Witold of Prussia

Full professor of agricultural sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences, recognized hippologist and Polish chronicler of horse breeding.

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Born March 13, 1897 in Tbilisi (Georgia).

For many years the head of the Horse Breeding Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, full professor of agricultural sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences, an outstanding hippologist and chronicler of horse breeding, professor honoris causa of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences - SGGW-AR in Warsaw.

I met the Professor in 1979, when I started working for the "Koń Polski" monthly. He was 82 at the time, I was a graduate and a one-year internship at the Golejewko Stud. The professor, due to the fact that he was the chairman of the Program Council of the magazine, but above all its regular author, maintained frequent contacts with the editorial staff. They were all the easier because he lived on ul. Rutkowski, a few steps from the headquarters of PWRiL (on the corner of Nowy Świat and Al. Jerozolimskie), the publisher of "Koń Polski". During the few years that passed before he died, I had the opportunity to get to know him quite well and even enjoy his affection. I used to go to his apartment, visit him. He gave me the last three books that appeared in print with personal dedications, and when he made the - dramatic de facto - decision to donate his huge and priceless collection to the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, he invited me to his place and told me to choose all those works of his authorship that have not yet been published. I had. This rare collection is of great importance to me, not only for its scientific value, but also for sentimental reasons.

What was the professor like?

A small, quiet, modest, cultured old man. He did not like hustle and bustle, large gatherings of people, he felt best surrounded by his beloved books and writing. He was a typical "bookworm". But when the homeland was in need, he stood up to fight for it with arms in hand.

In 1915, he began studying at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Kiev. When in 1917, after the overthrow of the tsarist regime, Polish military formations began to form in Russia, he volunteered for the unit, which became the beginning of the 19th Regiment of Volhynian Lancers. Later, as a non-commissioned officer, he was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of Grochowski Lancers, in which he took part in the 1919-1920 campaign.

It was during this period that two passions of the Professor developed: for horses and for books. As he later wrote:

Continuous contact with horses for nearly 4 years of service in the cavalry, initially as a private, then a corporal and a platoon leader, developed in me a special liking and even passion for these noble animals. This feeling became so strong that with time I decided to finish farming and devote myself professionally to work in the field of improving domestic horse breeding.

In 1919 he bought his first book. It was "Horse Riding Lessons. Service regulations” issued by the Ministry of Military Affairs. This purchase was due to the fact that the Professor was not satisfied with the tips of officers and horse instructors alone. He needed something more - theoretical knowledge. And it was this need for constant exploration of knowledge that became the driving force of his entire life, which led him from a cavalry private to the title of professor and to the name of an outstanding Polish hipologist.

However, before he became an outstanding scientist, for many years he pursued the goal he set for himself: "he worked in the field of improving domestic horse breeding."

Still during his studies at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (1922-1927), because in 1925 he started working as an inspector of horse breeding in the central Association of Agricultural Organizations and Circles. After graduating with a degree in agricultural engineering, he started working at the Ministry of Agriculture. There he went through the successive ranks of service, and in 1935 he was nominated for the position of the head of the Horse Breeding Department. State stud farms (not many before the war) and stallion herds were subordinated to him. He worked in this position until the outbreak of the war and after its end, until 1956. He spent the occupation in Warsaw, employed as a horse breeding inspector at the Warsaw Chamber of Agriculture.

For over 20 years of clerical work in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Professor contributed to the creation of 20 legal acts of great importance for the development of horse breeding and breeding in Poland, both before and after the war. He has a particularly great merit in the field of organizing all matters related to the publication of stud books. Few people know that a few months before the outbreak of World War II, the Professor opened the doors of the Służewiec race track, opened in June 1939, in an unusual way. Well, he had the honor of being the first man to gallop on horseback across the green racetrack.

In 1955, thanks to his efforts, the Central Board of Horse Breeding handed over to the Polish Academy of Sciences the Popielno farm in Mazury, together with the Polish horses gathered there. This made it possible to conduct conservative breeding of this native breed in natural conditions and scientific research in the established experimental center of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Research that the professor then conducted for 15 years.

And so we come to the scientific chapter of the Professor's life. A great role in revealing this passion was played by Professor Roman Praweński, who was teaching horse breeding at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences at the time. Witold Pruski, as a student, was his part-time assistant for some time. Years later, when he described how his library was created, he wrote about his master:

A scholar and specialist of great importance, as well as a teacher with a special talent for winning over his students and making them into stout specialists, completely devoted to their profession. The professor aroused in me a further love and deeper treatment of the chosen specialty, and besides, he kindled bibliophilic tendencies.

