Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski

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Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski

Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski (born June 6, 1872 in Dworszowice Kościelne , Russian Empire , † April 27, 1954 in Warsaw ) was a Polish geophysicist , meteorologist , educator and polar explorer .

Life

Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski grew up in a poor Polish family in Dworszowice Kościelne. As a 12-year-old high school student in Warsaw, he had to earn money alongside school by giving younger students extra tuition. Connections to a group of students who were calling for Poland's independence led to his arrest by the tsarist police in 1891, six months after his school leaving examination . Dobrowolski was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, which he served in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg before being exiled in Tbilisi . From here he managed to escape after two years.

Dobrowolski came to Switzerland and studied philosophy , biology and geophysics at the University of Zurich , where he met his compatriot Henryk Arctowski , who was preparing for his role as scientific director of the Belgica expedition to Antarctica . His advocacy caused the expedition leader Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery to add Dobrowolski to the expedition team when a member of the crew had to be replaced at short notice. The Belgica's voyage lasted from 1897 to 1899. From March 3, 1898 to March 14, 1899, the ship was enclosed by the pack ice off the coast of West Antarctica . Dobrowolski supported Arctowski with the weather observations. On March 25, 1898 he was officially accepted into the scientific staff of the expedition and assigned to Arctowski as an assistant. The most important result of their work was the first series of meteorological observations in Antarctica, which covered the period of a full year.

Back in Belgium, Dobrowolski received a two-year grant to process his research results. From 1905 to 1907 he was a member of the International Polar Bureau in Brussels. When political refugees were granted an amnesty in the Russian Empire , Dobrowolski returned to Poland and worked as a teacher. His book Wyprawy polarne - historia i zdobycze naukowe ( Polar Expeditions - History and Scientific Achievements ) was awarded the Warsaw Prize for Literature in 1914.

During the First World War , Dobrowolski worked on a grant from Kasa Mianowskiego in Sweden and continued his studies on snow and ice structures and glacier movements . From 1917 to 1922 he worked in the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment ( Ministerstwo Wyznań Religijnych i Oświecenie Publicznego ). In 1923 he published his work Historia naturalna lodu ( The Natural History of Ice ), which had already been written in 1916 , a comprehensive representation of the cryosphere , i.e. all forms of snow and ice in the atmosphere , on land, in water and in the ground. In 1924 he moved to the State Meteorological Institute ( Państwowy Instytut Meteorologiczny ), whose director he soon became. In addition, he taught from 1927 as a professor at the Free Polish University ( Wolna Wszechnica Polska ). In 1929 he founded the Polish Society of Geophysicists ( Towarzystwu Geofizyków ) and in 1934 the Seismological Observatory in Warsaw.

Dobrowolski was heavily involved in Polish polar research. He was a member of the Polish National Committee for the Second International Polar Year 1932–1933 and President of the Organizing Committee of the Polish Svalbard Expedition from 1934. He also initiated the Polish Svalbard Expedition of 1938.

In World War II Dobrowolski remained in Poland. From 1945 to 1954 he worked at the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Warsaw . In 1952 he became a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences . He died in Warsaw on April 27, 1954 and was buried in the Powązki Military Cemetery.

Honors

In 1951 Dobrowolski was awarded the Commander's Cross and in 1956, posthumously, the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order Polonia Restituta .

The Polish Academy of Sciences operated the Dobrowolski Station in the Bunger Oasis in East Antarctica from 1959 to 1979 . Also named after Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski are Dobrowolski Island in the Palmer Archipelago and Dobrowolski Peak and Dobrowolski Glacier on King George Island .

Works (selection)

  • Wyprawy polarne - historia i zdobycze naukowe . Warsaw 1914.
  • Historia naturalna lodu . Warsaw 1923.
  • Mój życiorys naukowy . Ossolineum , Breslau 1958.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dobrowolski, Antoni Bolesław
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish geophysicist, meteorologist, educator and polar researcher
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Dworszowice Kościelne , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1954
Place of death Warsaw