Christopher Kasparek
Encyclopedia
Christopher Kasparek is a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

-born writer of Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 descent who has translated works by Ignacy Krasicki
Ignacy Krasicki
Ignacy Krasicki , from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno , was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet , a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and...

, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki
Florian Znaniecki
Florian Witold Znaniecki was a Polish sociologist. He taught and wrote in Poland and the United States. He was the 44th President of the American Sociological Association and the founder of academic sociology studies in Poland...

, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski
Marian Rejewski
Marian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in 1932 solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma machine, the main cipher device used by Germany...

 and Władysław Kozaczuk, as well as the Polish-Lithuanian
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...

 Constitution of May 3, 1791
Constitution of May 3, 1791
The Constitution of May 3, 1791 was adopted as a "Government Act" on that date by the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"; other scholars also refer to it as the world's second oldest constitution...

.

He has published papers on the history of Enigma decryption
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma enabled the western Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of secret Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military intelligence which, along with that from other decrypted Axis radio...

; Bolesław Prus and his novel Pharaoh
Pharaoh (novel)
Pharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had earlier disapproved of historical novels on the ground that they inevitably distort history.Pharaoh has been described...

; the theory and practice of translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

; and the phenomenon of multiple independent discovery
Multiple discovery
The concept of multiple discovery is the hypothesis that most scientific discoveries and inventions are made independently and more or less simultaneously by multiple scientists and inventors...

.

Life

Born in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, to Polish Armed Forces
Polish Armed Forces
Siły Zbrojne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej are the national defense forces of Poland...

 veterans of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Kasparek lived several years in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, before moving with his family in 1951 to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

In 1966 he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, where he studied Polish literature
Polish literature
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages, used in Poland over the centuries, have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and...

 with the 1980 Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz.

In 1978 Kasparek received an M.D.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

 degree from Warsaw Medical School
Medical University of Warsaw
The Medical University of Warsaw was founded in January 1950, building on the University of Warsaw's former Faculty of Medicine, which had been established in the early nineteenth century...

, in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

.

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); novelist and short-story writer Bolesław Prus (several stories, and Pharaoh, 2nd edition, 2001); and other Polish authors.

Kasparek's translation of the Constitution of May 3, 1791
Constitution of May 3, 1791
The Constitution of May 3, 1791 was adopted as a "Government Act" on that date by the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"; other scholars also refer to it as the world's second oldest constitution...

 (published 1985, republished in many venues), is available — augmented with the Free Royal Cities Act
Free Royal Cities Act
The Free Royal Cities Act was an act adopted by the Four-Year Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on April 18, 1791, in the run-up to the adoption of the...

 — on Wikisource.

His translations of verse
Verse (poetry)
A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....

 include selected Fables and Parables
Fables and Parables
Fables and Parables , by Ignacy Krasicki , is a work in a long international tradition of fable-writing that reaches back to antiquity. They have been described as being, "[l]ike LaFontaine's [fables],.....

by Ignacy Krasicki.

See also

  • Biuro Szyfrów
    Biuro Szyfrów
    The Biuro Szyfrów was the interwar Polish General Staff's agency charged with both cryptography and cryptology ....

  • Marian Rejewski
    Marian Rejewski
    Marian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in 1932 solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma machine, the main cipher device used by Germany...

  • Bolesław Prus
  • Pharaoh
    Pharaoh (novel)
    Pharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus . Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had earlier disapproved of historical novels on the ground that they inevitably distort history.Pharaoh has been described...

    (historical novel
    Historical novel
    According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

     by Prus)
  • "A Legend of Old Egypt
    A Legend of Old Egypt
    "A Legend of Old Egypt" is a short story by Bolesław Prus, originally published January 1, 1888, in New Year's supplements to the Warsaw Kurier Codzienny and Tygodnik Ilustrowany...

    " (short story
    Short story
    A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

     by Prus)
  • "Fading Voices
    Fading Voices
    "Fading Voices" is an 1883 short story by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus, the leading representative of Realism in 19th-century Polish literature.-Publication:...

    " (micro-story
    Flash fiction
    Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category...

     by Prus)
  • "Mold of the Earth
    Mold of the Earth
    "Mold of the Earth" is one of the shortest micro-stories by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus.The story was published on 1 January 1884 in the News Year's Day issue of the Warsaw Courier . The story comes from a several years' period of pessimism in the author's life...

    " (micro-story
    Flash fiction
    Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category...

     by Prus)
  • "The Living Telegraph" (micro-story
    Flash fiction
    Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category...

     by Prus)
  • "Shades"
    Shades (story)
    "Shades" is one of Bolesław Prus' shortest micro-stories. Written in 1885, it comes from a several years' period of pessimism in the author's life caused partly by the 1883 failure of Nowiny , a Warsaw daily that he had been editing less than a year...

     (micro-story
    Flash fiction
    Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category...

     by Prus)
  • The Most General Life Ideals (book by Prus)
  • Constitution of May 3, 1791
    Constitution of May 3, 1791
    The Constitution of May 3, 1791 was adopted as a "Government Act" on that date by the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"; other scholars also refer to it as the world's second oldest constitution...

  • Fables and Parables
    Fables and Parables
    Fables and Parables , by Ignacy Krasicki , is a work in a long international tradition of fable-writing that reaches back to antiquity. They have been described as being, "[l]ike LaFontaine's [fables],.....

    by Ignacy Krasicki
    Ignacy Krasicki
    Ignacy Krasicki , from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno , was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet , a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and...

  • History of philosophy in Poland
    History of philosophy in Poland
    The history of philosophy in Poland parallels the evolution of philosophy in Europe in general. Polish philosophy drew upon the broader currents of European philosophy, and in turn contributed to their growth...

  • Translation
  • Physician writer
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