LOTH Roman

Born on 11 December 1931 in Warsaw; son of the trade clerk Wacław Loth, and Janina, née Grabowska. He attended the Mikołaj Rej Comprehensive School in Warsaw. He remained in Warsaw during the German occupation. In 1944, he completed the first class of grammar school in secret lessons organized by his school. In 1943, he joined the Polish Scouting Associations' underground paramilitary group, the Grey Ranks (Szare Szeregi). Following the defeat of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, he and his family settled in Radom, where in 1949 he completed his advanced secondary education at the Jan Kochanowski Grammar and Secondary School. He was a member of the Polish Scouting Association (ZHP). From 1949, he studied Polish philology at the University of Warsaw (UW), graduating with a master's degree in 1954. He was a member of the Union of Polish Youth (ZMP) from 1949 to 1957. He made his debut as a literary critic in 1951 with the article Aliser Navoi narodowy poeta Uzbekistanu (Aliser Navoi as Uzbekistan's national poet), which appeared in the weekly "Pokolenie" (no. 1). From November 1951 to January 1952, he worked in the periodical's editorial office. In 1951, he was employed at the Institute of Literary Research (IBL PAN), initially on project-based contracts, before being made assistant in June 1952, lecturer in June 1956, and then in October 1962 lecturer in scholarly documentation at the Section for Scientific Documentation of late-nineteenth and twentieth-century Polish Literature. He was involved in the work on the collective projects Słowniki współczesnych pisarzy polskich (Dictionary of contemporary Polish writers; series 1 and 2) and Kronika życia literackiego Polski Ludowej 1944-1963 (Chronicle of literary life in People's Poland, 1944-1963). He also conducted individual projects in bibliography and editorial studies. In 1954, he married the Polish philologist Barbara Regulska. He became a member of the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society in 1960, serving on its Main Board from 1983. In 1964, he was among the co-founders of the Society of Friends of the Work of Jan Kasprowicz, which was based in Harenda in Zakopane. He served as its president from 1966 to 1971, then vice president from 1975 to 1979, when he was again appointed president. His articles and literary reviews appeared in periodicals including "Tygodnik Kulturalny" (1965-70, using the name Marceli Radomiński). After completing a specialist exam in 1966, he worked as a qualified documentation specialist, before being made senior documentary specialist at the IBL Department for Słownik współczesnych pisarzy polskich (The Dictionary of Contemporary Polish Writers), which was renamed the Department for the Documentation of Contemporary Literature in 1968. In 1966, he received the prize of the First Section in Social Sciences at PAN as a member of the team of contributors to Słownik współczesnych pisarzy polskich (Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Polish Writers; series 1, vols 1-4). In 1970, he was awarded a doctoral degree for his thesis Kronika życia i twórczości Jana Kasprowicza (1860-1901) (The Life and Works of Jan Kasprowicz [1860-1901]), which was supervised by Dr Ewa Korzeniewska. During the 1974/75 academic year, he gave a specialist lecture course on scholarly editing at the University of Lodz (UŁ). In 1975, he was awarded a habilitation degree for the first two volumes of the critical edition of the collected works (Pisma zebrane) of Jan Kasprowicz. Between 1975 and 1991, he was head of the Department of the History of Young Poland Literature at IBL. From 1976, he was part of the team at IBL PAN working on the contemporary section of the biobibliographical guide Pisarze polscy (Polish writers), which was ready in typescript form in 1987 but ultimately never published. In 1977, he was appointed senior lecturer at IBL PAN. In 1979, he co-organized the postgraduate Programme in Scholarly Editing and Textual Studies at IBL PAN and the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW, becoming the co-director of the programme in 1988. He taught courses on textual studies and scholarly editing over five cohorts. He also lectured on these subjects at the Faculty of Theatre Studies at the State Theatre School in Warsaw (PWST) in 1981/82 and on the Programme in Social Communication at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) in 1994/95. In 1980, he received the prize of the Scientific Secretary of PAN as a member of the team of authors working on Słownik współczesnych pisarzy polskich (Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Polish Writers; series 2, vols 1-3). In 1981, he joined the Society for the Support and Propagation of Science and became a member of the Committee on Polish Literature Studies at PAN (KNoL PAN), where between 1975 and 1987 he was secretary of the Editing and Textual Studies Commission, chairing it between 1984 and1986, before serving as deputy chair from 1989. In 1981, he was elected to the Scientific Council of IBL PAN, serving as its deputy chair in consectutive terms between 1987 and 2006. From 1982, he was a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Polish Philology at UW, while from 1987 to 1993 he served on the Scientific Council of the Institute of Polish Philology at the Bialystok campus of UW. He was made state appointed professor in 1991. In 1992, he took up the position of head of the Literary Research Information Centre at IBL. He joined Polish PEN Club the same year. In 1993, he joined the Editorial Council of the yearbook "Rocznik Warszawski", and then in 1994 the Scientific Council of Polski słownik biograficzny (Polish Dictionary of Biography). In 1994, he became a corresponding member of the Warsaw Learned Society and in 1995 a member of the Literary, Library and Research Information Studies Section of the Department of Humanities at the Scientific Research Committee. He published short essays and studies on works of literature and on the biographies and memoirs of writers in periodicals including "Przegląd Polski" (a supplement of the New York-based "Nowy Dziennik", 1995-96 and 2004), "Więź" (1997), "Rocznik Warszawski" (1997-98), the Evangelical monthly "Jednota" (1997 and 2006), and in the local press in Radom. He was appointed full professor at IBL in 1996. From 2000, he served on the Programme Council of the publication series Biblioteka Narodowa (National Library). He was a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Slavic Studies at PAN from 2003. The following year, he was made a full member of the Warsaw Learned Society. In 2011, he received the Polish PEN Club's J. Żuławski Prize in Scholarly Editing. From 2011, he served on the Scientific Council of the biannual "Sztuka Edycji". He published essays and articles in "Więź" (2008), "Dekada Literacka" (2009), "Wiek XIX" (2010 and 2012), and "Sztuka Edycji" (2016). As a result of his increasing ill health, he lived from May 2017 in the Old People's and Convalescent Home of the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God in Warsaw. He prepared the ninth and final volume of Jan Kasprowicz's collected writings for print. This volume included the poet's letters. Loth was also working on archival materials relating to the Loth family's history, while also collecting his own minor works of literature that had been published in diverse locations. He died on 30 November 2019 in Warsaw and is buried at the city's Reformed Evangelical Cemetery.