17 November 2022 marks the centenary of the death of Jan Grzegorzewski – Orientalist, Slavist, publicist and social activist. The aim of this article is to highlight this figure and to show his activity in various areas of social and scientific life, especially his contribution to Polish Oriental studies. This somewhat forgotten but extremely interesting and colourful, although somewhat controversial, figure has still not received the comprehensive biographical treatment he fully deserves. Thanks to his extraordinary determination and commitment to his activities, Jan Grzegorzewski initiated the establishing of the first Polish scientific journal of Oriental studies, Rocznik Orientalistyczny, for which he also obtained funds. The first part of the first volume of Rocznik, covering the years 1914–1915, was published in 1915 in Cracow, and the second part (for the years 1916–1918) only in 1918. There is also no doubt that with his activities, both academic and journalistic, Jan Grzegorzewski contributed to the establishment of the first Polish Oriental studies in Poland, which took place in 1919 at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Analysing some of Grzegorzewski’s achievements from today’s perspective, one can venture to say that with the issues presented in his publications, he undoubtedly inspired many later Orientalists to set new research directions.

Professor Tadeusz Kowalski (1889–1948) was in correspondence with scholars from practically all over the world. He had an active interest in the developments of Oriental studies in the Soviet Union. He valued the publications he received from the USSR as well as all contacts he had with Russian researchers. He sought to cooperate with Alexander Samoylovich (1880–1938) – one of the most eminent Turkologists in the Soviet Union. This goal had been partially achieved. The archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków now hold, catalogued under ref. no. K III-4, j. 174, just three letters from the Russian Turkologist. These materials, despite their small number, are an engrossing source of knowledge on the state of Soviet Turkish studies in the mid-1920s and the Soviet Oriental studies community. As the author managed to determine, these letters are all the more precious as the branch of the archives at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St.-Petersburg, where the legacy of professor Samoylovich is kept, has no copies. Interestingly, there are no surviving copies of the letters from professor Kowalski to the Russian Turkologist. This article aims to analyse the contents of the letters written by Alexander Samoylovich, the Soviet Turkologist, to professor Tadeusz Kowalski, and determine the purpose and direction in which Turkish studies were developing in the USSR in the period described in these sources.

Vasily Nikitin (1.1.1885–6.6.1960) – a former Russian consul in Urmia, Iranian studies researcher and Kurdologist – corresponded with professor Tadeusz Kowalski for over a quarter of a century. His letters sent to Krakow in the years 1922–1948 are held in the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU). The aim of this article is to present the relationship of Vasily Nikitin with Polish Oriental studies and Orientalists on the basis of an analysis of the letters sent by him to Tadeusz Kowalski. The correspondence changed during this time. At the beginning, Nikitin sought help from Kowalski in finding a job at the Jagiellonian University. With time, when his financial situation in Paris – where he was in exile – stabilized, he was interested in working with Polish Orientalists at a distance. Due to Kowalski’s efforts, Nikitin became a foreign member of the Polish Oriental Society and the PAU’s Oriental Commission. Thanks to this, he received publications issued by these organizations. He also published in the oldest Polish Oriental journal – the Yearbook of Oriental Studies (Rocznik Orientalistyczny) – and in other journals.