Ignacy Domeyko or Domejko, pseudonym: ''Żegota'' ( es, Ignacio Domeyko, ; 31 July 1802 – 23 January 1889) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proce ...

, educator, and founder of the University of Santiago, in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. Domeyko spent most of his life, and died, in his adopted country, Chile. After a youth passed in partitioned Poland, Domeyko participated in the

Polish–Russian War 1830–31 The November Uprising (1830–31), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in W ...

. Upon Russian victory, he was exiled, spending part of his life in France (where he had gone with a fellow

Philomath A philomath () is a lover of learning and studying. The term is from Greek (; "beloved", "loving", as in philosophy or philanthropy) and , (, ; "to learn", as in polymath). Philomathy is similar to, but distinguished from, philosophy in that ...

, Polish poet

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...

) before eventually settling in

, whose citizen he became. He lived some 50 years in Chile and made major contributions to the study of that country's

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

and mineralogy. His observations on the circumstances of poverty-stricken

miners A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...

and of their wealthy exploiters had a profound influence on those who would go on to shape

's labor movement. Domeyko is seen as having had close ties to several countries and thus in 2002, when

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

organized a series of commemorations of the 200th anniversary of his birth, he was referred to as "a citizen of the world".CULTURAL BULLETIN 21 (165)
Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2002

Life

Early life

Ignacy Domeyko was born in the then

Russian partition The Russian Partition ( pl, zabór rosyjski), sometimes called Russian Poland, constituted the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were annexed by the Russian Empire in the course of late-18th-century Partitions of Po ...

of the former

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi- confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ru ...

, at

Niedźwiadka Wielka Niedźwiadka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Stanin, within Łuków County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies approximately north-west of Stanin, west of Łuków, and north-west of the regional capital Lublin ...

( be, Мядзьведка, translit=Miadzviedka) Manor (Bear Cub Manor) near

Nieśwież Nesvizh, Niasviž ( be, Нясві́ж ; lt, Nesvyžius; pl, Nieśwież; russian: Не́свиж; yi, ניעסוויז; la, Nesvisium) is a city in Belarus. It is the administrative centre of the Nyasvizh District (''rajon'') of Minsk Region ...

Minsk Governorate The Minsk Governorate (russian: Минская губерния, Belarusian: ) or Government of Minsk was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. The seat was in Minsk. It was created in 1793 from the land acquired in the partitio ...

, Imperial Russia (now

Karelichy Karelichy ( be, Карэлічы, Kareličy; russian: Коре́личи, ; lt, Koreličiai; pl, Korelicze; yi, קארעליץ, ''Korelitz'') is a town in the Grodno Region of Belarus and the administrative centre of Karelichy District. The t ...

district,

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

). The Domeyko family held the Polish ''Dangiel''

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

. Ignacy's father, Hipolit Domeyko, who was president of the local land court ( pl, sąd ziemski), died when Ignacy was seven years old; the boy's uncles then served as his guardians. In his youth Ignacy was a subject of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. He had, however, been brought up in the culture of the

, a multicultural state whose educated and dominant classes had spoken Polish as a '' lingua franca''. Shortly before Domeyko's birth, the Commonwealth had been dismembered in the

partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for ...

. For this reason, and because Domeyko subsequently spent most of his life in

, he is considered a person of national importance to

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in C ...

, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and

Chileans Chileans ( es, Chilenos) are people identified with the country of Chile, whose connection may be residential, legal, historical, ethnic, or cultural. For most Chileans, several or all of these connections exist and are collectively the source ...

. Domeyko enrolled at

Vilnius University Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...

, then known as the Imperial University of Vilna, in 1816 as a student of mathematics and physics. He studied under

Jędrzej Śniadecki Jędrzej Śniadecki (archaic ''Andrew Sniadecki''; ; 30 November 1768 – 11 May 1838) was a Polish writer, physician, chemist, biologist and philosopher. His achievements include being the first person who linked rickets to lack of sunlight. He ...

. Involved with the

Philomaths The Philomaths, or Philomath Society ( pl, Filomaci or ''Towarzystwo Filomatów''; from the Greek φιλομαθεῖς "lovers of knowledge"), was a secret student organization that existed from 1817 to 1823 at the Imperial University of Vilniu ...

, a secret student organisation dedicated to Polish culture and the restoration of Poland's independence, he was a close friend of

. In 1823–24, during the investigation and trials of the Philomaths, Domeyko and Mickiewicz spent months incarcerated at Vilnius' Uniate Basilian monastery. After participating in the November 1830 Uprising, in which Domeyko served as an officer under General Dezydery Chłapowski, in 1831 Domeyko was forced into exile in order not to face

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n reprisals.

