Abstract
John Zarnecki has appealed to RAS Fellows to reach out to colleagues in Ukraine and offer support through the RAS. He expands on his reasons to Sue Bowler.
What happened to prompt your appeal? I got in touch with the RAS because I felt so helpless. Someone I met in Kyiv, 10 years ago, had got his wife and two boys out on the day of the invasion, but his mum had refused to leave. He eventually got her to the border with Poland, so I got my Polish cousin to go and find her amongst the thousands of people from Ukraine. Having landed my cousin in this, I thought the very least I can do is to help and clear out the spare room or something, so I flew out the next day. I also wanted to comfort this woman, who for most of the first two days was crying her eyes out.
The Poles stepped up to help, and it was as much civil society as it was the State. But I think they did sometimes feel a little bit over-whelmed. My cousin told me that whenever a truck would come in from France, or Holland, or Germany or the UK, they really appreciated it. It made them feel that there other people cared. If nothing else, it was psychological support for the Poles who've taken in most refugees.
So, I was doing my little bit in Poland, but I felt that there must be something that we as a Society could do. That's why I asked Fellows to get in touch with our Executive Director if they needed help or could offer support.
Tell us about your family connections in Eastern Europe I have a photograph showing my grandmother Julia and her siblings in Kyiv in 1913. This is part of my Ukrainian connection, but it was all Russia in those days. She grew up completely bilingual in Polish and Russian. My dad was born south of Kyiv and in the early years, the family lived somewhere in what is now Ukraine, although they never regarded themselves as Ukrainian; they were Polish. But the borders were always changing. Poland didn't exist in the last century until 1918. Where they lived, now in Ukraine, was then Poland, and that gives me some sort of feeling for that part of the world.
What happened to bring your father to Britain? War. My dad started his PhD in September 1938. In Kraków. With hindsight, you couldn't imagine worse timing. So he literally escaped on his bicycle. He started again at the Courtauld Institute in London, in a new language and a new subject, after his war service. His first PhD was on Polish art, but in London he started to look at Romanesque art in Britain, something that he knew nothing about, but he had the necessary academic skills and training. So that was the start of his long and successful career.
Many Central and Eastern Europeans working in archaeology and history of art came over to the UK, many of them Jewish émigrés. There was a whole culture of German, Austrian, Polish people who brought this very rigorous approach to the study of history of art.
So you grew up in an academic family, but you didn't go into the humanities? Dad had the academic background, and my mum was English and a student at the London School of Economics. It was relatively unusual even then for women to go to university and graduate. Education was important to them and they strongly encouraged us children. When I went to primary school, I just fell in love with numbers. I would come home and ask my mum to make up sums for me: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. She would write them down, I would produce the answers, and then she had to mark them. I saw a beauty in the numbers, I could see structure in the times tables, and I thought, this is magic!
As a youngster, you don't really understand the academic world, particularly as my dad's interest was in obscure Romanesque capitals. Worst of all, he wrote a paper on brass Romanesque door knockers in churches. This was apparently a tremendous piece of scholarly work, but as a 12 year old, you wish that your father had a proper job, like your mates whose dads were accountants or Chartered Surveyors.
What has been the response to your letter to the Fellows? We have had a very sympathetic response, and some people offering potential support in the form of access to courses and mentoring – things that would help people in our community. And we have had some contacts from Ukrainian scientists, so the Society is trying to bring together people in need and people who might be able to help.
It does make me aware that there are other wars going on, too. I suppose the difference between the war in Ukraine and those in Syria and Afghanistan is that we have stronger scientific links with Ukraine, with research collaborations and shared projects. This time, we have a chance to build on the links that exist among our international community and help some of our fellow astronomers and geophysicists. I appreciate that the RAS has limited resources and does not have the expertise of an aid agency, but we should certainly think about using our networks for refugee astronomers and geophysicists from future conflicts, wherever they may be.
AUTHORS
Sue Bowler is editor of A&G.
John Zarnecki is an RAS Gold Medalist and former President of the Society
