The President of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Kazimierz Nitsch and the Saint-Petersburg Academy of Sciences (according to archival documents)1

Kazimierz nitsch2 (1874–1958), together with his elder colleagues Jan Łoś (1860–1928) and Jan Rozwadowski (1867–1935), was the founder of the Polish or, more precisely, Krakow linguistic school. Each of these scholars deserves special attention, each one contributed a great deal to the development of Slavonic studies and all three were closely connected with Russian linguistics. K. Nitsch was born on February 1, 1874, in Krakow (and died in the same place on September 26, 1958). After graduating from Jagiellonian University in 1898 and obtaining the title of doctor, he began working in the same university as a lecturer from 1905 and then professor of Slavonic philology from 1910. His career there was broken in 1917 when K. Nitsch became a professor in the University of Lvov. In 1920 he returned to Krakow University, where he stayed till the end, working as a professor of Slavonic

On May 19, 1911, K. Nitsch was elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Philological Department and, on June 17, 1924, he became a full member.In 1924 he became the secretary of the Philological Department (while the director of the department was J. Rozwadowski), discharging his duties for some time in 1925 (when J. Rozwadowski left his post due to his election as the president of the Academy) and returning with the election to the post of director of J. Łoś in 1927.K. Nitsch worked in this status till 1936 (the directorship of J. Łoś ended in 1928 owing to his death).After the war (in 1945), K. Nitsch became the director of the Philological Department, which he left soon afterwards due to his election as president of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (1946).After the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences ceased to function, K. Nitsch (who stayed in the post of president till 1957) and the general secretary Jan Dąbrowski (1890-1965) kept their positions in order to solve the problems connected with the Academy's foreign branches, which were created in Paris and Rome.In addition, K. Nitsch worked actively in different commissions and committees, set up in the Academy of Arts and Sciences.Thus, between 1935 and 1952, K. Nitsch held the post of chairman of the Language Commission founded in the Philological Department (in this Commission he performed the function of secretary even before his election to the Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1904-1918).In 1935, he was the chairman of the Orphographical Committee, in 1945-1947 -the Committee of Geographical Names, then in 1947-1952 -the Committee of the Study of Polish Dialects3 .In 1928, K. Nitsch became the editor of the "Słownik staropolski" ("Old Polish Dictionary")4 staying in this position till 1952, and in 1947-1952 he headed the specially established academic Committee of the Old Polish Dictionary.Apart from the academic projects, K. Nitsch was a delegate in the ministerial Commission on the elaboration of topographical names (1929-1933).
The scholar was the author of more than 700 works on dialectology, history of the Polish language, theoretical grammar, lexicography and onomastics5 .He became the creator of Polish dialectology, took the leading role in the work on the album of dialects6 and started work on the new dictionary of Polish dialects.
K. Nitsch was the editor of a number of publications and philological journals.With his direct participation, the following periodicals appeared: "Rocznik Slawistyczny" ("Annual of Slavs", 1908)7 , "Lud Słowiański" ("Slavonic People", 1929)8 and "Język Polski" ("The Polish Language", 1913), of which he was the editor-in-chief from 1919.K. Nitsch attached great importance to the popularization of linguistic scholarship.He participated in the creation of the Towarzystwo Miłośników Języka Polskiego (Society of the Enthusiasts of the Polish Language; 1920) and the Polskie Towarzystwo Językoznawcze (Polish Linguistic Society; 1925).
K. Nitsch was elected as a member of different academies of sciences, first of all of Slavic countries (Bulgarian, Serbian and Slovenian), Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Paris, and some others.Moreover, he became an honorable corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1933).However, the Krakow scholar was in contact with the Russian academic environment much earlier, even at the beginning of his research work.
In the collection of the Chancellery of the Department of Russian Language and Literature, stored in the Saint-Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPbB ARAS), documents that prove these academic contacts are kept.The reason is that K. Nitsch, while being a privatdozent of Jagiellonian University, due to the recommendation of J. Rozwadowski and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929), was invited to become an author (for the part on Polish dialectology) of the multi-volume "Encyclopedia of Slavonic Philology" ("Энциклопедия славянской филологии"), which was published by the Russian Academy of Sciences under the lead of Aleksey A. Shakhmatov (1864-1920)9 and the editorship of Vatroslav Jagić (1838-1923) from 1908.For these aims, to some extent, K. Nitsch in 1908 planned to make a several-week-long journey in July-September to the Polish Kingdom, then part of the Russian Empire, in order to collect dialectological material.He sent a letter on May 5, 1908, to the Academy, while on a scientific journey to Sofia 10 , with the request to receive documents from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.Those documents could simplify the stay and work of a foreigner in those territories and ensure the leniency of local authorities 11 .In the documents there is a note dated May 13, 1908, and signed by the academic A. A. Shakhmatov, who headed the Department of Russian Language and Literature.The note provides information about the pleas to the Ministry of Internal Affairs concerning the covering letter for K. Nitsch to be used during his journey through the provinces of the Polish Kingdom 12 .
