Polish-Czech and Czech-Polish contacts in Toruń archaeology in the second half of the 20th century

Abstract

Polish-Czech relations in the first years after the Second World War (1946–1951). The history of Toruń’s prehistory at the Nicolaus Copernicus University begins on June 1, 1946, with the appointment of Roman Jakimowicz for the position of Associate Professor of the Department of Prehistory at the Faculty of Humanities. The figure of Roman Jakimowicz opens the history of Polish-Czech relations in Toruń archaeology. For political reasons, he was ordered to leave the Jagiellonian University, where he began his studies in the academic year 1910/1911. From the 1913/14 academic year he studied in Prague where under supervision of Lubomir Niederle he began to prepare a doctoral dissertation entitled ‘O kultuře poli popelnicovych w Polsku’. In Prague he did a museum internship under the supervision of dr Albin Stocki, Director of the Prehistoric Department of the National Museum, and participated in excavations. His vision of practicing archaeology, largely derived from his studies under Lubomir Niederle, consistently implemented and developed in the interwar period, was planted in Toruń.
Death of Roman Jakimowicz in 1951 and political decisions caused a break in research and teaching activities in the field of archaeology.
Chair of Polish and Universal Archaeology (1952–1976) and Polish-Czech relations. After the political breakthrough in 1956, the Nicolaus Copernicus University began to restore the fields of study, liquidated in the early 1950s due to the nationwide reform of higher education. Recruitment to study archaeology resumed in the academic years 1961/1962 and 1962/1963. In the summer of 1963, the Student Scientific Circle of Archaeologists at the Nicolaus Copernicus University organised an international archaeological camp in Michelin (Potok) near Włocławek, which was led by the Head of the Chair, Prof. Kazmimierz Żurowski. Apart from students from various university centres in Poland, students from ‘brotherly’ socialist countries were also invited to participate in the camp. The guests from Czechoslovakia were Josef Bubeník. Jiři Hartl and Lubomir Košnar, students and later graduates of Charles University in Prague. Traces of ties between Toruń archaeology and Czechoslovakia are also exchanged of publications, the library of the Chair began to receive some archaeological journals from 1967. After graduation of two groups of students, admitted in 1961 and 1962, the enrollment in archaeology was suspended.
Polish-Czech relations in the new organisational reality – Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography (1976–2003). In 1976 an approval was obtained to start recruitment for archaeology with a unique specialisation in Poland – conservation of archaeological artefacts. It coincided with an organisational change: the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography was established in place of Chairs of Archaeology and Ethnography, headed by Kazimierz Żurowski. In the 1980s, there was a significant increase in employment at the Institute. At that time, there was also a clear intensification of contacts with the Czech (Czechoslovak) scientific community. Contacts between Polish and Czech researchers found their expression in the scientific dimension. The first concerned the research on the history of glass and glass manu-
facturing and was associated with the activity of Professor Jerzy Olczak and the newly established Glass History Laboratory. The scientific effects of this cooperation are joint excavation research, including magnetometric examinations of glassworks, carried out by Czech researchers, joint seminars, conferences, publications and student exchange. The second research area in which contacts with Czech researchers played an important role is the study of the Chełmno Land Neolithic. Until 1979 no planned research on the Neolithic was conducted by the Chair of Polish and Universal Archaeology, and later by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography. In the course of several years of research, the picture of Neolithic settlement in the Chełmno Land changed radically. In 1986 an international symposium ‘Neolit i początki epoki brązu na ziemi chełmińskiej’ was held under the scientific patronage of Professor Tadeusz Wiślański. The merit of the conference, along with the subsequent publication in an international format, was the introduction into the Central European scientific circulation of the little known, when it comes to Neolithic settlement, part of the north-eastern part of the Polish Lowlands. It happened also thanks to Czech colleagues and friends. Also in this regard, there was an exchange of employees, students and literature.
Polish-Czech and Czech-Polish relations in the second half of the 20th century, perceptible in Toruń archaeology, were primarily based on personal contacts. They had a strictly scientific face only in two aspects – research on the history of glass and the Neolithic. They did not translate into other areas of interest of the Institute emplyees. They took place without official agreements between institutions, and their intensification in the late 1980s and early 1990s was based on the principle of almost private relations between researchers, driven by their scientific interests.