Mathematical logic in Poland 1900--1939: people, circles, institutions, ideas

Abstract

Assume that someone would try to predict the development of mathematical logic circa 1900. Probably, he would point out Germany, England, and perhaps France as the central countries. Certainly, this person would not mention Poland, and not only because there was no such country at that time. Thirty year later, Heinrich Scholz, the first modern historian of logic, called Warsaw one of the capitals of mathematical logic. How did a country without special traditions in logic so quickly arrive at the top of this field? What happened that permitted Fraenkel and Bar-Hillel to write: "There is probably no country which has contributed, relative to the size of its population, so much to mathematical logic and set theory as Poland"? This paper tries to explain the phenomenon called "Polish logic" by pointing out the wider context in which logic in Poland was done.