{"id":734159,"date":"2008-09-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/?page_id=734159"},"modified":"2008-09-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T00:00:00","slug":"ignasy-domeyko-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/welcome-to-the-archives-of-belarus-website\/subject-guides-to-archival-records\/famous-people\/ignasy-domeyko\/ignasy-domeyko-2","title":{"rendered":"Igna\u0441y Domeyko"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n\r\nList of archival documents<\/a>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n

Overview<\/h2>\r\n\r\n

Igna\u0441y Domeyko (b. 31 July\r\n1802 – d. 23 January 1889), one of the most world-known Belarusians, a participant in the\r\nliberation movement in Belarus, the national hero of Chile, a world-famous scientist,\r\nmineralogist, the Rector of the University of Chile. He left a\u00a0 significant mark in\r\nmany areas of human knowledge, such as mineralogy, geology, chemistry, metallurgy,\r\ngeography, ethnography, botanics and zoology, as well as considerably contributed to the\r\norganization of higher education system in Chile.\u00a0 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Igna\u0441y Domeyko was born at Medviadka Manor, Novogrudok district (now in Korelichi\r\ndistrict, Grodno region, Belarus) into the family of a former judge in the Novogrudok\r\nvoivodeship. At the age of seven after his father’s death he came under the guardianship\r\nof his uncles,\u00a0highly educated people, and lived on their estates at Zhyburtovshchina\r\nand Ozerany (now in Diatlovo district, Grodno region). At the age of ten, he entered a\r\nlocal grammar school founded at the Piarist college noted for its excellence in education,\r\nin the town of Shchuchin.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

In 1816 Igna\u0441y Domeyko was admitted to the University of Vilno (Vilnius) to study\r\nmathematics and physics, where he also obtained knowledge in topography, architecture,\r\nforeign languages, history, and literature. In 1882 he defended his thesis and obtained a\r\nmaster’s degree in philosophy. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

During student years Domeyko became friends with the poet and public figure, Adam\r\nMitskevich, the poet and ethnographer, Jan Chechot, and the revolutionary poet and\r\nnaturalist, Tomash Zan. They all were involved in the secret student societies of\r\nPhilomathes and Philarets, who sought to prepare young people in various activities for\r\nthe wellbeing of their native land. They placed high emphasis on national self-awareness\r\nand humanistic ideas, promoted knowledge and science as\u00a0 highest values, and stood up\r\nagainst the officialdom of tsarist Russia in education, criticizing despotism, surfdom and\r\nthe feudal absolutist order. In 1820 Igna\u0441y Domeyko joined the Philomathes under the\r\nsecret name of Zhegot. Later Adam Mitskevich would give this name to one of the heroes in\r\nhis long poem called “Dziady”; besides, his famous epic poem “Pan\r\nTadeush” was originally designed under the title of “Zhegot”. In 1823 the\r\nsecret societies were disbanded; their members including Igna\u0441y Domeyko (in all, nearly a\r\nhundred) were arrested. Domeyko was exiled under police supervision to the estate of his\r\nuncle.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The former Philomathes were not accepted for government service. For six years Domeyko\r\nhad been managing the estates of Zhyburtovshchina and Zapolie (now in Lida district,\r\nGrodno region). He obtained knowledge of agriculture from the books ordered in Germany. In\r\nthese years he was also occupied with experimental gardening, veterinary medicine, and\r\ntreating the sick villagers. Besides, he made translations from various languages.\u00a0 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Igna\u0441y\r\nDomeyko was a participant in the national uprising of 1830-1831 in Poland, Belarus and\r\nLithuania against the tsarist Russia. After a defeat, together with the insurgent army he\r\ncrossed the Russian-Prussian border and layed down arms.\u00a0 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Being forced to stay in a foreign land, from 1832 Domeyko lived in Paris and was active\r\nin the public life of the Belarusian, Polish and Lithuanian emigre communities. Later he\r\nattended the Sorbonne, College de France<\/em>, and then he studied chemistry and\r\ngeology at the Ecole des Mines<\/em> in Paris, graduating in 1837 with a diploma in\r\nmining engineering. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

In 1838 Domeyko left for Chile, being contracted for six years to teach chemistry and\r\nmineralogy. Instead he stayed in this South American country for almost half a century. For several years he had lectured at a mining school in\r\nthe town of Coquimbo, founded a meteorological station, and created an ethnographic\r\nmuseum. During his repeated journeys about the country he studied the geology and\r\nmineralogy of the Andes, the Atacama Desert, and the province of Auracania in southern\r\nChile and examined the daily life of the local people, the Auracanian Indians (Mapuches),\r\nwhom he described in his book.\u00a0 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

The eager activity of Igna\u0441y Domeyko in Coquimbo was noticed by the scholarly\r\ncommunity and the government of Chile: in 1847 he was invited to lecture at the University\r\nof Chile in Santiago. In the years 1867-1883 he was the university’s rector and was\r\ndirectly involved in the reforming of higher education in the country. He many times\r\nconducted research expeditions in the Andes, studied volcanoes, discovered silver and\r\ncopper mines, organized the production of gold and caliche, introduced\u00a0first in Latin\r\nAmerica the metric system of weights and measures, and authored many textbooks and\r\nscholarly treatises that were published in the learned journals of Paris. At retirement,\r\nthe Government of Chile granted him a life-long pension, the highest in the country, that\r\nexceeded even the rewards given to generals who fought for the independence of this\r\ncountry.\u00a0 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

