Prawie zapomniani... Native-lektorzy języka arabskiego w przedwojennej Polsce

Nearly forgotten… Native-lectors of Arabic in pre-war Poland.

In the pre-war period in Poland, few teachers were employed in oriental studies, and even fewer – native-teachers. Many Eastern languages were taught only for scientific purposes: text studies, although they were not dead languages. Studies on the Middle East were dominated by Turkology, although the Ottoman Empire had already collapsed and new Arab states were emerging, where Arabic was not only a living language, but also of literature, media, religion and culture. Dialects were in common oral use, and fusha – the literary language, took over  the media and the spheres of higher culture. Lack of contact with a living language would lead to a significant depreciation of the philological knowledge of Oriental studies graduates, including Arabists, hence the decision to bring a native Arabic teacher was first made in the oldest and best developed Arabic language center – in the chair of prof. Z. Smogorzewski at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv. Due to his quick death, the teacher who came from Algeria had to find a new job.
Ali Ahmed Ben Hajji Kujder Kherbi (1897-1986), Algerian, the first native Arabic teacher in pre-war Poland, worked at universities in Lviv and Warsaw almost until the outbreak of World War II. In Lviv, he was supported by Mohammed Sadyk Bej Agabekzadeh, Azerbaijani by origin. In Polish Arabic didactics, this initiated classes and exercises with a native-teacher, practice in a contemporary spoken language and contact with the current socio-political and cultural context of the then Arab world.
An additional aspect of his stay in Poland at that time was also emphasized – intercultural relations, which were born at the meeting point of several ethnic groups: Karaims, Tatars, Poles and Arabs, where the community was based on the confession: Islam. This clearly proves that the Polish society of that period was neither as xenophobic nor intolerant as it is believed to be today. On the contrary: all these smaller nations had their place in the society and culture of the country, the development of their cultural heritage and traditions was supported, there was no persecution of Muslims or of Islam itself.