Employees
DIRECTOR
prof. dr hab. Joanna Kulwicka-Kamińska (Institute of Linguistics/Department of Polish Language)
tel. 56 611-37-87
e-mail: joanna.kulwicka-kaminska@umk.pl
office: room 318A, Collegium Maius
Joanna Kulwicka-Kamińska
Joanna Kulwicka-Kamińska is a Professor of Humanities in the discipline of Linguistics, Director of the Centre for Kitab Studies, and Head of the Postgraduate Programme in Speech Therapy at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Her research focuses on diachronic and contrastive linguistics, including the history of the Polish language, the Old and Middle Polish inflectional system, and Slavic–Oriental linguistic relations, particularly borrowings into Polish from Arabic, Turkish and Persian. Her research interests also include theolinguistics and kitab studies, as well as translation studies, especially the translation into Polish of the religious terminology of Islam and Christianity.
She is the author of eight monographs, including Dialogue of Scriptures. The Tatar Tefsir in the Context of Biblical and Qur’anic Interpretations (Berlin, 2018), Leksyka północnokresowa w tefsirze Tatarów Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. Zapożyczenia niesłowiańskie [The Northern Borderland Lexicon in the Tefsir of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Non-Slavic Borrowings] (Toruń, 2024), and Kliniczne aspekty zaburzeń rozwoju mowy powstałych w okresie prenatalnym. Zagadnienia teoretyczne i praktyczne [Clinical Aspects of Speech Development Disorders Originating in the Prenatal Period: Theoretical and Practical Issues] (co-authored, Poznań, 2024). She also prepared a critical edition of the tefsir of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Toruń, 2022) and an edition of the so-called Czombrów manuscript, containing a translation of the Qur’an by the Vilnius Philomaths, the Rev. Dionizy Chlewiński and Ignacy Domeyko (Toruń, 2019). Her books have received awards from Polish and international scholarly bodies and have been reviewed in academic journals including Język Polski, Slavia Orientalis, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, and Acta Slavica Iaponica.
She has edited or co-edited more than thirty books and has published approximately 200 scholarly and popular-science works. Her articles have appeared in numerous academic publications and journals in Europe (Austria, Belarus, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine), Asia (Iran and Japan), and the United States.
Since the beginning of her academic career, she has regularly participated in scholarly conferences. In total, she has taken part in more than one hundred such meetings, presenting papers at them and organising some of them. Many of these activities have resulted from nearly thirty years of cooperation with Vilnius University; others have been connected with international research projects, as well as with research on the diachrony and synchrony of Slavic languages and on speech therapy.
She is also active as a reviewer and expert. She has reviewed articles for Polish and international academic journals, including the International Journal of Lexicography, Slavia, Slavistica Vilnensis, Asiatische Studien, Forum for Linguistic Studies, Roczniki Humanistyczne, Prace Filologiczne, Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Językoznawcza, Studia Religiologica, and Polonica. She has prepared at least fifty reviews of scholarly articles and nearly twenty reviews of books and monographs, as well as reviews of entire journal issues and chapters in edited volumes. She holds an Oxford University Press reviewer certificate.
She has served as a reviewer of four doctoral dissertations and in two habilitation proceedings. As an expert, she has also evaluated grant proposals for the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities, the National Science Centre, and the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies.
Since 2022, she has been a member of the admissions committee of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School Academia Copernicana. Previously, she served on the examination committee of the Doctoral School of Humanities, Theology and the Arts, Academia Artium Humaniorum. She also regularly participates in linguistics committees responsible for doctoral proceedings.
She supervises doctoral students conducting research in kitab studies and the history of the Polish language. She also runs specialist workshops for doctoral students from Polish and foreign universities and provides academic supervision to early-career researchers undertaking research stays at the Centre for Kitab Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University.
From 2013 to 2016, she served as coordinator and researcher in the international project funded by the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities, Tefsir – a Philological and Historical Study and Critical Edition of the So-called Tefsir of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century (the First Translation of the Qur’an into Polish) (no. 12H 12 0041 81), carried out by researchers from Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. From 2017 to 2022, she directed the second stage of the project (no. 11H 16 0319 84), involving researchers from Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Turkey. The resulting three-volume edition of this monument of Polish culture has entered the collections of Polish and foreign libraries and museums, including institutions in Vienna, London, Vilnius, Naples and Ankara.
