In the offered article the authors present an extensive biography of Professor Edward Ostrowski (1816–1859) for the first time. His contemporaries had already called him the founder of Polish veterinary medicine. After analyzing the available historiography they came to the conclusion that due to the lack of sources, the scientist’s biography is only a set of short articles on the pages of different dictionaries. Therefore, an extremely valuable historical source is the article by Alois Kuczynski which was published in the pages of “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” in 1860. The quotations from his work used in the research allowed to strengthen the authors’ theses substantially and create a complete image of a scientist and a teacher in whose destiny Poland and Ukraine were united.
The purpose of this study is to present the profiles of fifty-seven Polish veterinary surgeons, prisoners of the Starobielsk camp, murdered at the headquarters of the Kharkov NKVD Board in late April and early May 1940 and buried at the Polish War Cemetery, Cemetery of Victims of Totalitarianism in Kharkov. In the article, the authors provide a brief historical outline of the Red Army’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the motives leading to the Katyn Massacre. The main part of the article contains a list of names of Polish veterinary surgeons, victims of the Katyn Massacre, together with biographical notes. It highlights the fact that during the ongoing war in Ukraine, the cemetery, as a place of Polish memory, was bombed by the Russians with cluster bombs. It is also important to assume that after the end of the current war, the Polish War Cemetery in Kharkov will probably become the only memorial of the Katyn Massacre on the territory of the former USSR.
The purpose of the article is to outline the role of Kharkiv in creation of the veterinary education system in the south of the Russian Empire, to highlight the achievements of Polish scientists in that process, and to popularize the knowledge of this aspect of the Polish-Ukrainian history as an example of fruitful collaboration between Poles and Ukrainians during the period of statelessness of both nations. At the beginning of the 19th century, Kharkiv became one of the first cities of the Russian Empire where foundations of veterinary education were laid. A special department was formed at the university: the Veterinary School, which later became the Veterinary College and the Veterinary Institute. During the 19th and early 20th centuries Polish scientists created a system of veterinary education in Eastern Ukraine. The most important role was played by Karol Wiśniewski, the pioneer of veterinary education in Ukraine as a whole, Napoleon Halicki, the first and long-standing head of the Veterinary College, and Jerzy Poluta, one of the authors of the plan for its conversion into the Veterinary Institute. Considering their great services, the Polish scientists deserve to be remembered. Their memory is preserved by the Kharkiv State Zooveterinary Academy, the main research and educational centre in Eastern Ukraine and heir to the scientific traditions initiated in the 19th century.
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