On April 26, 2023, Mariam Sargsyan gave a talk at the Colloquium of Aleksander-Brückner-Zentrum für Polenstudien & Professur für Osteuropäische Geschichte in the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. The title of her presentation was: From Student at the Russian Imperial University in Kyiv to Respected Professor at the Catholic University in Lublin: The Career of Henryk Jakubanis, 1879–1949.

It was an important experience for M. Sargsyan to present a substantial part of her doctoral research, that is, the biography and major works of H. Jakubanis, to an audience consisting mostly of historians and not philosophers or historians of philosophy, and to receive their feedback and questions. The presentation, in addition to the highlights of Jakubanis’ life and career, included historical facts about Kyiv University, the 1st and 2nd World Wars, and peculiarities of academic life in pre-war Kyiv and post-war Lublin. The philosophical works of H. Jakubanis were also briefly discussed.

Results presented by M. Sargsyan, for example, approaching Jakubanis’ biography from the basically historical point of view, was in larger part an outcome of her NAWA scholarship at MLU Halle and her co-operation with the colleagues from Alexander-Brückner-Zentrum. It was an opportunity for her to take an attempt to compare life paths of Jakubanis with other imperial biographies, although at the moment it is impossible to research Kyiv archives.

The audience at M. Sargsyan’s paper asked questiones on a variety of topics: the academic identity of H. Jakubanis, was he a classics scholar, a philosopher, a historian of philosophy, or an academic teacher. The question of the connection and relationship between H. Jakubanis and his supervisor, Alexei Gilarov (1856-1938), turned out to be interesting as well, for Gilarov had a significant influence on Jakubanis and his methods in historiography of philosophy, on his lecturing at the university, but at a certain moment, their paths diverged. Jakubanis’ relations with Tadeusz Zieliński (1859-1944), who had not spared benevolent gestures to his younger colleague, turned out to be particularly interesting for the audience. Methodological questions appeared as well and they concerned a possible reconstruction of Jakubanis’ academic contacts in a form of a network. What proved to be attractive for the audience was the graphic depiction of Jakubanis’ journeys.

To sum up, M. Sargsyan’s presentation was informative for the public and beneficial for further development of her own research.