Re: Marek Zawadowski

[Tadeusz Litak <tadeusz.litak@gmail.com>]

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I'd like to add to the condolences with my own recollection of Marek (and, less importantly, correct some mistaken 
claims in Robin's email).

Ironically, I only met Marek after I left Poland for good, in Tbilisi 2003, at the first edition of the TANCL conference 
(later known as TACL, with "categories" replacing "non-classical logics" in the name). The first immediate impression 
was how youthful he was, in the best possible sense: both physically and intellectually, despite already being an 
accomplished researcher. Having heard that there were other Poles at the event (Tomasz Kowalski and me), he immediately 
descended upon our room, inquiring how many slides we had prepared, and whether we thought that the scorching heat 
outside would reach 40 degrees that day... Within less than a minute, you knew that this was somebody whose excellent 
intellect wouldn't get in the way of good fun and good companionship. And that worked splendidly at that conference.

I also saw soon with admiration and relief  that he was unwilling to respect artificial borders between fields. We 
should admit here that the relationships between category theorists and logicians were sometimes complicated, and as 
usual in such cases, both sides are probably to blame. But Marek was among those researchers who couldn't care less 
about any sectarian divisions. His joint book with Silvio Ghilardi on "Sheaves, Games and Model Completions" is a great 
expression of this spirit. Even very (apparently) inherently syntactic results turn out to allow duality-based proofs 
using their methods. While in the case of uniform interpolation for intuitionistic logic or Löb logic semantic proofs 
using less overtly categorical terminology were found independently by Albert Visser, the potential of their framework 
still needs to be fully explored. An excellent example was provided recently by Silvio Ghilardi and Luigi Santocanale, 
who showed how a (seemingly impenetrable) syntactic theorem by Wim Ruitenburg (JSL 1984) on finite order of 
intuitionistic formulas can be proved using methods of that book.

But one cannot discuss this or anything else with Marek anymore. The only way left to learn from him now is by reading 
his papers. And ancient philosophers often suggested that this is an inferior method of learning from masters.

Now for correcting Robin's claims:

> Helena led an effort to keep Polish mathematicians and computer scientists in touch with their western counterparts despite being part of the soviet union

Let me point out that the Polish People's Republic, while certainly being an unfree, oppressive and poor country, 
equally certainly wasn't a part of the Soviet Union. Had it been the case, Robin, you would have been paid in rubles 
rather than in złotys, for example.

The differences went deeper. Unlike the Soviet Union, the "Polish People's Republic" had powerful individual agriculture 
and Church not controlled by the state. An independent trade union like Solidarity, boasting at its 1980-81 peak more 
that a quarter of the entire population as its members, would have been downright impossible in the USSR.

"The Eastern side of the Iron Curtain" and "The Soviet Union" were not equivalent notions, even if one could hardly 
speak about sovereignty either (can we speak about it these days?).

I don't want to go too deeply into present-day politics, but perhaps this can explain the difference to you: presently, 
the Western world is militarily, economically and politically controlled from Washington. It still doesn't imply that 
Calgary or Warwick lie in the United States. Even though the language is the same (which isn't the case with Polish and 
Russian; in fact rather few Poles spoke fluent Russian even back then in 1986, despite the language being officially 
taught at schools...).

> Lech Welesa was in prison at that time.

Actually, this also seems untrue, unless you got the date of your visit to Poland wrong by five years, and even then it 
wouldn't have been fully correct. In 1981-82, during martial law in Poland, Wałęsa was interned in Chylice, Otwock 
Wielki and Abramowo. These weren't conventional prisons, as the authorities tried to convince him to create a fully 
controlled neo-Solidarity at that time. It didn't work out, Wałęsa didn't commit such a spectacular political suicide, 
Solidarity remained officially outlawed until 1986, but Wałęsa himself got released in November 1982. There were still 
some opposition figures and numerous regular activists who ended up again in prison afterwards (Bogdan Borusewicz, 
Bogdan Lis, Zbigniew Bujak, Adam Michnik, all released by amnesty in September 1986) or were in hiding (Kornel 
Morawiecki, Andrzej Kołodziej). Perhaps you confused Wałęsa with one of them.

This is not such a trivial historical point. Imprisoning a Peace Nobel Prize winner was not something that the 
half-corroded regime, with little popular support and with dramatic need for foreign loans and investments, could afford 
at that stage. Ordinary people were often risking more: if you were caught transporting opposition materials, for 
example, even if you didn't end up in prison, you risked at least your car being confiscated. You can't imagine how many 
years it took to get a car at that time, if you were ever so lucky. And no BBC or Radio Free Europe would protest on the 
behalf of some unknown dude or gal. It would have been easier for security services to beat up or sometimes even kill 
somebody without a high profile, not to mention "trivia" like losing your job.


Anyway, regardless of any infelicities, thanks for this interesting recollection!

t.




> The first experience of Soviet life (in  winter) was to discover that the communal hot water did not work as pipes from the power station had burst (actually no one said what happened or even would admit that the system had broken).   I recall Helena -- the realist -- making arrangements so that participants could have a bath in another quarter of the city.
>
> At the end of the meeting I still had a huge amount of zloti so Marek took me shopping.   This was an interesting experience as it consisted of joining queues to find out what they were queuing for!  Needless to say I could not spend all my zloti so I ended up giving them to Marek.   I learned that university staff were not really paid a living wage so these perks (and visiting positions in the US -- often brokered by Helena) were essential.
>
> I was always delighted to see Marek at (Category Theory) conferences and will greatly miss him.
>
> -robin
> (Robin Cockett)
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