He received such a permit for the year 1909 in March the next year (March 3). A. A. Shakhmatov informed K. Nitsch about this, enclosing the received document ("Open letter") to the official letter dated March 10/23, 190913 .However, in 1908 K. Nitsch already made a short trip to the Polish Kingdom's lands, thanks to a grant he had received from the Academy of Arts and Sciences.In January-March 1909, the scholar visited St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vilnius and Warsaw and became acquainted personally with the academic circles of these cities14 .
The dialectological journey, planned for the year 1909, took place at the beginning of the summer.We know this from other parts of the documents containing information on the subject: K. Nitsch's personal letters to A.A. Shakhmatov, whom the Krakow linguist met during his stay in Saint Petersburg 15 .In the first of these letters, dated June 07/20, 190916 (from Grodno), the Krakow linguist reported that he was traveling through the Polish Kingdom's lands for about a month and was going to return to Krakow soon.This letter also shows how important it was to have the "open letter" as every gendarme and guard "demands an identity card and a passport doesn't satisfy him"17 .
From a letter dated April 6, 1910, we find out that K. Nitsch asked for an "open letter" again for the year 1910 to make a journey to the Polish Kingdom and Lithuania, as he was planning to visit the Grodno and Vilnius provinces and was going to start the expedition at the beginning of July 1910 18 .The Ministry denied the application for a covering letter that time with the explanation that "the Austrian authorities hamper Russian people" (as indicated by A. A. Shakhmatov in his letter to K. Nitsch dated June 3, 1910).In the same letter, A. A. Shakhmatov wrote: "This caused astonishment and perplexity in the Academy.The board of the Academy decided to communicate with the Ministry and try to settle the affair" 19 .As a result, the Department of Russian Language and Literature provided K. Nitsch with its own certificate, which A. A. Shakhmatov mentions in a later document 20 .
Later, K. Nitsch (already signing as a professor of Slavonic philology) again sent a letter to the Academy with a request to intercede for the "open letter" concerning his planned trip to the Polish Kingdom in April-May.In the event of refusal from the Ministry, he asked the Academy for its certificate 21 .This letter has no date.In the text, K. Nitsch mentions that he had such a letter two years ago (it is known that he received such a letter in 1909 and everything seems to indicate that he had not received another one).In addition, K. Nitsch wrote that "last year" he also submitted such an application which was denied by the Ministry, the scholar believing that the reason was the fact that he had mentioned Lithuania in the request.Here, it seems to be obvious that he refers to the letter of the year 1910.Thus, even though this letter is placed among the Chancellery's documents for 1912 (with the other papers that appeared in response to K. Nitsch's request (see below), the letter itself must have been written in 1911.On January 7, 1912 K. Nitsch sent a personal letter to A. A. Shakhmatov, where he asked again for an "open letter" with the hope (even not a great one, according to his words), that "this time the Ministry will be less suspicious".He added a note based on his own experience to his request: "…Without an »open letter« the journey through the Kingdom is not too pleasant, because even with it one cannot rely on the support of the authorities but only on them not breeding impediments" 22 .
In 1912, the Department of Russian Language and Literature issued its certificate again (with the signature of A. A. Shakhmatov as the chairman) concerning K. Nitsch's scientific journey from May 15 to September 15, where it addressed "the local authorities with the request to assist Mr. Nitsch" and assured that the board of the Academy had informed the governor of this general-governity of the scholar's arrival to the Polish Kingdom's provinces 23 .In the letter to K. Nitsch dated April 4, 1912, A. A. Shakhmatov explained: "Unfortunately, we have failed to succeed in getting another paper for you except the sent one.We have made attempts, but the Ministry of Internal 20 SPbB ARAS, F. 9, L. 1, Fl. 977, p. 73. 21SPbB ARAS, F. 9, L. 1, Fl. 977, pp.71-71v. 22SPbB ARAS, F. 134, L. 3, Fl.1066, p. 8. From that time in the letters of K. Nitsch his new address appeared (for the previous address -see note 34): "Kraków X, Salwator, ul.Gontyna, 12". 23SPbB ARAS, F. 9, L. 1, Fl. 977, pp.73-74.