From 2015 to 2019, together with Czesław Łapicz, she co-directed the international team preparing a critical edition of the Czombrów manuscript. She also participated as a researcher in the ERC Synergy project The European Qur’an. Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1150–1850 (EuQu) and in the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities project Cultural Transfer as a Transdisciplinary Element in the Study of Intercultural Relations: The Example of Arab Cultural Influences in the Cultural Heritage of Poland (no. 2 BH 15 0156 83). She currently directs two international projects: a Polish–Lithuanian project devoted to a philological translation of the Tatar tefsir into English, and The Aljamiado Phenomenon in Early Modern Europe, carried out in cooperation with researchers from France and Spain.
She is actively involved in public engagement concerning the Polish language, the culture of the Polish Tatars, and kitab literature. She has given lectures and conducted educational activities devoted to these subjects, including during the Toruń Festival of Science and Art and the Nicolaus Copernicus University Researchers’ Night. She is the author and co-author of popular-science publications appearing, among others, in Przegląd Tatarski, Polityka, Więź, and wSieci Historii.
She has also taken part in radio and television programmes, given interviews to the press and online media, and contributed to exhibitions devoted to Tatar heritage and the culture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
She is a member of the Society of Friends of the Polish Language, the Polish Linguistic Society, the Scientific Society in Toruń, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Slavic Linguistic Society. She is also a member of the Commission on the History of Language and the Commission on Ethnolinguistics of the Linguistics Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and belongs to the Common Council of Catholics and Muslims. She chairs the Commission for Kitab Studies within the International Committee of Slavists.
She serves on the academic and editorial boards of journals and publication series including Rocznik Tatarów Polskich, Studia Orientalne, Islamic Studies Journal, Motif Academy Journal of Folklore, Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Językoznawcza, Meluzyna, and the series Religijność alternatywna i nowa duchowość. She is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Centre for Research on Language Contact.
In 2021, she was awarded the Order of St Stanislaus, Third Class, granted on the initiative of the National Centre for the Culture of the Tatars of the Republic of Poland in recognition of her scholarly contribution to the preservation of historical memory.
In 2023, for the critical edition of the tefsir of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, she received the Stefan K. Kuczyński Award of Studia Źródłoznawcze, presented by the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The publication was also distinguished by the Committee on Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and nominated for the Kazimierz Nitsch Award. It was additionally submitted for the Aleksander Gieysztor Award by cultural institutions, including the Maria Znamierowska-Prüfferowa Ethnographic Museum and the ZW Foundation.
By decision of the President of the Republic of Poland of 23 January 2026, she was awarded the Gold Medal for Long Service.
EMPLOYEES
dr hab. Czesław Łapicz, prof. UMK (Institute of Linguistics/Department of Slavonic Languages)
Czesław Łapicz – university Professor Emeritus (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń). His academic interests concern mainly Slavonic (particularly Polish and Belarusian) languages and dialects and their mutual systemic and historical relations. Author of many dissertations and papers in the field of Slavonic comparative studies. For over 30 years studied the literature of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a Slavic Aljamiado. Interested in theolinguistics and sociolinguistics. Served two terms as Vice-Rector of the Nicolaus Copernicus University for Education as well as Dean and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Languages. For many years the Head of the Slavonic Comparative Literature Unit at the Institute of Slavonic Studies at the Nicolaus Copernicus University. supervised over 200 MA and BA theses in the field of Polish and Slavonic Studies and 12 doctoral theses in Linguistics.
dr hab. Anna Cychnerska, prof. UMK (Institute of Linguistics/Department of Balkan Studies)
Anna Cychnerska – university Professor (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń), holds the postdoctoral degree of doktor habilitowany (doctor habilitatus) of the Humanities in Linguistics, head of the Department of Balkan Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Graduate of Russian, Croatian and Albanian studies as well as yhe Post-Graduate Centre for Teaching Polish as a Foreign Language at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In 2006-2008, Polish teacher at the University of Belgrade. Conducts research into phonotactics of Slavic languages (in particular, Macedonian language). Other scientific interests: word formation of Slavic languages, interference in the process of learning Polish as a foreign language among users with the native Slavic language, language of Aliamjado monuments from former Yugoslavia. Author and co-author of scientific works in the field of Slavic studies, co-author of textbooks for learning the Serbian language. She belongs to the Commission of Phonetics and Phonology at the International Committee of Slavists.
