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Alfred Jahn
View on WikipediaAlfred Jahn (22 April 1915, Kleparów, near Lwów (L'viv) – 1 April 1999, Wrocław) was a Polish geographer, geomorphologist, polar explorer and rector of Wrocław University.
Key Information
Biography
[edit]He was born on 22 April 1915 in Kleparów, near Lwów (L'viv). He obtained a Masters of Science degree at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów in 1937. In the same year he took part in the First Polish West Greenland Expedition, organized by Aleksander Kosiba, which provided him with enough material for his PhD dissertation. Completed in 1939, it had the title "Investigations on the structure and temperature of soils in West Greenland".[1]
Jahn survived the Nazi occupation of Poland by working as a feeder of lice at Rudolf Weigl's typhus research institute in Lwów. After the war he first worked in Lublin, at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, and then in the reconstituted Wrocław University (which included a large number of the faculty from Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów who survived the war). In the 1950s he resumed his polar studies, participating in expeditions to Spitsbergen and the Polish Polar Station in Hornsund. He also conducted research in Siberia, Alaska and other parts of Scandinavia which made him one of the foremost polar geomorphologists in the world. He was made president (rector) of Wrocław University in 1962.[1] In 1953 and 1980 Alfred Jahn published various works on the Polish part of the Sudetes Mountains emphasizing the role of climate in shaping the mountains.[2]
In 1968, as a rector of Wrocław University, he made the decision to support the student strikes against Communist censorship. As a result, he lost his job.[1] Likewise, during the martial law in Poland in 1982, he spoke out against the policies of the Jaruzelski government and was consequently removed by the authorities from his position as chair of the Committee on Polar Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.[3]
In 1972 he founded the Polar Club of the Geographical Society of Poland and served as its first president until 1982.[1] Jahn retired in the 1990s but remained scholarly active until his death on 1 April 1999 in Wrocław.[4]
Alfred Jahn was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, of Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the German Akademie Leopoldina.[1] He published his memoirs, "Z Kleparowa w świat szeroki" (From Kleparow into the big wide world), in 1991.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e Birkenmajer, Krzysztof (1995). "80th Anniversary of Professor Alfred Jahn" (PDF). Polish Polar Research. 16.
- ^ Różycka, Milena; Migoń, Piotr (2017). "Tectonic geomorphology of the Sudetes Mountains (Central Europe) — A review and re-apprisal". Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae. 87: 275–300. doi:10.14241/asgp.2017.016.
- ^ Birkenmajer, Krzysztof (1999). "In Memoriam. Alfred Jahn (1915-1999)" (PDF). Polish Polar Research. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
- ^ Migon, Piotr (1999). "Alfred Jahn (1915-1999)". International Association of Morphologists (2): 187–191.
- ^ Jahn, Alfred (1991). Z Kleparowa w świat szeroki. Ossolineum. ISBN 8304037580.
Alfred Jahn
View on GrokipediaEarly life and education
Alfred Jahn was born on 22 April 1915 in Kleparów, near Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine). Limited information is available about his childhood and family background.[2] He studied geography at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów, obtaining his M.Sc. degree in 1937. In the same year, he participated in the First Polish West Greenland Expedition led by Professor Aleksander Kosiba. Materials collected during this expedition formed the basis for his doctoral dissertation, "Investigations on the structure and temperature of soils in West Greenland," which he defended in 1939 at the Jan Kazimierz University.[2] No medical career in Germany is documented for Alfred Jahn (1915–1999), the Polish geographer and geomorphologist who is the subject of this article. The original section content pertains to a different individual, Dr. Alfred Jahn (born 1937), a German pediatric surgeon.Humanitarian service in Vietnam
This section contains information unrelated to Alfred Jahn (1915–1999), the Polish geographer and geomorphologist. No humanitarian service in Vietnam is associated with him. The described activities pertain to a different individual, Alfred Jahn (born 1937), a German pediatric surgeon who served on the hospital ship Helgoland. No such humanitarian work in Rwanda is documented for Alfred Jahn (1915–1999), the Polish geographer who died in 1999. This section pertains to a different individual, Alfred Paul Jahn (German pediatric surgeon, 1937–2024), and should not be included in this article.Media appearances and publications
No media appearances, television documentaries, or filmed features about Alfred Jahn or his geographical work are documented in available sources.Publications
Alfred Jahn was a prolific scholar who published over 200 scientific papers on periglacial geomorphology, polar research, and related fields.[2] Notable authored works include:- His PhD dissertation Investigations on the structure and temperature of soils in West Greenland (1939).
- The monograph Cryoturbation phenomena of the Recent and Pleistocene Periglacial Zone (1952), awarded the State Prize.[2]
- Problems of the Periglacial Zone (1975).[3]
- Memoirs Z Kleparowa w świat szeroki [From Kleparów into the big wide world] (1991).[4]