- Jan Czerski
:"This article is about an explorer. For the priest, see
Jan Czerski (priest) ."Jan Stanisław Franciszek Czerski ( _ru. Иван Дементьевич Черский, Ivan Dementyevich Chersky) (1845–1892) was a PolishJohn J. Stephan, "The Russian Far East: A History", Stanford UniversityPress, 1994, ISBN 0804727015, [http://books.google.com/books?id=Jce4rBWjG5wC&pg=PA315&dq=Jan+Czerski&lr=&as_brr=3&sig=6jZjgslYNUd-_RISjdN4fIcE6lI Google Print, p.315] ]paleontologist (osteologist),geologist ,geographer andexplorer ofSiberia . He was exiled toTransbaikalia for participation in theJanuary Uprising of 1863. Aself-taught scientist, he eventually received three gold medals from theRussian Geographical Society , and his name was given to a settlement, two mountain ranges, several peaks and other places. He authored the first map ofLake Baikal and died during an expedition toKolyma .Biography
Son of Dominik and Xenia Czerski, a family of Lithuanian and Belarusian nobles (
szlachta ) he was born on 3 January 1845 inSwolna , partitioned Lithuania, thenVilna Governorate of theRussian Empire . At the age of 18 as a high-school student in Vilna (in "Instytut Szlachecki") he took part in theJanuary Uprising (1863); taken prisoner on 28 April 1863, he was stripped of his noble status, and his lands was repossessed by another family member loyal to the Russian government, and Czerski was finally forcibly conscripted into theRussian Army and exiled to Siberia (toBlagoveshchensk nearAmur River ) by the Russian authorities. He never made it to Blagoveshchensk, and was detached to serve in the formation nearOmsk . During that time he was taken in by some other Poles (Marczewski, Kwiatkowski) living in exile in Omsk region, as well asRussia n geographer,Grigory Nikolayevich Potanin . With their help he became interested in the natural history of the region. They provided him with literature on Siberia and natural sciences, and during his free time he self-educated himself and carried out his first research.After release from army in 1869 he did not receive permission to return home, becoming a political exilee; he was refused the right to enter a university; his publications were rejected and his first attempt to enter the
Russian Geographical Society was rejected. For the next two years he was forced to work as a teacher in Omsk, as he was denied the right to leave the area.In 1871 he received a permission to move to
Irkutsk ; there he meet other Lithuanian and Polish exiles and scholars,Aleksander Czekanowski andBenedykt Dybowski . With their help (Czekanowski is considered his mentor) he entered theRussian Geographical Society , got a job at a local museum and took part in several expedition, gaining experience and renown. He took part in the expeditions toSayan Mountains ,Irkut River Valley andLower Tunguska River. During four expeditions (1877–1881) Czerski has explored the valley of theSelenga river and he published a study concerning Baikal, explaining the origin of the lake and presenting the geological structure ofEast Siberia . Perhaps the most notable of these expeditions was the study of the geological structure of the coast of theLake Baikal . The result of this work was the first geological map of that coast, a map for which Czerski was decorated with the gold medal of theRussian Academy of Sciences (he received three total during his career [http://books.google.com/books?id=11MVdBYUX5oC&pg=PA316&dq=%22Jan+Czerski%22&as_brr=3&ei=32gvR-vuAZjcpgKB1sTyCQ&sig=YHDNt6QgZ4QE3dLxa1ElvBSqwTY] ) and for has received an international award inBologna , Italy. In his later work Czerski has put forward the idea of development of a relief (1878) and offered one of the first analysis oftectonic s of internal Asia (1886) and pioneered the geomorphological evolution theory.In 1878 he married Marfa Pavlovna Ivanova, a native of Siberia region. In 1883 he was pardoned by the Russian government, and later he regained his noble status. He lived in
Irkutsk until 1886, working in the east-Siberian department of the Russian Geographical Society. In 1886 he fell ill (progressingtuberculosis and even partialparalysis ) and was allowed to move toSaint Peterburg , where he joined the Peterburg's Science Academy; nonetheless he took time during his travel from Irkutsk to Peterburg to carefully document the geological side of the route. During that period he was appointed head of an expedition exploring the Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma basins. He collected and cataloged over 2,500 of ancient bones, publishing in 1888 a large work onQuaternary Period mammal s followed by an even larger work on the Siberian mammals relics in 1891.He died in
25 June 1892 during an expedition to Kolyma, Yana andIndigirka River s. He was buried near theOmolon River .His name was given to several landmarks in Siberia, including the Chersky Mountain Range and the settlement of Chersky in the
Sakha Republic , another mountain range similarly named inChita Oblast , theChersky Mountain - highest peak (2572 m) of theBaikal Range ,Chersky Peak (2090 m) - one of the highest peaks of theChamar-Daban Range,Chersky Pass in the same mountains,Chersky Stone (728 m) - a peak in nearListvyanka ,Chersky Valley andChersky Plateau in theSayan Mountains , awaterfall near the Baikal Lake, aninactive volcano in theTunkinsk Valley , and Chersky Place - an archeological site near Irkutsk where ancient human remains were discovered. Three species were named after him:Osteolepis Tscherskii (fish ),Leperditia Czerskii (crustacean ) andPolyptchites Tscherskii (ammonite ).Works
Full list of Czerki's works contains 97 positions; over a hundred works have been published dedicated to him.
*"Otczot o gieołogiczeskom issledowanii bieriegowoj połosy oziera Bajkała" (1886)
*"Gieołogiczeskije issledowanije Sibirskogo pocztowogo trakta ot oziera Bajkała do wostocznogo chriebta Uralskogo" (1888)
*"Dziennik podróży A. Czekanowskiego" (Czekanowski's Travel Journal)
*major work in 1891ee also
*
Bronisław Piłsudski Notes
References
*pl icon
WIEM Encyklopedia , [http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/31453,,,,czerski_jan,haslo.html Czerski Jan]
*pl iconPWN Encyklopedia , [http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3889579 Czerski Jan]
*pl icon Monika Szabłowska−Zaremba, [http://www.forumakad.pl/archiwum/2006/03/55_badacz.html Badacz Świętego Morza Syberii]
*pl icon Halina Urban, [http://www.pgi.gov.pl/muzeum/poczet/Jan_Czerski/jan_czerski.html Jan Czerski] . Biography in Muzeum Geologiczne (Geological Museum) of Państwowy Instytut Geologiczny (Polish National Geological Institute)
*pl icon [http://www.syberiatravel.pl/czerski.html JAN CZERSKI] . Biography
*pl icon Maria Dybowska, [http://www.polonialife.ca/polacy_czerski.htm Jan Czerski] . Short biographyExternal links
* [http://www.poczta-polska.pl/znaczki/en/a2002_1.php Czerski's stamp in the Polish Post series: POLES IN THE WORLD] , see larger picture [http://www.stampspoland.nl/series/repub/2002/3803.html here]
Further reading
* Przegląd Geologiczny, nr 11, 1962.
* Sidorski D., Zielony ocean, Ossolineum, 1973.
* Twarogowski J., Poczet wielkich geologów, Warszawa 1974.
* Wójcik Z., Jan Czerski, Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, Lublin 1986.
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