Exile

Journeying through Germany, he arrived in France, where he would earn an engineering degree at Paris' ''

École des Mines École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scal ...

'' (School of Mining). He also studied at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

and maintained his political engagements with Belarusians, Poles, and Lithuanians.

Chile

In 1838 Domeyko left for

. There he made substantial contributions to mineralogy and the technology of mining, studied several previously unknown

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed ...

, advocated for the

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

of the native tribal peoples, and was a

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

and

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

. He is also credited with introducing the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Interna ...

to Latin America. He served as a professor at a mining college in

Coquimbo Coquimbo is a port city, commune and capital of the Elqui Province, located on the Pan-American Highway, in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. Coquimbo is situated in a valley south of La Serena, with which it forms Greater La Serena with more than ...

( La Serena) and after 1847 at the

University of Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

(''Universidad de Chile'', in Santiago, Chile, Santiago), of which he was Rector (academia), rector for 16 years (1867–83). Domeyko gained Chilean citizenship in 1849, but declared at the time that "I may now never change my citizenship, but God grants me hope that wherever I may be—whether in the Cordilleras or in [the Vilnius suburb of] Paneriai—I shall die a Lithuanian."UNESCO
Ignotas Domeika 200
Retrieved on 2008-07-24 The term "Lithuanian" at that time designated any inhabitant, whatever his ethnicity, of the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1884 Domeyko returned for an extended visit to Europe and remained there until 1889, visiting his birthplace and other places in the former Commonwealth, as well as Paris and Jerusalem. In 1887 he was awarded an Doctor honoris causa, honorary doctorate by the Jagiellonian University, in Kraków. In 1889, soon after returning to Santiago, Chile, Domeyko died.

Memorials

Named in honour of Domeyko are; a Cuban found genus of plants ''Domeykoa'', the mineral ''domeykite'', the shellfish ''Nautilus domeykus'', the genus of dinosaur ''Domeykosaurus'', the ammonite ''Amonites domeykanus'', asteroid ''2784 Domeyko'', the ''Cordillera Domeyko'' mountain range in the Andes, and the

an town of '':es:Domeyko, Domeyko''. A bronze bust of Domeyko stands in the Casa Central de la Universidad de Chile, of which Domeyko was long-time Rector (academia), rector. In 1992, a plaque in Spanish and Polish language, Polish was placed on a building at ''Krakowskie Przedmieście, Krakowskie Przedmieście 64'', in Warsaw, Poland, commemorating the "distinguished son of the Polish nation and eminent citizen of Chile." On the 200th anniversary of his birth,

declared 2002 to be "Ignacy Domeyko Year." Several commemorative events were held in Chile under the auspices of Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Chilean President Ricardo Lagos. In 2002, Poland and Chile jointly issued a postage stamp commemorating the 200th anniversary of Domeyko's birth. Also in 2002, a 200th-birthday plaque honoring him was placed in the entry gate to Eastern Catholic churches, Uniate Basilian Monastery in Vilnius, Basilian monastery in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he and

were held in 1823–24 during the investigation and trials of the

. In 2015 a

ian climber Pavel Gorbunov placed a memorial plate on the top of Cerro Kimal in Cordillera Domeyko.

Notes

References

* Polish language * Polish language * Polish language * Polish language * Portuguese language *
review
Polish language * Paz Domeyko Lea-Plaza. Ignacio Domeyko. La Vida de un Emigrante. Santiago, Chile.2002. Random House Mondadori (Editorial Sudamericana) Spanish language * Paz Domeyko. A Life in Exile. Ignacy Domeyko 1802-1889. Sydney, Australia 2005. }.9. English language. Available from author. See website Paz Domeyko, www.domeyko.org

External links

Works of Ignacy Domeyko
in the digital library Polona. *
Memoirs of Ignacy Domeyko
*
2002 Polish conference on Ignacy Domeyko
Contains a selection of articles and book reviews, some in English * Honorata Szocik

Nasz Czas 37 (576) * Proceedings of a 2002

ian conference about Domeyko.
Ignacy Domeyko. Polymath Virtual Library, Fundación Ignacio LarramendiMuseum about Polish Explorer Being Built in Chile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Domeyko, Ignacy 1802 births 1889 deaths People from Karelichy District People from Novogrudsky Uyezd 19th-century Lithuanian nobility 19th-century Polish nobility Belarusian nobility Polish Roman Catholics 19th-century Chilean geologists Chilean geographers Chilean people of Polish descent 19th-century Polish geologists Lithuanian geologists Polish mineralogists Polish geographers Belarusian geographers Belarusian geologists Belarusian mineralogists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Chile November Uprising participants Naturalized citizens of Chile Vilnius University alumni