A New Proposal for the Periodization of the History of Botany in Poland
Authors: Köhler Piotr 
Published: October 2023

Periodization is used to divide a given branch of science into shorter, relatively homogeneous periods. In the first part of the present work, several previous periodizations of the history of botany in Poland are analyzed. The periodization by Stanisław Bonifacy Jundziłł (1761–1847), a clergyman, botanist, and later a botany professor at the University of Vilna (Vilnius), was based on political events, such as the beginnings of the reign of kings, as well as events related to the organization of science in Poland. Franciszek (Franz) Herbich (1791–1865), a military doctor and botanist, proposed two eras in the history of botany in Galicia (part of Poland under Austrian rule). He based the demarcation of these epochs on the activity of Willibald Besser (1784–1842), an eminent botanist working in Galicia. Josef Armin Knapp (1843–1899), a member of the Physiographic Commission of the Scientific Society of Kraków, distinguished five periods on the basis of events in the history of botany in Poland. Bolesław Hryniewiecki (1875–1963), professor of systematics and phytogeography at the University of Warsaw as well as a keen historian of botany, was the author of several periodizations. In the periodization proposal of 1927, he distinguished five periods, in the proposal of 1933 – six periods, and in the proposal of 1948 – only three ones. His proposals were based mainly on political events. Władysław Szafer (1886–1970), one of the most outstanding Polish botanists of his time, co-author of the project of nature protection in the world, who was interested in the history of botany, published his own attempt at periodization. He divided the history of botany in Poland into 10 periods, which were not distinguished on the basis of a uniform criterion. Zdzisław Kosiek (1920–1997), a historian of agriculture and long-time director of the Main Library of the Agricultural University in Kraków, divided the history of botany in Poland into five periods on the basis of political events. All the above proposals were based on criteria mostly unrelated to the history of the plant science in Poland, like the reign of kings, political events abroad, political events in Poland, or foreign events in science.
The basis of the present proposal for the periodization of the history of botany in Poland is an analysis of the biographies of 1,773 botanists and amateur botanists who were active in Poland in the past. (These biographies were prepared for the “Biographical Dictionary of Polish Botanists” (in press).) In this way, within botany one could distinguish specialties in which these botanists operated, and the periods in which these specialties were dominant among botanists. The result was a demarcation of periods in which botanists tended to cultivate a given branch (specialty) of botany. The periodization covers the period from the mid-14th century, when the first Polish work containing information about plants was written, to 2022, when the last botanist included in the study died.
This periodization proposal divides the history of botany in Poland into six phases: 1 – from around the mid-14th century to the last quarter of the 16th century (medicinal botany), 2 – until the last quarter of the 18th century (the oldest publications on the flora), 3 – until around the middle of the 19th century (In that period a significant part of the botanical output was the floristic subject matter.), 4 – until the end of the 19th century (the beginning of modern botanical research), 5 – covered the first two quarters of the 20th century (This phase was characterized by extremely increased activity in all fields of botany.) The 6th period covers the last 50 years of the 20th century and the first 22 years of the 21st century.
Due to legal regulations on the protection of personal data, it was not possible to analyze the biographies of living botanists and the accessible data could not be compared with corresponding data from previous phases. For this reason the analysis concerning this period is considerably limited.