The correspondence between Adam Vetulani and Miroslav Boháček” – a source publication worked out in cooperation of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Journal Title: Studia Historiae Scientiarum - Year 2014, Vol 13, Issue
Abstract
The presentation held on May 9, 2012 in PAU Commission on the History of Science aimed to acquaint the audience with the results of the collaboration between the Archive of Science of Polish Academy of Sciences and of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow and the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The project called “Czech -Polish scientific and cultural contacts in the 19th and 20th centuries” covers the forthcoming edition of the correspondence between Professors Adam Vetulani (1901–1976) and Miroslav Boháček (1899–1982). Both men were shaped mainly by their university professors. For Vetulani it was Professor Stanisław Kutrzeba from the Law Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Boháček, who studied at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague, was mainly influenced by Professor Josef Vančura. Scholarships to foreign universities also had significant influence on their future scientific focus. Vetulani studied in Prague, Paris and Strasbourg, Boháček went to Palermo. Both of them used their fellowship experience to prepare their habilitation writings. Second World War ceased their promising careers – Vetulani’s at the Jagiellonian University, Boháček’s at the Charles University. They experienced the war in rather different ways. Vetulani had been drafted into the army. After having fought in France, he was interned in Switzerland, where he organized different levels of education for Polish soldiers kept there. Boháček spent the war on intensive studies of Czech legal sources, focusing on the influence of Roman law on Czech legal culture. After the war, during a short period of freedom, both of them went back to their faculties. Both were appointed regular professors, but political changes caused major changes in their lives. The study of Roman law was no longer desirable in the Czechoslovak Republic, which was the reason why Boháček had to leave university. After several years of insecurity, he found refuge in the newly formed Commission for Cataloguing and Study of Manuscripts at the Archives of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, where, along with František Čáda, he created the catalogue of manuscripts held in the Library of the Silesian Studies Institute in Opava (1955), the inventory of manuscripts held in Chapter Library in Olomouc (1960) and especially the catalogue of medieval manuscripts of Scientific Library in Olomouc (1953–1975). Vetulani, who was the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University during the years of 1946/1947 and 1947/1948, worked there until the academic year 1970/1971. Until their retirement both were under pressure and harassment from the state security service. They were denied contact with researchers from Western Europe, their travelling abroad was made difficult. Yet, during Vetulani ́s stay in Prague in 1962, they met and dealt with a number of issues in the field of medieval legal culture. They used mutual correspondence to inform each other of new – mainly western – literature, they exchanged reprints of their own works, microfilms, shared experience from libraries and archives, and exchanged views on the subject of their work. The Decretum Gratiani was a shared topic for both of them, mainly the question of identification of extant manuscripts of the text. Their correspondence from the years 1956–1975 is kept in three locations: Boháček ́s personal legacy collection is in Prague at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; Vetulani’s personal legacy collection is stored at the Jagiellonian University Archives and at the Archive of Science of Polish Academy of Sciences and of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow. The forthcoming edition includes 96 letters and postcards: 56 from Vetulani to Boháček and 40 from Boháček to Vetulani. The edition not only contributes to the biography of both scientists in an interesting way, but also represents a valuable resource for understanding the development of the research of the Czech and Polish medieval legal manuscripts.
Authors and Affiliations
Ewa Ewa DZIURZYŃSKA, Martina ŠUMOVÁ,
Keywords
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