Benedykt Tadeusz Dybowski (12 May 183331 January 1930) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

naturalist and

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

Life

Benedykt Dybowski was born in Adamaryni, within the

Minsk Governorate The Minsk Governorate (russian: Минская губерния, Belarusian: ) or Government of Minsk was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. The seat was in Minsk. It was created in 1793 from the land acquired in the partition ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

to Polish nobility. He was the brother of naturalist Władysław Dybowski and the cousin of the French explorer

Jean Dybowski Jean Thadée Emmanuel Dybowski (18 April 1856 – 18 December 1928) was a French agronomist, naturalist and explorer of Polish heritage born in Charonne, Paris. He was the cousin of the Polish naturalists Benedykt Dybowski and Władysław Dybows ...

. He studied at Minsk High School, and later medicine at

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of ...

(earlier Dorpat) University in present-day

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

. He later studied at Wroclaw University and went on expeditions to seek and study oceanic fishes and

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s. He became a professor of zoology at the Warsaw main school. In 1864 he was arrested and condemned to death for taking part in the Polish

January Uprising The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at ...

. His sentence was later reduced to 12 years in

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. He started studying the natural history of Siberia and in 1866 a governor Muraviov dismissed Dybowski from hard labour (''

katorga Katorga ( rus, ка́торга, p=ˈkatərɡə; from medieval and modern Greek: ''katergon, κάτεργον'', "galley") was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (see Katorga labor in the Soviet Union). Prisoner ...

''), renewed his civil rights and proposed him to work as a doctor in hospital. He later settled in the small village Kultuk and began a detailed study of

Baikal Lake Lake Baikal (, russian: Oзеро Байкал, Ozero Baykal ); mn, Байгал нуур, Baigal nuur) is a rift lake in Russia. It is situated in southern Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сиб� ...

with some technical support from the Russian Geographical Society. He served as a medical doctor for the indigenous population of

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and wes ...

, the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a cha ...

, the

Commander Islands The Commander Islands, Komandorski Islands, or Komandorskie Islands (russian: Командо́рские острова́, ''Komandorskiye ostrova'') are a series of treeless, sparsely populated Russian islands in the Bering Sea located about ea ...

Bering Island Bering Island (russian: о́стров Бе́ринга, ''ostrov Beringa'') is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. Description At long by wide, it is the largest and westernmost of the Commander Islands, with an area of . ...

, making four trips per year around the populated areas there. After returning from Asia he continued research work at

Lwów University The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

(Lemberg). He was a president of the

Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists ( pl, Polskie Towarzystwo Przyrodników im. Kopernika) is a Polish scientific society for natural sciences researchers. History The society was founded in 1875 in Lviv on the initiative of natural science ...

(1886–87). In 1927 the Academy of Sciences in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

elected Dybowski as a member-correspondent. Apart from that in 1921 Dybowski was given an honorary doctorate by the Warsaw's University, and in 1923 by the University of Wilno. On Dybowski's 95th birthday he was congratulated by the Shevchenko Scientific Society government. Dybowski spent the last years of his life in Lwów. Dybowski died at the age of 97. He is buried in Lwów (present-day Lviv) on the

Łyczakowski Cemetery Lychakiv Cemetery ( uk, Личаківський цвинтар, translit=Lychakivs’kyi tsvyntar; pl, Cmentarz Łyczakowski we Lwowie), officially State History and Culture Museum-Preserve "Lychakiv Cemetery" ( uk, Державний істор ...

among the participants of the Polish Uprising of 1863. Most of his collection of zoological and botanical specimens is now in the Lwów Zoological museum. An

amphipod Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descr ...

(''Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis''), supposedly from Lake Baikal and named by him was once considered the longest scientific name. However, that name is no longer considered valid. In February 2014, traveller

Jacek Pałkiewicz Jacek Pałkiewicz (born 2 June 1942) is a Polish journalist, traveler and explorer. Fellow (by recommendation from Thor Heyerdahl) of the prestigious London-based Royal Geographical Society and numerous other such societies, he is best known fo ...

unveiled a memorial plaque to Dybowski in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski.Pałkiewicz odsłania tablicę Dybowskiego na Kamczatce
at

Rzeczpospolita () is the official name of Poland and a traditional name for some of its predecessor states. It is a compound of "thing, matter" and "common", a calque of Latin ''rés pública'' ( "thing" + "public, common"), i.e. ''republic'', in Engli ...

, 6 February 2014.

References

External links

Biography

The diary of Dr. Benedykt Dybowski from 1862 until 1878

"Dybowski 1863"
short movie by Maciej Pawlicki about the Dybowskis's arrest and the death penalty trial for taking part in the 1863 Polish

against the occupying

at the Warsaw Main School while being the assistant professor there.
1957 Polish 2.50 zloty postage stamp with Benedykt Dybowski
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dybowski, Benedykt 1833 births 1930 deaths People from Valozhyn District People from Vileysky Uyezd People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent Polish naturalists Polish general practitioners Explorers of Siberia January Uprising participants Polish exiles in the Russian Empire University of Warsaw faculty Members of the Lwów Scientific Society Members of the Polish Academy of Learning Burials at Lychakiv Cemetery

Life

See also

References

External links