Affairs refuses on principle (not in the special case).I guess that the Academy board's communiqué to the Warsaw general-governor will be enough" 24 .On April 12, 1912, K. Nitsch sent a letter of thanks to A. A. Shakhmatov for the received certificate with the note: "…Though, unfortunately, it cannot be compared with a letter from the minister" for a research trip to study the dialects of the Polish language.The letter also informs that a decision on the allocation of the subvention for the trip will be made later 26 .Any subsequent documents about the trip of 1912 are not present in the folder.Thus, even this document does not confirm the fact that the trip took place 27 .The matter was dealt with again by K. Nitsch in 1914, when he wrote two letters.The first one was a personal letter to A. A. Shakhmatov (dated July 2, 1914) with the request to give him the same document as in 1912 28 .The second one was an official letter to the Academy, that is stored, by the way, not with the official papers of the Department of Russian Language and Lit- 28 SPbB ARAS, F. 134, L. 3, Fl.1066, p. 11. correspondent of K. Nitsch in Saint-Petersburg 47 .He was the author of the review of K. Nitsch's scholarship work, when the latter was recommended for election to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR as a corresponding member in 1933.He noted K. Nitsch's first place in grouping Polish dialects according to phonetic characteristics within all the areas of their prevalence, placing his name together with the authors of dialectological albums in Roman (Jules Gilliéronand, Albert Dauzat) and German regions (Peters Wagner).The academic also noted the importance of K. Nitsch's works on studying the vocabularies of different regions, "on the history of various Polish dialects and the history of the bonds of Polish with neighboring languages and on the valuation of neighboring languages' influence on literary Polish".B. M. Lyapunov completes: "By electing K. Nitsch to the corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, we would not only pay homage to the fruitful academic activity of the outstanding Polish scholar, but would also restore the link, broken with the death of J. Łoś 48 , that connected the Academy of Sciences of the USSR with the Polish Academy of Sciences" 49 .The first of K. Nitsch's letters to B. M. Lyapunov, kept in SPbB ARAS, was written by the Polish scholar on October 3, 1930, and touched the prob-tion from the USSR 59 , thanks to which K. Nitsch was able to meet Soviet linguists.In a letter dated March 25, 1936, he noted Nikolay M. Karinsky (1873-1935) and assured of the great importance of Soviet scholars' works for him, which he used for his studies.He also mentioned the names of Aleksandr I. Tomson (1860-1935) and Grigoriy A. Ilyinsky (1876-1937).The Krakow scholar was in correspondence with the latter, who published his works in Polish editions 60 .
The close contact of K. Nitsch with Soviet linguists and the outstanding services of this scholar helped to lead the Academy of Sciences of the USSR to recommend K. Nitsch for election to its members.The first plea was sent by B. M. Lyapunov in 1933 61 .He also wrote "Отзыв о научной деятельности К. Нитша" ("The Review of K. Nitsch's Academic Work") 62 , where the academic put K. Nitsch in the first place after J. Łoś' death in the studies concerning the dialectics of Slavonic languages 63 .However, the election took place much later, in 1947, when K. Nitsch was already the president of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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AN PAN i PAU, Spuścizna Kazimierza Nitscha (1874-1958), ref. no.K III-51, 206. 25 SPbB ARAS, F. 134, L. 3, Fl.1066, p. 9. 26 AUJ, Katedra i seminarium filologii słowiańskiej, ref. no.WF II 155. 27It should be mentioned that in AUJ and AN PAN i PAU there is no information about the previous trips to the Kingdom of Poland.In AUJ there is a letter informing of the allocation and the payment of the subvention to the amount of 600 krones for a research trip in the vacation time of 1913 (letters dated August 16, 1913, and March 6, 1914, Lviv): AUJ, Katedra i seminarium filologii słowiańskiej, ref. no.WF II 155.

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Sciences contain letters from K. Nitsch to A. A. Shakhmatov from the years 1909-1914 and to B. M. Lyapunov from 1930-1936; the PAN and PAU Archives in Krakow contain letters to K. Nitsch: from A. A. Shakhmatov during the years 1908-1912 and from B. M. Lyapunov in 1928-1938.The content of this correspondence presents two basic directions of cooperation: participation in the preparation of Polish and Soviet Slavonic publications as well as organisation of the academic exchange of books.The close contacts between K. Nitsch and Soviet linguists as well as his excellent scientific achievements meant that the USSR Academy of Sciences decided to present him as a candidate for membership.The first application was submitted by B. M. Lyapunov in 1933, however, the election took place significantly later -in 1947 when K. Nitsch had already taken up the position of President of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: Kazimierz Nitsch, związki akademickie rosyjsko-polskie, slawistyka, spuścizna archiwalna slawistów KEY WORDS: Kazimierz Nitsch, Russian-Polish academic links, Slavonic studies, personal papers of Slavonic scholars in archives 25.It is not quite clear whether this trip was made or not: the documents of the Saint-Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Archive of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Krakow do not contain any information on the matter.Moreover, the wife of the Krakow scholar, Aniela Gruszecka-Nitschowa, did not mention the journey in her book Całe życie nad przyrodą mowy polskiej.Kazi mierz Nitsch i jego prace, dedicated to K. Nitsch, despite the abundance of other facts.Only in the archives of Jagiellonian University has a letter dated February 23, 1912 (Lviv) been preserved which states that the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Education in Lviv, by the rescript of December 25, 1911, gave permission to K. Nitsch during the semi-annual vacation in 1912