Helena Willman-Grabowska

Helena Willman-Grabowska (born January 4, 1870 in Warsaw , Russian Empire , † October 31, 1957 in Krakow ) was a Polish Indologist and Iranian . She was a lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris and the first female professor in the history of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

family

Grave in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw

Grabowska was the daughter of Józef Wojciech Grabowski and his third wife Elżbieta, nee Lipińska. Her mother cared for six of her own and eight stepchildren. Grabowska married the accountant Czesław Aleks Willman (1869–1922) in July 1900. The couple had two children. The son Wacław died young (1902–1908) and the daughter Elżbieta (1905–1985) later taught French at the Department of Romance Philology at the Jagiellonian University.

Willman-Grabowska was buried in 1957 in the graves of her mother, grandmother and son in the Powązki Cemetery (Cmentarz Powązkowski) in Warsaw. (kwatera K, rząd 3, grób 22)

Act

Warsaw

Grabowska finished her school days at the first Warsaw girls' high school with distinction. In Russian-ruled Poland she taught Polish and secretly held lectures on Polish literature and history, ancient languages and mathematics . She was denied state degrees. Grabowska then gave language classes in middle schools and other schools.

With Ludwik Krzywicki and Julian Marchlewski , Willman-Grabowska organized the school strike in 1905. She gave up her work at the middle school and went back to work in secret. Some of their teaching methods in secondary schools were implemented in the Polish education system after 1918. Afterwards she taught again in public at a newly founded secondary school and at the commercial school . In addition to her work, she co-founded the Polish teachers' association Polski Związek Nauczycielski (PZN) and worked in the educational society Towarzystwo Pedagogiczne .

Bern, Lausanne and Paris

Willman-Grabowska left her hometown in 1909 and studied German and French literature at the University of Bern , then French literature and Sanskrit at the University of Lausanne . During this time she wrote two dissertations , Le romantisme comme decadence litteraire and Mérimée et la literature russe , which, however, did not appear in print. She continued her studies in Paris in 1911 at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) and at the Collège de France . Antoine Meillet , Sylvain Lèvi , Alfred Foucher and Louis Finot were her academic teachers. Willman-Grabowska devoted herself to the study of Sanskrit in her academic work. During the First World War she gave free lessons to Poles in exile, both children and adults.

From 1920–1927 Willman-Grabowska taught Sanskrit and Pali at EPHE . During this time, she also developed academic textbooks for learning the Polish language for French and French for Poles. The French Ministry of Education sent Willman-Grabowska to the young Second Polish Republic in 1922 and 1923 to establish contacts between the universities of both countries. Despite repeated suggestions, she did not accept French citizenship, which would have enabled her to take up a chair at the Sorbonne. In 1928 she received her doctorate from the Sorbonne. She wrote two dissertations on Rig Veda and Shatapatha Brahmana .

Krakow

In October 1927 Willman-Grabowska took over the leadership of the Sanskrit seminar at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. When she received her appointment to the chair of Sanskrit and Indian philology on November 19, 1928, she was the first female professor in the history of Kraków University. The botanist Jadwiga Wołoszyńska received a second appointment before the Second World War . Her main research interests were the linguistics , literature and culture of India and the Iranian peoples .

Willman-Grabowska was a member of the scientific society Polska Akademia Umiejętności (PAU) and chaired the Commission for Oriental Studies . She was an honorary member of the L'Association française des amis de l'Orient founded by Émile Senart , and she was also a member of the Société asiatique and the Société de linguistique de Paris .

Works and writings (selection)

• With Antoine Meillet : Grammaire de la langue polonaise. Champion, Paris 1921.
• Method de polonais. Grammaire et exercices. Garnier, Paris 1922..1929.
• Method de français à l'usage des Polonais. Grammaire, exercices et lectures. = Metoda jȩzyka francus-kiego dla polaków. Garnier, Paris 1926.
• Le locatif dans le Rig-veda. Dissertation, Warsaw 1928.
• Les Composés nominaux dans le Śatapathabrāhmaṇa. Dissertation, Krakow 1928.
• Contribution: Asiatic mythology. A detailed description and explanation of the mythologies of all the great nations of Asia. Crowell, New York 1932; London 1932-1939.
• With Paul Masson-Oursel and Philippe Stern : L'Inde antique et la civilization indienne. In: L'Évolution de l'humanité . Paris 1933; Michel, Paris 1951..2012.
  • (English edition): Ancient india and indian civilization. London 1934; Routledge, London & New York 1996-2013.

Translations

• With Wiktor Jakubowski : Wędrówka za trzy morza by Afanassi Nikitin . Wrocław 1952.
• Dwadzieścia pięć opowieści wampira by Vetālapañcaviṃśati. Wroclaw 1955.

literature

• R. Czekalska, A. Kuczkiewicz-Fraś (eds.): Helena Willman-Grabowska. Orientalistka - uczona - popularyzatorka. Księgarnia Akademicka, Kraków 2014.
• Tadeusz Pobożniak: Helena Willman-Grabowska. Obituary, in: Przegląd Orientalistyczny 1958, No. 2 (26).

Web links

• PWN encyklopedia : Biogram Willman-Grabowska, Helena .