in such circumstances, the boundary between civilians and soldiers were often smooth, many sources indicate that a significant part of the city’s Polish community were passive. Such behaviors, though should not be identified with the acceptance of the Ukrainian governments in Lwów, contributed to the extension of the fights and made their result uncertain. It seems that, contrary to the common assessment, the Polish reactions were diverse and subject to the influence of many occurrences. In particular, they were shaped by earlier Polish‑Ukrainian relations, the involvement in the independence movement, the fatigue of the experience of the Great War, the intensity of street skirmishes, the actions of the Ukrainian and the Polish military and political management, the material poverty, the plague of crime and the prolonged expectations for a relief. As a result, it can be considered that the Polish success was a work of, diverse in a social origin, the groups of insurgents and the Polish units, which arrived from the Western Galicia, supported only by the part of the civilian inhabitants of Lwów.
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The article describes the activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army unit, which was commanded by second lieutenant Roman Hrobelski (nickname “Brodych”). This unit operated in the years 1945–1947 in the Carpathians and was the westernmost fighter unit of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In 1947, the unit attempted to escape Czechoslovakia to the American occupation zone in Germany. During the march through Czechoslovakia many partisans were captured by the Czechoslovak army. Roman Hrobelski was also caught. Later, it was issued to the Polish authorities, condemned to death and executed.
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The article introduces several comments and reflections on the tensions between the state power and society in People’s Poland in 1956–1980, in the context of the consolidation of power and loyalty of society. During this period, the party and state authorities, wishing to maximally consolidate their power, did everything to achieve the ability and readiness to use all means necessary to control social behavior, to maintain the loyalty of society. It required total ideological unity of the party political elite and iron discipline in the functioning of its institutions. Such a strategy did not prevent social outbreaks. The emerging protests meant above all a real loss of control over society, social disorganization. Wishing to enjoy the loyalty of a society devoid of political alternatives, in other words its tacit consent, it would have to provide it with a certain level of living conditions. However, this task was very difficult, if at all possible, to be implemented in the realities of the centrally planned economy.
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This article considers the “Plague of Justinian” from the perspective of a person living for over a year in a situation of epidemiological threat, constantly “bombarded” in the media with a diversity of information relating to all aspects of the COVID 19 pandemic, including non-medical ones. The plague that erupted in the Byzantine Empire in the XVth year of the reign of the Emperor Justinian (541/542 CE) can certainly be seen as a pandemic. Between 541 and 750, one can note as many as eighteen waves of plague. From written records and on the basis of admittedly only partial archaeological data, we know that the plague affected the entire population of the Byzantine Empire, the barbarian kingdoms in the West, but also neighbouring lands: Ireland, Scandinavia, and Germany. IT very likely also reached lands to the east of the Oder. The article describes the causes and circumstances of the appearance of plague in the Byzantine Empire, its symptoms, its spread, ways of combatting it, and its consequences (including social and economic consequences). The article also attempts to estimate the number of victims of the epidemic in Byzantium.
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In all early-modern Europe, epidemics were a very frequent phenomenon. In the XVth and XVIth centuries, the one effective way of avoiding the danger of infection and near certain death was to flee from a place threatened by plague. In the XVth century, a quite short journey was often sufficient, or else monarchs decided right away on a distant journey to the less-populated Lithuania, attempting to turn this to use in terms of the system of using royal progresses as a way of exercising power. In the XVIth century, especially in the second half, only one move to even a distant locality was insufficient, and the king and members of his family were compelled to move to a succession of places. Kings and their families almost always spent a period of isolation on their own estates. There were exceptions when the ruler was able to enjoy the hospitality of magnate or church estates. Through the nearly two hundred years of Jagiellonian rule, there is only one case (in 1572) when one can see the incautious behavior of the court as contributing to spread of plague. Although in the XVth century one can still find traces of real fear of pestilence among the royals and dramatic descriptions of huge, often exaggerated, losses of population, in the next century an outbreak of plague is seen rather as a passing inconvenience in life, cause of bothersome confusions in the normal functioning of the state or of changes in the royal family’s plans.
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This article aims to analyze narrative material recorded in Prussian and Pommeranian towns in the course of an epidemic of syphilis and smallpox in 1527 and of English sweats in 1529 (chroniclers’ accounts and letters). The point of departure is the extensive and detailed description contained in the Preuβische Chronik by the Gdańsk chronicler Simon Grunau. To test its credibility, the information it contains is compared with other current accounts on the subject of the course of the epidemics. Hitherto the epidemics of 1527 and 1529 have not aroused the interest of scholars writing about Prussia and Pomerania. The author of this article has collected manuscripts and printed source material, which is included in an annex. The article analyzes: the reactions to the appearance of sickness on the part of city authorities noted by chroniclers (including, Simon Grunau, Thomas Kantzow, and Johannes von Freiberg) and of the inhabitants of Szczecin, Gdańsk, Königsberg, Toruń, and Elbląg; descriptions of the remedial measures proposed; and interpretations of the ways the sicknesses spread among people and domestic animals. The article compares these with accounts surviving in contemporary letters, including those of Martin Luther, Prussian Duke Albrecht Hohenzollern, and Philip Melanchthon; it also considers accounts from the extensive medical writing preserved in old printed texts. An analysis of the epidemic of 1527 makes it possible to identify several diseases (smallpox and bird flu) that chroniclers identify with syphilis. The surviving accounts of witnesses point to convergent reactions of people to new illnesses with those observed today.
