Christopher Kasparek

Christopher Kasparek (born 1945) is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by numerous authors, including Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski, and Władysław Kozaczuk, as well as the Polish–Lithuanian Constitution of 3 May 1791.

He has published papers on the history of the broad World War II era; Enigma decryption; Bolesław Prus and his novel Pharaoh; the theory and practice of translation; logology (science of science); multiple independent discovery; the classification of mental disorders; and methodology of medical documentation.

Life

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Józef and Sylvia[1] or Stanisława Kasparek, Polish Armed Forces veterans of World War II, Kasparek lived several years in London, England, before moving with his family in 1951 to the United States.

In 1966 he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he had studied Polish literature with the future (1980) Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz.

In 1978 Kasparek received an M.D. degree from Warsaw Medical School, in Poland. For 33 years, 1983–2016, he practiced psychiatry in California.

Writer

Kasparek has translated works by historian of philosophy Władysław Tatarkiewicz ("The Concept of Poetry," 1975; On Perfection, 1979; A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, 1980); military historian Władysław Kozaczuk (Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, 1984[2]); short-story writer, novelist, and philosopher Bolesław Prus (On Discoveries and Inventions; several stories; Pharaoh, translated from the Polish, with foreword and notes, by Christopher Kasparek, Amazon Kindle e-book, 2020, ASIN:BO8MDN6CZV.; and other Polish authors.

Kasparek's translation of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 (published 1985 and republished in many venues), is available — augmented with his translation of the Free Royal Cities Act — on Wikisource.

His translations of verse include selected Fables and Parables by Ignacy Krasicki.

Translations

A partial list of works translated by Christopher Kasparek:

  • Ignacy Krasicki, Fables and Parables, 1779
  • Constitution of 3 May 1791
  • Bolesław Prus, On Discoveries and Inventions (public lecture, 1873), by Aleksander Głowacki (Bolesław Prus's birth name)
  • Bolesław Prus, "Fading Voices" (microstory), 1883
  • Bolesław Prus, "Mold of the Earth" (microstory), 1884
  • Bolesław Prus, "The Living Telegraph" (microstory), 1884
  • Bolesław Prus, "Shades" (microstory), 1885
  • Bolesław Prus,"A Legend of Old Egypt" (short story), 1888
  • Bolesław Prus, Pharaoh (historical novel), 1895) – Pharaoh, translated from the Polish, with foreword and notes, by Christopher Kasparek, Amazon Kindle e-book, 2020, ASIN:BO8MDN6CZV
  • Bolesław Prus, The Most General Life Ideals (excerpts from book, 2nd ed., 1905)
  • Florian Znaniecki, "The Subject Matter and Tasks of the Science of Knowledge" (1923), in Bohdan Walentynowicz, ed., Polish Contributions to the Science of Science, Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982, ISBN 83-01-03607-9, pp. 1–81.
  • Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Zarys dziejów filozofii w Polsce (A Brief History of Philosophy in Poland), Kraków, Polish Academy of Learning, 1948 – the first half appeared as "Outline of the History of Philosophy in Poland" in The Polish Review, vol. XVIII, no. 3, 1973, pp. 73–85
  • Tadeusz Kotarbiński, "A Review of Questions in the Science of Science" (1965), in Bohdan Walentynowicz, ed., Polish Contributions to the Science of Science, Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982, ISBN 83-01-03607-9, pp. 96–125.
  • Władysław Tatarkiewicz, On Perfection, serialized 1979–81 – reprinted in the book, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, On perfection, Warsaw University Press, 1992, pp. 9–51 (the book is a collection of papers by and about the late Professor Tatarkiewicz)
  • Władysław Tatarkiewicz, A History of Six Ideas: An Essay in Aesthetics, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980, ISBN 83-01-00824-5
  • Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War II, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, Maryland, University Publications of America, 1984, ISBN 0-89093-547-5

Notes
  1. Acknowledgements, in Józef Kasparek-Obst. The Constitutions of Poland and of the United States: Kinships and Genealogy.
  2. Enigma, edited, translated and augmented by Kasparek, has been described as "the Bible" on the Polish foundations of World War II Enigma decryption by Zdzisław Jan Kapera in his "Appendix F" to Władysław Kozaczuk and Jerzy Straszak, Enigma: How the Poles Broke the Nazi Code, New York, Hippocrene Books, 2004, ISBN 0-7818-0941-X, pp. 135–36.

References
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