Witold Pruski, as a 28-year-old student, in 1925, published his first scientific work in the Yearbook of Agricultural Sciences. In 1948, he had already published over 100 items, including books, monographs, scientific papers and problem articles. It was then that he obtained the degree of doctor of agricultural sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. The basis for this was the defense of the work entitled: "The history of the thoroughbred horse in Poland and its impact on domestic breeding".

When in 1956 he was officially transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Polish Academy of Sciences, he was nominated as an associate professor. The title of full professor was conferred on him by the resolution of the State Council of February 26, 1965. In 1972 he was retired, and in December 1980, on the initiative of prof. Jerzy Chachuła, the Senate of SGGW-AR awarded him the title of doctor honoris causa of this university.

This is the Professor's scientific path in a nutshell. And the measure of its value are its publications. In the end, there were over 230 of them! It is impossible to list them all. But about a few, the most important ones, it is necessary to write at least a few words.

In the interwar period, the professor mainly wrote articles about horse breeding at that time. The only major work from this period is "Ruler" - a monograph of an excellent Polish Thoroughbred sire from the late XNUMXth century.

During the occupation, the Professor continued to collect books and writings, he collected documents and compiled them. Their result was the first post-war work: "History of the State Stud in Janów Podlaski, 1817-1939", which was published in 1948.

At the end of the 50s, the professor wrote a two-volume academic textbook "Horse Breeding". The first volume was published in 1960, and the second (written together with Jan Grabowski and Stanisław Schuch) - in 1963. Both volumes are an invaluable mine of knowledge about horse breeding, not only for students, and it is very good that PWRiL decided to publish a reprint Volume XNUMX for now, but volume XNUMX coming soon.

In 1970, also by PWRiL, another work was published documenting: "History of Thoroughbred horse racing and breeding in Poland, Kingdom of Poland 1815-1918".

Her work was continued by "Racing and breeding of Thoroughbred and Arabian horses in Poland in 1918-1939", published this time by Ossolineum in 1980.

In turn, Wydawnictwo Sport i Turystyka published in 1982 "History of equestrian competitions in Poland". It should only be added that these are the stories from the beginnings of Polish equestrian sport until 1939.

The last book of the Professor is "Two centuries of Polish breeding of Arabian horses (1778-1978) and its successes in the world", which was published by PWRiL in 1983, a year before the author's death.

The historical and chronicle works of the Professor documenting the history of horse breeding in Poland (as well as other animals; see the three-volume study "Livestock breeding in the Kingdom of Poland in the years 1815-1918" or a similar two-volume study on Galicia and one volume on Wielkopolska) would not have been possible if not for his library and archive. It was his workshop, which he meticulously and painstakingly collected for nearly 60 years (1923-1980). The library consisted of 1894 items in 2000 volumes, and the archive, divided into 4 subject sections, consists of: over 10 documentation cards, 93 notebooks, 60 folders and nearly 2000 unique photographs.

This priceless collection survived the war thanks to the Professor's wife, Maria Pruska née Monasterska, which the Professor described years later. When, at the end of the Warsaw Uprising, in August 1944, the Germans deported the Professor to the camp in Pruszków, only his wife and an elderly housekeeper stayed in the house in Saska Kępa. When the Red Army and Polish formations occupied Praga in late autumn, the Nazis began to fire heavily at Saska Kępa. It then became clear that the house would have to be left. Then Maria Pruska, realizing the value of her husband's collection, somehow reached General Marian Spychalski, presented the matter to him and asked for help in transporting the books. Spychalski thought for a moment, then announced that he was sending an empty truck for food to Lublin, so he had books loaded into it. And that's how it happened. The soldiers and Mrs. Pruska, who was helping them, in a hurry, for fear of shelling, threw books like potatoes onto the truck until it was filled to the brim. In Lublin, through the intercession of Mrs. Pruska, the library was taken care of by General Leon Bukojemski, then the city's commander. By the way, General played an important role in saving the racing stables quartered on the Lublin track, and after the war horse racing also owed him a lot. And so most of the professor's collection was saved.

In 1980, the Professor donated his collections to the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Initially, they were stored in Brwinów, and since the Faculty of Animal Production moved to the newly built headquarters at ul. Ciszewskiego 8, Professor Witold Pruski's library is located there.

Handing over the library was in a sense an act of desperation for the Professor - old age was not kind to him. Unfortunately, the Prussians had no children or any close relatives. In the summer of 1981, the Professor suffered his first misfortune. After suffering a cerebral hemorrhage, it turned out that he could no longer write and even had difficulty reading. Then, when he could no longer work, he was kept alive by the need to care for his ailing wife. The next misfortune occurred in 1983. His wife, who was taking him out for a walk, fell, fractured her femoral head and died soon after. It was a great blow for the Professor, he lost his will to live. He died on February 2, 1984.

Author of the text: Marek Szewczyk

We would like to thank Mr. M. Szewczyk for permission to publish the above material.