From the Editors

Prof. Lech Szczucki, for many years the chief editor of The Archive, died on the 19th of November, when this volume was at the last stage of its preparation. Professor Szczucki was also, prior to his retirement in 2004, the Head of the Department of Modern Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, the parental unit of our periodical. In that role he also contributed his wide knowledge, skills and intelligence, trying to ensure that The Archive remained a journal of high scientific and editorial quality. As a reviewer, Prof. Szczucki was very strict, but that strictness was accompanied by a particular concern to provide young researchers with an opportunity to test their abilities. Many of them made their debut in The Archive, under Prof. Szczucki’s aegis.

Prof. Lech Szczucki, for many years the chief editor of The Archive, died on the 19th of November, when this volume was at the last stage of its preparation. Professor Szczucki was also, prior to his retirement in 2004, the Head of the Department of Modern Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, the parental unit of our periodical. In that role he also contributed his wide knowledge, skills and intelligence, trying to ensure that The Archive remained a journal of high scientific and editorial quality. As a reviewer, Prof. Szczucki was very strict, but that strictness was accompanied by a particular concern to provide young researchers with an opportunity to test their abilities. Many of them made their debut in The Archive, under Prof. Szczucki’s aegis.

Prof. Lech Szczucki achieved his position in Polish humanities thanks both to his achievements as a historian of philosophy and religious thought in the 16th and 17th centuries, and his contribution to consolidating the national, as well as the European scientific environment. These aspects of his activity deserve scientific elaboration, and there certainly will be time for this in the future. Meanwhile, the Editors have decided that the best way to commemorate Prof. Szczucki would be to give the readers of The Archive the text published in vol. 47 (2002), on pp. 5-21, written by another former editor of The Archive, Prof. Zbigniew Ogonowski, who died in the year 2018. This time, however, we are publishing its English translation. It is an excellent text, which will undoubtedly serve as an irreplaceable source of information and insightful observations to anyone who might, in the future, want to research the achievements of Prof. Szczucki as a historian of ideas and philosophy. However, a small rectification is required here. Prof. Ogonowski, referring to Prof. Szczucki’s opus vitae, namely the edition of letters written to and by a 16th century humanist and diplomat, Andreas Dudycz, writes as follows: “It is only today, i. e. more than three decades after the first works were commenced, that it is possible to establish, with a high degree of probability, that the last, eighth volume of Dudycz’s correspondence will be published in 2005.”. That announcement has proved to be too optimistic. The last volume, the seventh, not the eighth one, was published only this year, and strictly speaking, only a few weeks before Prof. Szczucki’s death, with considerable contribution from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which was the partner in that enterprise since the beginning of the 1970s. As you may guess, the edition in question was a particularly difficult task, requiring an enormous intellectual and organisational effort and, at the same time, a work of unique importance for Polish humanities. It was not an accident that Prof. Szczucki received, for that enterprise, the prestigious award of the Foundation for Polish Science (the so-called “Polish Nobel Prize”).

Editorial Staff

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