Kartografia na tle innych badań i działalności Eugeniusza Romera

W pięćdziesiątą rocznicę śmierci wybitnego geografa i kartografa profesora Eugeniusza Romera (1871-1954), autor przypomina jego największe dokonania w dziedzinie kartografii, genezę i okoliczności powstania najważniejszych prac oraz rolę, jaką odegrał w stworzeniu "polskiej szkoły geografii i kartografii".

Exceptionally rich and diverse scientific achievements of E. Romer (1871-1954) and his involvement in social, political and later also economic ectivities caused his output to be divided and often treated as if it belonged to different authors. A less aware reader is unable to grasp the total of various, often outstanding research which established him as the founder of the Polish school of geography, i.e. a number of branches of geography which he either pioneered or developed. If we look at E. Romer's scientific personality from the point of view of climatology, geomorphology and glaciology, but ignore his methodology of teaching geography and academic didactics the picture we perceive distorted. A similar distortion occurs when we look at cartography without his school practice, climatological research and involvement in political issues of national rank. His initiative and involvement which led to the foundation of the Cartographic Institute and Książnica-Atlas publishing house in Lvov also deserves a new perspective. One must not ignore the founding of a nationally omportant and globally unique "Polish Cartographical Review" magazine. Thanks to E. Romer Polish geography quickly won international acclaim, which first brought on the membership and then organizationof the 1934 Congress of International Geographic Union. Thanks to E. Romer's initiative that Congress was the first to be accompanied by a cartographic exhibition, which also helped to establish the good name of Polish cartography. The article could not have equally presented all the fields of E. Romer's activity; rather it attempts to show him as a multi-dimensional person. Cartography gave him international recognition; he, in turn, gave Polish geography a cartography school, which he founded and developed. His cartographic center consisted of three sections: scientific-research, technical and editing. Thanks to his activity they developed dynamically and in harmony. Around the center he gathered outstanding personalities, who later played important roles in Polish geography and cartography. It is thanks to E. Romer that the center closely cooperated with the Geography Institute of Lvov University. The significance of Romer school bacame especially visible after the WWII, when, after alteration of national borders, the scientists from Lvov joined - and in the case of Wrocław and Lublin almost created- academic centers of geography and cartography all over Poland. At the same time E. Romer Cartographic Institute and Książnica-Atlas publishing house were reestablished in Wrocław. Until mid-fifties they remained the leading publisher of maps and geographic and historic school atlases as well as handbooks. On the 50th anniversary of E. Romer's death it should be noted, that a tendency to "extract" fragments from his works is harmful for particular disciplines as well as for the whole Romer's cartography, the range of which has always been beyond pure geographic science. Methodological foundations of E. Romer's cartography are innovative also because they searched for theoretical grounds in science.