A Farewell to A Friend. Profesor Jacek Fisiak [1936–2019] – wspomnienie

Jacek Izydor Fisiak was born on May 10, 1936 in Konstantynów Łódzki and passed away on June 3, 2019 in Poznań, Poland. Eighty-three years of life is usually treated as a fairly long period of time, but if we take into account not only the passage of time itself but also the intensity of filling the events of this period with content, only then can we – but all the time only with some approximation – reflect on the real phenomenon of Professor Jacek Fisiak’s life and work. This phenomenon is perfectly reflected in the travesty, light in form but deep in content, of one of the most famous poems in the English-speaking world by one of the pre-Raphaelite artists, William Blake, entitled The Tiger. Blake's poem was adapted to reflect the spirit of Professor Fisiak – a man of unquenchable thirst for action – by Professor Tomasz P. Krzeszowski, a friend and the first doctor of humanities promoted by Professor Jacek Fisiak. Using Blake’s travesty as a refrain for this short farewell text, I intend to give the floor to Professor Fisiak’s friends and build this text out of their recollections.