Christopher Kasparek
Christopher Kasparek (born 1945) is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by numerous authors, including Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski, and Władysław Kozaczuk, as well as the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791.
He has published papers on Enigma decryption; Bolesław Prus and his novel Pharaoh; the theory and practice of translation; logology (science of science); and multiple independent discovery.
Life
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Józef and Stanisława Kasparek, Polish Armed Forces veterans of World War II, Kasparek lived several years in London, England, before moving with his family in 1951 to the United States.
In 1966 he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he had studied Polish literature with the future (1980) Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz.
In 1978 Kasparek received an M.D. degree from Warsaw Medical School, in Poland. For 33 years, 1983–2016, he practiced psychiatry in California.
Writer
Kasparek has translated works by historian of philosophy Władysław Tatarkiewicz ("The Concept of Poetry," 1975; On Perfection, 1979; A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, 1980); military historian Władysław Kozaczuk (Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, 1984[1]); short-story writer and novelist Bolesław Prus (several stories, and Pharaoh, 2nd edition, 2001); and other Polish authors.
Kasparek's translation of the Constitution of May 3, 1791 (published 1985 and republished in many venues), is available — augmented with his translation of the Free Royal Cities Act — on Wikisource.
His translations of verse include selected Fables and Parables by Ignacy Krasicki.
See also
- Translation
- Physician writer
- History of philosophy in Poland
- Fables and Parables, by Ignacy Krasicki (1779)
- Constitution of May 3, 1791
- Bolesław Prus (writer and philosopher, 1847–1912)
- On Discoveries and Inventions (public lecture by Prus, 1873)
- "Fading Voices" (micro-story by Prus, 1883)
- "Mold of the Earth" (micro-story by Prus, 1884)
- "The Living Telegraph" (micro-story by Prus, 1884)
- "Shades" (micro-story by Prus, 1885)
- "A Legend of Old Egypt" (short story by Prus, 1888)
- Pharaoh (historical novel by Prus, 1895)
- The Most General Life Ideals (book by Prus, 2nd ed., 1905)
- Biuro Szyfrów (Polish Cipher Bureau)
- Marian Rejewski (1905–80)
Notes
- ^ Enigma, edited, translated and augmented by Kasparek, has been described as "the Bible" on the Polish foundations of World War II Enigma decryption by Zdzisław Jan Kapera in his "Appendix F" to Władysław Kozaczuk and Jerzy Straszak, Enigma: How the Poles Broke the Nazi Code, New York, Hippocrene Books, 2004, ISBN 0-7818-0941-X, pp. 135–36.
References
- "Kasparek, Christopher," Who's Who in Polish America, 1996–1997, New York, Bicentennial Publishing Corp., 1996, ISBN 978-0-7818-0520-9, p. 186.
- "Christopher Kasparek" Cited by Google Scholar
- Bibliographic essay: A world at arms by Gerhard L. Weinberg; Enigma by Kozaczuk, trans. by Christopher Kasparek. University Publications of America, Frederic MD, 1984.
External links
- The Translator's Endless Toil (paper by Christopher Kasparek in The Polish Review, 1983).
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