[The life and scientific work of W. Taczanowski is presented in an obituary published by Bulletin Polonais Littéraire, Scientifique et Artistique [Polish Literary, Scientific and Artistic Bulletin], a Polish journal in exile in Paris. His work is analysed in the context of the history of the natural sciences in Poland. The article also presents the merits of Taczanowski for enriching the collections of the Warsaw Zoological Office and his research on the fauna of North Africa, Asia and South America. This scientist not only succeeded in publishing monographs on the birds of Peru and Eastern Siberia, but also in bringing together, for the zoological cabinet of Warsaw, one of the most important naturalistic collections of the 19th century.]
The article presents the Polish translation and analysis of the letters from Władysław Taczanowski (1819–1890) to Aleksander Strauch (1832–1893). The correspondence is stored in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and comprises 29 letters written between 1870 and 1889. The main theme of these letters is specimens of reptiles and amphibians sent to Warsaw by Polish naturalists, such as Benedykt Dybowski from Siberia, Konstanty Jelski from French Guiana and Peru, Jan Kalinowski from Korea, as well as specimens brought by Taczanowski from Algeria. Strauch determined the species and used them in his publications. This correspondence is also a valuable testimony of the exchange of specimens between the Warsaw Zoological Cabinet and the Zoological Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. In return for herpetological specimens, the Warsaw collection received numerous fish specimens from the Russian Empire and a collection of birds from Mikołaj Przewalski’s expedition to Central Asia. The content of the letters allows a better understanding of the functioning of natural history museography but also the organization of shipments, preparation, determination, and exchange of specimens. They are a valuable document of the history of nineteenth-century scientific museography.
Ignacio Bolivar, one of the most prominent entomologists of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Director of the National Museum of Natural History in Madrid, corresponded with naturalists associated with the Zoological Cabinet in Warsaw. The collection of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales contains the letters of Władysław Taczanowski, Ludwik Dembowski, and Ludwik Młokosiewicz. Bolivar determined orthoptera sent by Konstanty Jelski and Jan Sztolcman from South America and by Ludwik Młokosiewicz from the Caucasus. At Taczanowski’s request, he sent to Warsaw the specimens of beetles and butterflies from Spain, the Iberian woodpecker and the African hymenoptera, determined by Oktawiusz Radoszkowski. Młokosiewicz’s letters concern specimens of insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals sent from Georgia to Madrid as well as preparations of the Bolivar expedition to the Caucasus. Letters of Polish naturalists to Bolivar are important documents of the history of the Zoological Cabinet in Warsaw and European natural history collections in the 19th century.
JavaScript jest wyłączony w Twojej przeglądarce internetowej. Włącz go, a następnie odśwież stronę, aby móc w pełni z niej korzystać.