Father Augustyn Jakubisiak – a remarkable figure. Translation of the memoirs of José-Marie Boucheta with commentary
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15584/johass.2018.4.5Keywords:
Augustyn Jakubisiak, Polish Library in Paris, emigration, Polish philosophy, Polish Historical and Literary Society in ParisAbstract
Polish philosophical thought in exile from the interwar period is still not fully researched. Many thinkers remain forgotten or, for various reasons, ignored in current research. Until recently, this was certainly the case of Father Augustyn Jakubisiak (1884–1945), a Polish priest who worked for the greater part of his life in France, specifically in Paris, where he was permanently associated with the Historical and Literary Society and the Polish Library. Nevertheless, Jakubisiak maintained contacts with the Polish academic community, which was particularly evident in his loud polemic with Jan Łukasiewicz. Studies at Paris universities allowed Jakubisiak to join the bunch of regulars of the French intellectual salon, which included Henri Bergson, Emmanuel Mounier and Jacques Maritain. One of the people who met Jakubisiak in this way and left memories devoted to him was José-Marie Bouchet, a French writer, teacher, traveller, historian and musician – a man of the Renaissance. In 1968 Bouchet was elected an active member of the Historical and Literary Society in Paris, where, since Jakubisiak's death, the archives contain the legacy of the Polish thinker. The text is a translation of Bouchet's memoirs dedicated to Jakubisiak, together with an introduction, commentary and remarks, which are supplemented by photographic material illustrating, among other things, the words of the French intellectual. Bouchet divides his memories into two parts: biographical and theoretical. In the first part he describes his meetings with Jakubisiak and gives lesser known details of his life, as well as the importance of his social and publishing activities. In the second, he refers to Jakubisiak's most significant philosophical and theological concepts (criticism of determinism and indeterminism, the concept of self-determination and an integral place) and makes reference to them with citations from the writings of the Polish priest or his friends. Bouchet pays particular attention to Jakubisiak's recognition of the great value of the human being, which is rooted in the Christian Revelation. The Frenchman opposes Jakubisiak's thought to contemporary extreme individualism and relativism, comparing the Polish thinker to a well-known German theologian, Romano Guardini.
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