ALEKSANDR LVOVICH BLOK (1852-1909) - CHARACTER-SKETCH OF THE MAN AND SCIENTIST (Aleksandr Lwowicz Blok (1852-1909) - portret niespelnionego czlowieka i uczonego)

• Authors: Schiller Joanna
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The article is an attempt of a new outlook first of all upon scientific output of many years' (from 1878 to 1909) lecturer on Russian State Law in the Imperial University of Warsaw - Aleksandr Lvovich Blok. The historians of literature, researchers of life and output of the scientist's son, an eminent poet-symbolist Aleksandr A. Blok, to a high degree were able to reconstruct lot of life and vicissitudes of the Warsaw professor. Thanks to the preserved university archival materials it was possible to add many details to Blok's biography, especially concerning his professional problems. They were connected with dramatic events in his personal life. According to relations of the part of his university co-workers and students, the circumstances even brought about the symptoms of the mental illness. Prematurely elderly he was a man deeply miserable, lonely and deprived of understanding by associates. Up till now his scientific output has not been described precisely enough. Not numerous memories of his contemporaries (Szymon Askenazy, Nikolai Dubrowskii) and even inconspicuous modern Polish researches brought about, in the authoress' opinion, too simplified and schematic character-sketch of Blok as a Russificator and nationalist, mediocre scholar and much worse lecturer. A scientific output of Blok is, indeed, inostensible - he published 2 books only - Master's thesis entitled: 'Wladza panstwowa w spoleczenstwie europejskim. Poglad na polityczna teorie Lorenza Steina i na francuska rzeczywistosc polityczna' (State Authority in European Society. Outlook upon Political Theory of Lorenz Stein and French Political Facts (1880)) and 'Literatura polityczna w Rosji i o Rosji' (Political Literature in Russia and on Russia (1884)) as an introduction to his course in State Law. Two thirds, so over 20 years of work, he gave to the not accomplished conception of creating a new classification of sciences that together with its assumptions was included in work of Blok's disciple - Evgenii Spektorskii. An attempt of objective, free of emotions look at Blok's output to some extent makes us verify one-sidedly its critical estimate. In Blok's writings one can observe several earlier unnoticed values - author's wide mind horizons, his erudition, interesting but not accomplished research conceptions, competence for analysing difficult issues fringing upon social, political and philosophical thought.

Keywords

EN

BLOK ALEKSANDR LVOVICH -MAN AND SCIENTIST

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Instytut Historii Nauki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Journal: Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 11-33
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Schiller Joanna

• Joanna Schiller, Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, ul. Nowy Swiat 72, 00-330 Warszawa. Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

09PLAAAA065514