Affiliation: https://www.human.umk.pl/wydzial/pracownicy/?id=0615900
COLLABORATORS
Ahmet Burak, PhD – (born 1983) received his PhD degree in Political Science Nicolaus Copernicus University / Faculty of Political Science and Security Studies in Toruń. Master of management Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, the Russian Federation (2010–2012). He conducts research on the history of printing in Turkey, Arabic script and its reform, i.e. transition to the Latin alphabet. He specializes in the culture and religion of the Middle East (native language – Turkish). Academic interests: Foreign relations of Turkey, Middle East, foreign relations of Russia, Caucasus region, European Union, foreign relations of Poland, Balkans, Baltic region, Eastern Europe and Kaliningrad.
Publication
Prof. Marek M. Dziekan Ph.D. (born. 1965), a founder and a head of the Department of Middle East and North Africa, University of Łódź, lecturer at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Warsaw. He is an author of over 400 scientific works and translations from Arabic, Russian, German and English. He published several books in Polish, e.g. Arabia Magica. Wiedza tajemna u Arabów przed islamem (Arabia Magica. The Recondite Wisdom among the Arabs in pre-Islamic Times), 1993; Symbolika arabsko-muzułmańska (Arabo-Islamic Symbols), 1997; Irak. Religia i polityka (Iraq. Religion and Politics), 2005; Cywilizacja islamu w Azji i Afryce (Civilization of Islam in Asia and Africa), 2007; Dzieje kultury arabskiej (History of Arabic Culture), 2008; Złote stolice Arabów. Szkice o współczesnej myśli arabskiej (Golden Capitals of the Arabs. Essays on Contemporary Arab Thought) 2011; Aḥmad Ibn Ḫālid an-Nāṣirī, XIX-wieczne Maroko w Kitāb al-istiqṣā. Przekład z języka arabskiego, wstęp, opracowanie i przypisy (Aḥmad Ibn Ḫālid an-Nāṣirī, 19th Century Morocco in Kitāb al-Istiqṣā. Translation form Arabic, Introduction, Edition and Footnotes), 2018; Arabska wiosna i świat arabski u progu XXI wieku (Arabic Spring and the Arab World at the Beginning of 21th Century, with K. Zdulski and R. Bania). 2020. His main interests are the history of Arabo-Islamic civilization, classical and contemporary Islam and also the political thought in Islam. An important point of his research is Islam in Europe, including Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, to whom he devoted over 30 publications. Member of Polskie Towarzystwo Orientalistyczne (Polish Oriental Society – President), Polskie Towarzystwo Nauk Politycznych (Polish Society of Political Sciences), Union Europeenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawskie (Warsaw Society of Sciences), Komitet Nauk Orientalistycznych PAN (Committee for Oriental Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences – Vice-President). Editor-in-chief of „Rocznik Orientalistyczny/Yearbook of Oriental Studies”.
Affiliation: http://almaszrik.pl/o-nas/
Publication
Prof. Dr. Henryk Jankowski (b. 1951) graduated from Loránd Eötvös Budapest University, getting MA in Turkish and Hungarian. He received PhD in general and Uralo-Altaic linguistics at the Faculty of Philology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań in 1986 and a postdoctoral degree in Oriental linguistics at the Faculty of Modern Languages and Literatures at the same university. In 2007, he was awarded the title of professor. Since 1982, he has been working at Adam Mickiewicz University except for the years 1991–1993 when he was associated with his alma mater in Budapest. At present, he teaches at the Institute of Oriental Studies. He authored over two hundred scholarly publications, including those published at prestigious European publishers such as Brill, De Gruyter Mouton, Otto Harrassowitz and journals such as Acta Orientalia Hungarica, Archivum Ottomanicum, Central Asiatic Journal, Journal Asiatique, Turcica and Turkic Languages. His research focuses on Turkic linguistics. He edited the online series Turkic Studies and is a member of editorial boards of a few journals, e.g. “Journal of Eurasian Linguistics”. He has been a member of the Committee for Oriental Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1999, between 2011 and 2015 a deputy to the chair, and a member of the Polish Oriental Society, between 2003 and 2006 a deputy the chair.
