Benedykt Dybowski – 219 New Species | Article

Benedykt Dybowski – 219 New Species

benedykt_dybowski-polona2.jpg, portrait, Benedykt Dybowski, 1910, photo: National Digital Library Polona

Naturalist, traveller, explorer, doctor, researcher of the Baikal lake, the Far East and the Kamchatka Peninsula, professor at the University of Lviv and Warsaw University, considered to be one of the fathers of Polish limnology (lake hydrology). Author of over 350 scientific papers.

Conspirator

Born in Adamaryn, a village in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire. Dybowski studies medicine and science at the universities of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) and Wrocław, chooses palaeontology, botany and medicine in Berlin as complementary studies, all of which he finishes in 1860.

Dybowski writes his PhD on sex determination among bees. He discovers a new species of fairy shrimp (Branchipus grubii), while his dissertation on Livonian fish from the Cyprinidae (Carp) family earns him the reputation of a phenomenal research scientist at the University of Dorpat.

He conspires against the Russians and is imprisoned after a patriotic demonstration at the Vilnius cathedral. The Jagiellonian University offers him a position as a director of their zoology department, but the Austrian government bars him from taking up the position.

In 1862, Dybowski becomes an assistant professor at Warsaw’s Main School, the forerunner of Warsaw University. He quickly becomes involved in the coordination of the January Uprising. He’s the Commissioner of the Polish National Government for Lithuania and Belarus.

Arrested, Dybowski is sent to the dreaded Tenth Pavilion of Warsaw’s Citadel, where he’s sentenced to death. After the intercession of German zoologists and Bismarck’s mediation he manages to avoid the noose in exchange for 12 years in exile.

Siberian exile

In Siberia, Dybowski the convict continues with his scientific research. In 1865, he studies fauna in the vicinity of Chita and Darasun, on the slopes of Yablonoi Mountains. With another convict and his accomplice, Wiktor Godlewski, they document the differences between animals of eastern and western Siberia.

After two years they are both granted a permit to reside in the village of Kultuk, located on the south-western tip of Lake Baikal, where Poles have never previously been sent. A tiny house on skids is transformed into their camp lab. Using handmade tools in temperatures dropping to -40°C, they begin to study the underwater animal kingdom.

Dybowski’s research results in knowledge on endemic animal forms. He writes about 116 new species of crustaceans from the amphipoda order and six new kinds of fish. As many as 88 types of molluscs and 9 new types of sponges collected by Dybowski are described by his younger brother Władysław, a biologist. Other resources provided are researched by different professors: Grube from Berlin, Józef Nusbaum from Lviv and Roman Gutwiński from Kraków.

Research scientist

Dybowski’s research in eastern Siberia, on land and lake fauna, earns him a gold medal from the Russian Geographical Society. In 1868 he’s part of General Ivan Skalkov’s research expedition to the Far East regions of Russia (the Amur Oblast, Primorsky Krai and Ussuryisk). Along with Godlewski and Alfons Parweks he travels to the Trans-Baikal to undertake research in the valley of the Argun and Onon rivers. In 1871 they’re joined by a geologist, Aleksander Czekanowski, and together they penetrate the northern, Mongolian part of the Khövsgöl Lake.

Dybowski, Godlewski and Michał Janowski travel along the Argun and Amur rivers, do research into Lake Khanka’s fauna and ultimately reach Vladivostok. Dybowski makes a stop in Primorsky Krai and settles on Russky Island, where he discovers a new kind of Manchurian sika deer, which becomes known as the Dybowski deer.

They study animal organisms from the Ussuri River. Once they’re back by the shores of Lake Baikal, they examine the fauna from adjacent lakes and the Angara River. The Russian Geographical Society and the Petersburg Academy acquire a permit for Dybowski to return to the country, but with the help of General Skalkov he fulfils his lifelong dream: an expedition to Kamchatka.

Saving the Aleuts

Dybowski becomes a regional doctor in Petropavlovsk. Starting in 1879, he provides medical and humanitarian care in Kamchatka, where the Aleuts were relocated from their indigenous Aleutian Islands by Tsarist decree. The Russian officials deliberately drive them to alcohol abuse in order to buy fur and animal hides for next to nothing.

Dybowski combats an epidemic, opens leprosy clinics, buys horses and reindeers out of his own pocket and teaches the Bering islanders how to breed them. He sets up goat and rabbit farms all over Kamchatka and the Commander Islands. Dybowski opens sable reservations, thus significantly improving the living conditions of the starving islanders. He continues with his zoological and anthropological research.

In 1883, Dybowski takes over the zoology department at the University of Lviv. He develops an original theory on mammal teeth construction. While an academic, he claims to be a fan of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which, due to pressure from the clergy and nationalists, results in his early retirement.

A year later in 1884, he establishes a zoological museum in Lviv filling it with precious specimens from Kamchatka, Baikal, eastern Siberia, southern Russia and the Caspian Sea, comprising a total of 60 crates and weighing over 11 tonnes. The Bering islanders give him a unique exhibit: a skeleton of a Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas).

World War I reaches Dybowski at his sister’s home in the Russian city of Novgorod. As an Austrian citizen he’s to be sent to Yakutia, but an intervention by his acknowledged Russian scientist friends from the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Geographical Society saves him. Meanwhile, the German troops’ entry into Russian territory facilitates his return to Lviv.

Dybowski looks for proponents of sobriety among the Lviv elite and establishes the Eleuteria Society. He becomes a member of the Polish Ethnological Society in Lviv, going on to publish numerous articles after Poland regains its independence in 1918.

As an honorary citizen of Lviv, he is buried at the Lychakiv Cemetery alongside other participants of the January Uprising.

Translated by Hanna Szkarłat

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