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The plagues that appeared cyclically and with a relatively high frequency were for the urban communities of the Middle Ages and the early modern era an experience almost permanently inscribed in everyday life. As part of the struggle against epidemics, in addition to administrative measures taken by the authorities, there began to appear from the end of the XVth century anti-epidemic compendia edited by city physicians (thus medical persons with university education) and intended for a wider audience; they became especially popular in the German cultural area during the XVIth century. It was no different in Gdańsk (Danzig), wherea high level of medicine, and the practice of employing as city physicians well-educated medical persons (from German and Protestant universities) by the city authorities, resulted in the publication of numerous prints of this type. In total, in the years 1508−1588 in Gdańsk (Danzig) seven compendiums of this type were published. They contained general recommendations for protection against plague based on Galen’s medical system relating to the so-called six unnatural things (res non naturales); they were part of a trend of popular medical literature containing “rules of health” (regimen sanitatis). The recommendations contained in the prints by Gdańsk (Danzig) city physicians of the XVIth century concerned, therefore, the preservation of unpolluted air in the city, taking sanitary measures, proper diet and physical condition, as well as “surgical” treatments (taking baths in a bathhouse, using laxatives, phlebotomy), and pharmacological care (they were also supervisors of the city pharmacy at that time). These recommendations, however, were not practical advice (contrary to their titles) that could be fully applied in a time of plague; rather, they represented the state of academic medical knowledge of that time and were only a manifestation of its popularization resulting from the medical personnel’s duties. A separate place was found for considerations on a kind of “medical theology”, related to the commonly shared view that the cause of the epidemic was divine anger interpreted as a punishment for sins. This was of particular importance in the confessional order (with a Lutheran dominant) that was taking shape in Gdańsk (Danzig) during the XVIth century.
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The epidemic of plague in Stockholm between 1710 and 1711 was part of a great pandemic that devastated Eastern, Central, and Northern Europe in the first decade of the century and, at the same time, was the greatest demographic catastrophe in the history of the Swedish capital, as a result of which around 40% of the city’s population died. The first cases of plague appeared at the start of 1710; the peak of infections and deaths was in the autumn (October and November); in winter, the disease lessened and the last cases occurred in February 1711. It is estimated that the number of deaths reached 22,000. The suburbs and the poorest districts suffered most. Scarcity and famine, which struck Sweden at the end of the first decade of the XVIIIth century, fostered the rapid spread of the disease in the city and the high rate of mortality. The plague was also fostered by the effects of the war conducted by Charles XII and, particularly, the defeats suffered by the Swedish army and the seizure of the Baltic provinces by Peter the Great, which led to migrations from already plague-infected regions and worsened the already poor sanitary conditions in the city. Refugees from Estonia probably brought the plague to Stockholm.The Swedish authorities undertook measures against any epidemic as early as 1708 after receiving information about the spread of plague on the northern shores of the Baltic. These were limited to monitoring the movement of population. In 1709, quarantine was introduced for arrivals. After the first cases of plague in Stockholm regulations concerning people’s movements were made more strict, epidemic services were set up, and sanitary and public order directives were issued. Announcement of the plague was delayed until mid-September, when the number of deaths rose hugely, and it was obvious that the authorities were not in a position to control the spread of the epidemic. The city was closed, an ordinance against plague was issued regulating especially issues connected with health certificates, travel restrictions, maintaining cleanliness in houses and on the streets, compulsory registration and isolation of the sick, organization of interments, and the use of disinfectants and medicines. The reaction of the Stockholm authorities to the appearance of plague in the city reflected the actions of other Baltic cities struggling with plague at the same time.
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On the basis of research on publications and authentic documents, this article argues that the leftist ideology in Iran was introduced in the course of the systematic development of communist imperialism. It traces the historical development of the Tudeh Party as the most representative manifestation of this ideology. The author demonstrates that the relative paucity of communist ideas and actions in Iran is due to the decidedly narrow segment of society that engages with them, and to the sharp contradiction of atheistic communism to the Islamic basis of the everyday life of the majority who would engage with these ideas. The author puts emphasis on their decisive role in the survival of the Tudeh Party and on their influence on the Bolsheviks, and later on the All-Union Communist Party (b) – the KPSS and the Comintern.
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