Afiliation: http://azjatystyka.amu.edu.pl/turkologia/index.php?site=2
Publication
Dr Artur Konopacki obtained his doctorate in humanities in 2007 from the Institute of History of the University of Bialystok. He is employed at the Faculty of History and International Relations of the University of Bialystok in the Department of Eastern Studies. His research interests include history in a broad sense, with a particular emphasis on the history of the Tatar community in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He also deals with the phenomenon of multiculturalism and multi-religiousness, which has evolved over the centuries in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He conducts his own research, primarily related to the Tatar settlement, the history of Islam and the policy towards people of different faiths in the period up to the 19th century, which resulted in numerous scientific and popular science publications as well as a monograph entitled Religious life of the Tatars in the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th-19th centuries (2010). His research interests also include regional history with a particular emphasis on educational processes and transformations in the 18th-20th centuries. He is a member of numerous organizations and associations, including the Białystok branch of the Polish Historical Society, the Polish Oriental Society, the Joint Council of Catholics and Muslims, the Podlasie Branch of the Tatar Association of Poland (chairman). He is also a member of the Joint Commission of Government and National and Ethnic Minorities.
Afiliation and publication: http://historia.uwb.edu.pl/pracownicy/dr-artur-konopacki/
Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Alla Kozhinova (born in 1963) holds the position of professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences (Pracownia Etymologii i Geolingwistyki, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN) since 2023. She is a member of Ethnolinguistic Commission of the International Committee of Slavists. She has successfully supervised 13 PhD students, 5 masters and numerous undergraduate students. Her research interests focus on the history of Slavic languages, languages of national minorities residing in Slavic territories, ethnolinguistics and translation studies. She has authored more than 250 research papers.
Publication
PhD (Philology), Assoc. professor Miškinienė Galina, Chief research fellow of the Institute of Lithuanian Language Research Centre of Written Heritage. Field of academic interests: Lithuanian and Polish Tatar writings, history and culture, Lithuanian and Turkish cultural relationship, Islam development in Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 2001 she prepared and published study “Oldest Lithuanian Tatar manuscripts. Graphics. Transliteration. Translation. Text structure and content.” Moreover, she prepared and published “Lithuanian – Turkish conversations” (2002), “Ivan Luckevic kitab – monument of Lithuanian Tatar culture” (2009), she is the co-author of “Catalog of Lithuanian Tatar manuscripts” (2005) and study of “Turkish-Polish dictionary from Lithuanian Tatar manuscript (1840)”. Translating from Turkish.
Affiliation: http://old.lki.lt/LKI_LT/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=547&Itemid=1
Publication:
http://lki.lt/be-kategorijos/dr-galina-miskiniene/#1499118160403-e5706938-6d80
https://lki.academia.edu/GalinaMiskiniene
Publication and Projects
Dr Iwona Radziszewska, Slavist, 2010 graduated with a PhD in linguistics. Her PhD thesis is titled: “Chamails as a type of religious writing for Muslims of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (based on the Slavic language part), and was written under the tutelage of Professor Czesław Łapicz. Her research interests include: religious literature of the Tartars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, cultural and linguistic borderlands, problems of ethnic minorities, religious language, culture and religion of Islam. The author of scientific articles closely related to kitabiology, e.g: “Maciej Musa Konopacki – our Tatar” (2016), “About Tatar Literature in International Context” (2016), “Chamails -Tatarsilvae rerum (2017), The story of a clever young man and a royal daughter from Safarewicz’s kitab” (2018).
