By V. Skoneczny |
A recent submission to the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) has at last been successful
and, after 45 years, the ADB has finally rectified incorrect statements in the biography of Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki written in 1967 by Helen Heney. The submission was prepared, documented and signed by (in alphabetic order) Professor Ewa Goldys
(Macquarie University), Associate Professor Ben Goldys (UNSW), Associate Professor Andrzej Kozek (Macquarie University and a member of the Kosciuszko Heritage Inc.), Witold Lukasiak (Kosciuszko
Heritage Inc.) Felix Molski (Kosciuszko Heritage Inc.) and Dr Ernestyna Skurjat-Kozek (President of the Kosciuszko Heritage Inc.). The ADB also included in the Obituaries Australia an obituary of Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki which appeared in South Australian Advertiser on 26th of December 1873 and added related links.
Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki is internationally known as the explorer who first identified the highest peak of Australia, named it 'Mt Kosciuszko'
after Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the Polish fighter for democracy, equal rights and
freedom, and climbed the mountain on 12 March 1840. His travels with James Macarthur opened for settlement the part of Victoria that he named Gippsland after Governor Gipps. He was the first who discovered gold in Australia near Bathurst in NSW, coal and other minerals in Tasmania, produced the first geological map of Australia and summerized his research and discoveries in a monograph Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land awarded in 1846 with a Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. Less known but far not less valuable was Strzelecki's contribution to organizing help during the Irish Potato Famine disaster which stroke this country between 1845 and 1852, and for which he was knighted by Queen Victoria.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography finally clears Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki of allegations made by Helen Heney in her original entry published in 1967.
The success of the team of signatories to the Submission to the ADB was however
possible only thanks to the hard work and persistent efforts of the Polish community in
Australia collecting relevant documents over time and submitting complaints
to the ADB over many years. Particularly outstanding in this effort was the
monograph Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki - Reflections on his life written
by Lech Paszkowski and published in 1997 by Arcadia, Australian Scholarly
Publishing. Lech Paszkowski, author of five biographies in the ADB and a
recognized documentarian of Poles and of the Polish heritage in Australia
and Oceania, spent over 30 years collecting documents and researching all
available documents on Strzelecki. This monumental work, as he admits, was
inspired by a defamatory book on Sir P.E. de Strzelecki In a Dark Glass
published in 1961 by Helen Heney, the same author who 6 years later wrote
the biography of Strzelecki for the ADB. Late Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki
summarized In a Dark Glass in his review of 1963: Miss Heney has done
great disservice to Australian historiography, her publishers and sponsors.
The Polish Community in Australia is very pleased that the Australian Dictionary of Biography has finally (after 45 years) corrected controversial sections of the biography in its online version. This entry is popping up at the top of all search engines when internauts search for the keyword 'Strzelecki'.
Other large biographical dictionaries like the Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (2004), Wikipedia or Polish Dictionary of Biography (Polski
Slownik Biograficzny (2007)) have been able to avoid the trap of relying on
Miss Heney's work which was full of outrageous and unproven allegations. Yet In a Dark Glass, broadly popularized in Australia, has been misleading Australian readers for over 50 years. Let us recall that In a Dark Glass remains the only book on Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki available in Braille alphabet for visually-impaired readers. There is more work to be done to correct this too.
Andrzej Kozek
Link to the updated entry in the ADB on Sir P.E. de Strzelecki.
Sir P.E. Strzelecki painted by Vitek Skoneczny |
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