Poland 10 Zlotych 2010 Benedykt Dybowski - Silver

Silver collector coin of PLN 10 commemorating Benedykt Dybowski – a Polish traveler, naturalist and explorer. Benedykt Dybowski was born on May 12th, 1833 in Adamaryn near Minsk. He started his education at home under the supervision of tutors. Later he continued to study in a junior high school in Minsk. After he had passed his high school finals he started studying at a Medical Department at the Dorpat University. As a student he was awarded a gold medal for his thesis on freshwater fish in Estonia. In 1857 he had to move to the Wrocław University because he seconded his friend in a duel. One year later he moved again, this time to the Frederick William University in Berlin, where he gained a doctor of medicine’s diploma after defending his dissertation on parthenogenesis in bees. In 1862 he had the German diploma recognized in Dorpat thanks to his thesis on Cyprinidae of Livonia. In the meantime, on May 8th, 1861 he was arrested for a short time (and released under the pressure of mass demonstrations) for singing in a Vilnius cathedral a Polish Catholic song Boże coś Polskę. On August 10th, 1864 Dybowski was sentenced to a 12-year penal servitude and took to off. First, he was in a labor camp in a shipwrights’ village – Sivakova, and then he started organizing a health resort in Darasan. During the next stage of his exile he went to Kultukat at the Baikal Lake where Dybowski started his research on the Baikal and Dauria fauna. Two trips to the Far East were also covered by the research. In 1869 Dybowski participated in an expedition of General Sokolov to the Outer Manchuria, Ussuriland, Vladivostok and Korea. In 1872-1875 he organized the second, this time fully independent expedition. Using a boat “Nadzieja” constructed with his co-exiles – Wiktor Godlewski and Michał Jankowski – he sailed along the rivers Argun, Amur and Ussuri reching the Sea of Japan. He left huge scientific heritage – 343 works, many of which include pioneer research covering many areas of biological sciences and more (ichthyology, ornithology, anthropology, ethnology, etc.). It is also worth mentioning that Dybowski together with Alfons Forel, is considered to be the creator of limnology – a science busing itself with exploration of reservoirs of inland waters from the point of view of defining their physical, chemical and biological conditions (e.g. thermal currents, currents, chemical contents, sedimentation, the ice, quantitative and qualitative structure of living forms occurrence). Exploring the Baikal fauna the Polish scientist studied species biology (among others of the Baikal Seal and the Golomyanka fish – accurately defining its way of reproduction); described over 100 new species of Gammarus and a few dozen of fish, he defined three fauna complexes of Baikal. As a Darwinism propagator he was trying to prove the existence of evolutionary processes taking place under the influence of environmental changes and geographical isolation. Dybowski is also the author of memoirs constituting a record of the epoch and a photographic register of his exile. Benedykt Dybowski died on January 30th, 1930 in Lviv. He was buried with honors on the Lychakiv Cemetery in the January Uprising participants quarter. The text was prepared on the basis of an issue folder of the National Bank of Poland.