Publication
Prof. dr hab. Sergejus Temčinas, Slavist, employed at the Institute of Lithuanian Language in Vilnius. The author of more than 170 publications in Baltic and Slavonic historical word formation and etymology, Old Church Slavonic language and textual studies, the earliest history of Slavonic East Orthodox culture, Cyrillic written heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the cultural interaction of Jews and Slavs in the Middle Ages, and the Tatar manuscript tradition of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Affiliation: http://lki.lt/be-kategorijos/prof-habil-dr-sergejus-temcinas/
Publication:http://lki.lt/be-kategorijos/prof-habil-dr-sergejus-temcinas/#1499118837367-506553ee-4559
Prof. dr hab. Halil İbrahim Usta (born in 1963) holds the position of full professor at the Ankara University, Faculty of Language, History and Geographie, Turkish Language and Literature. He specializes in linguistics, in particular in lexicography (native language – Turkish). Publications of kitabistics (between 2015-2020): On the (Phonological) Criteria Used in the Classifications of Dialects, Turkish Studies, Volume 10/8 Spring 2015, p. 221-230, ISSN: 1308-2140 and Presentation: On the Problem of Establishing the Source (or Sources) of Tafsir Tatar Manuscripts GDL, International Cultural Heritage of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. 50 years of Kitabistics, Institute of Polish Language (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun), 12-13 April 2018 Torun.
Affiliation and Publication: http://cv.ankara.edu.tr/husta@ankara.edu.tr
Dr. Irina Synkova is а graduate of the University of Saint-Petersburg, the Faculty of History with a specialization in medieval studies (1993). In 1998 she has finished the postgraduate studies at the Department of Ethics and Aesthetics of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Saint-Petersburg State University. In 2003 she has defended her doctoral dissertation on the subject of Aesthetics of German Humanists. She worked at the St. Petersburg Institute of Cinema and Television and the Minsk State Linguistic University, where she lectured in culture and religious studies. In the years 2003–2008 she also worked at the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Currently she works at the Belarusian State University (Faculty of International Relations, Department of Oriental Linguistic and Country Studies). He researches the history of culture and religious and philosophical thought of the East. A culturological kitabistyka is an important sphere of her scientific research. She published over 60 works.
Publication
Dr. Michail Tarelko is a graduate of the Faculty of the Asian and African studies of the Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) University (Department of Arab Philology, Sub-department of Semitic studies, 1991). In 2004, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the subject: Structure of the text in Polish written in the Arabic alphabet (Based on religious and polemical works of the manuscript R97 from the Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus) and on this basis he received the degree of candidate of philological sciences (doctorate). He started working at the Belarusian State University, where he obtained the position of assistant professor (docent). Currently, he works as a senior researcher at the Research Center of Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. He conducts research on the Tatar manuscript legacy of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He is the author of several dozen scientific papers and Tatar manuscript catalogs.
Publication
Doc. Dr. Mykhaylo Yakubovych (born 1986) is the Director of the Center for Islamic Studies at the National University of “Ostroh Academy” in Ukraine. His doctorate on Religious Studies was entitled “Interpretation of the History of Religions in Sunni Traditionalism: The Classical and Post-Classical Periods”. Among other interests, his scientific research focuses on the translations of the Qur’an into Slavic languages, since he is a translator of the Qur’an into Ukrainian. Fluent in several languages, including Arabic. Specializes in Sunni Islam.
Affiliation: https://www.oa.edu.ua/en/science/labs
Publication: https://158.academia.edu/MykhayloYakubovych
PhD STUDENTS AND STUDENTS
Maria Woźniak – MA, graduate of Polish Literature and Language Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Currently a PhD student at the Doctoral School of Humanities, Theology and Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in the discipline of linguistics. In her research project carried out during her training at the doctoral school, she studies a 17th-century polemical-anti-Islamic treatise from a linguistic and textological perspective. She has participated in national and international conferences, both as a speaker and as a secretary. She is the author and co-author of scientific publications.
FORMER CO-WORKERS
Prof. dr hab. Genadij Cychun (1936-2024)