Andrzej Emeryk Mańkowski, Aleksander Todorow Mańkowski (1868-1946) : a Pole from Podolia, a White Russian Emigrant in Bulgaria, the Creator of the Institute of Histology and Embriology at the University of Sophia

The biographical sketch devoted to Aleksander Mańkowski (1868-1946) presents and recalls the relatively less-known figure of a distinguished scientist of Polish origin, a Russian scholar, a many-year lecturer at the University of Sophia and a translator of specialist literature in the field of medicine into Bulgarian. He derived from a Podolia noble family with the Jastrzębiec coat of arms. He grew up in the Ukrainian-Moldovan borderland in relatively humble financial conditions. In order to start his university studies he took advantage of a scholarship awarded by the Bender powiat in the Bessarabian Governorate. As a person of a Roman Catholic faith, he experienced difficulties in advancing in his academic career. His numerous brothers, who like himself did not succumb to the temptation of converting into the Orthodox faith, achieved their education in schools for cadets, probably due to the material situation of their family. They served in the tsarist army as non-commissioned officers. Mańkowski lectured at the St. Volodymyr University in Kiev in 1894-1902; he was a professor at the New Russian University in Odessa in 1902-1919. In 1919 he made his way by sea away from Odessa in the Ukraine which was in revolutionary turmoil and settled in Bulgaria. In 1920-1929 he was a professor at the University of Sophia. He established the department of Histology and Embriology at the latter university; in 1930-1933 he worked at Prof. Witold Orłowski’s clinic in Warsaw. He maintained close contacts with the apostolic nuncio in Bulgaria – the archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli – the later Holy Pope John XXIII. He died in Bulgaria in 1946. His tomb was renovated in 2010 as a part of a programme conducted by the Polish Cultural and Educational Association in Bulgaria.