In 1884 Igna\u0441y Domeyko managed to fulfill his old dream of visiting Belarus. His\r\ndeparture was honoured by his many friends and pupils, among whom were the known\r\npoliticians, university faculty and students.On his way to Belarus he stayed for a time in Cracow\r\nand Warsaw, where he was greeted with great enthusiasm, yet he longed to see soon his\r\nhomeland. In his diary he wrote, “…I could feel blood pounding in my temples at the\r\nthought that i would soon see my home and that i hadn’t reached my destination yet… Here\r\nis the Bug, the nightly Brest – I am now in Litva!” (a historical name for the\r\nbiggest part of modern-day Belarus it had before the late 19th century). In his Domeyko\r\nabout the uprising of 1830-1831, Domeyko does not omit to mention, almost in each case,\r\nthe nationality of this or that insurgent. He clearly distinguishes between the\r\n“Crowns” (i.e. the Poles), “Zhmudins” (present-day Lithuanians) and\r\n“our Litvins” (present-day Belarusians). On 14 June 1887 the Jagiellonian\r\nUniversity in Cracow awarded the title of Doctor honoris causa of medicine to the\r\n“Litvin”, as indicated in the diploma, Igna\u0441y Domeyko. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

For four years Domeyko had lived on his home estate at Zhyburtovshchina and in the\r\nmeantime visited other memorable places in Belarus: Medviadka, Mir, and Kroshin.\u00a0One\r\nof the last Philarets, he was welcomed everywhere with great interest; he had talks with\r\nlocal villagers in Belarusian, the language he did not forget despite a half-century\r\nabsence. During his stay in Belarus he several times visited Paris and was once in \u00a0\r\nRome and Jerusalem. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Igna\u0441y Domeyko died on 23 January 1889 soon after return to Santiago. The government\r\ndeclared him the national hero of Chile. On the day of his funeral the national mourning\r\nwas announced in the country.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The many-sided activity of Igna\u0441y Domeyko brought him a universal recognition, his\r\nscholarly legacy being of especial importance. He authored 130 scientific works. Many of\r\nhis textbooks were used and are still used to teach students in Chile, Peru and Mexico. In\r\nall, his bibliography totals 4,500 titles, including monographs, articles, textbooks,\r\nmanuals, letters, and reviews of his works, as well as biographical articles, essays and\r\npoetic pieces written about him.In Europe and America there are over 70\r\nmonuments and commemorative plaques bearing the name of Igna\u0441y Domeyko. Named in his\r\nhonour are the mineral Domeykite, the Chilean ammonite, a new species of rubber-bearing\r\nplant, a violet, an azalia, a fossil snail and shellfish, a peak and a range of mountains\r\nin the Andes (Cordilliera-Domeyko), a town in the province of Auracania in southern Chile,\r\na village near the town of Antofagasta in northern Chile, a university college in\r\nValparaiso, a national library in Santiago, a\u00a0mineralogical museum at the University\r\nof La Serena, a number of mines, streets, squares, post stations, public and sports\r\norganizations, funds and scholarships. In Chile, the statue of Domeyko was erected in\r\nSantiago and a medal was coined in his honour.
\r\n In Belarus, a museum was founded on the\r\nformer estate of our famous fellow-countryman in the village of Zapolie, Lida district.\r\nHis memory is also preserved at school museums in the village of Velikaia Medviadka,\r\nKorelichi district, and Krupovo, Lida district; a street in the village of Krupovo also\r\nbears his name. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

On the 200th anniversary of Domeyko’s birth, UNESCO declared the\r\nyear of 2002 to be “Igna\u0441y Domeyko Year”. The commemorative events were\r\nheld in many countries, especially those associated with his life and activities. In\r\nBelarus, numerous scholarly conferences were held, his name was attached to a number of\r\nnewly-established scholarships, commemorative plaques were installed in places where he\r\nonce lived. The Minsk-based publishing house, Belaruski Knigazbor, published the book of\r\nhis diaries called “My Journeys”.\u00a0 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Our website offers a list of documents relating to Igna\u0441y Domeyko which are preserved\r\nat the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno — 14 records selected from four\r\nrecord groups. The language of documents is Russian, Polish, French, German and English.\r\nDocuments dated 1824, 1826, 1833-1836, and 1841 concern Domeyko’s participation in the\r\nliberation movement in Belarus. The survey of documents was prepared by R.F. Goriacheva,\r\ndirector assistant at the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"List of archival documents Overview Igna\u0441y Domeyko (b. 31 July 1802 – d. 23 January 1889), one of the most world-known Belarusians, a participant in the liberation movement in Belarus,…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":987613,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-734159","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/734159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/734159\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/987613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}