Social background , first to the left, with his grandmother, mother and siblings, c. 1910 His father,
Adam Vetulani, came from
Sanok, and was a professor at the
Jagiellonian University, head of the Department of Canon Law; the son of
Roman Vetulani and Elżbieta née Kunachowicz (who came from an impoverished
landowning family). He had daughter
Kristine (born 1924), Jerzy's older sister. Jerzy Vetulani's mother,
Irena Vetulani née Latinik, was a biologist and researcher at the Department of Comparative Anatomy at the Jagiellonian University, daughter of
Franciszek Latinik, Polish Army General; and Helena née Stiasny-Strzelbicka. Jerzy Vetulani's uncles were:
Kazimierz,
Zygmunt and
Tadeusz Vetulani, his closest aunt was Maria Vetulani (“Maryla”; 1895–1945), a bank clerk; his further aunts were
Zofia,
Maria and
Cecylia Vetulani; his paternal cousins were Witold de Nisau, Wanda and
Zygmunt Vetulani, and his maternal cousins were
Irena and
Andrzej Popiel, and
Janusz and Jerzy Rieger.
1936–1952: Early years and rebellion , 1938|thumb|250px He was born on 21 January 1936 at the private gynecological hospital at Garncarska Street in
Kraków,
Poland. In 1938 his younger brother Jan was born. The family lived in an apartment on the ground floor of the , employing a maid, cook and Olga Rutter, a child educator. As Nazi Germany
invaded Poland in September 1939, Adam Vetulani took part in the defense war. With his unit, he went to Romania and then to France, where he also
fought on the front. Eventually he was interned in Switzerland, where he spent the rest of the war organizing school camps for Polish soldiers. The correspondence sent to the occupied Poland was signed by the Fraulein Kupfer alias. After the German army entered Kraków, Irena Vetulani and her sons had to leave the apartment. They were given forty-eight hours to move, with the possibility of keeping movable property. They moved to the premises at Garncarska Street 4, where Józefa Onitsch, the wife of General
Zygmunt Zieliński, gave them refuge. The family was supported by Adam Vetulani's brother,
Tadeusz, who has been living in Kraków during the war. Irena Latinik-Vetulani, thanks to her good knowledge of German, took up a job as a translator in the spirit monopoly. Jerzy and Jan Vetulani remained in war years under the care of their mother who raised both sons “in a patriotic sense of honor”. Every Sunday at home there was a “
mystery” and the family used to sing Polish Catholic patriotic song
Boże, coś Polskę. In his childhood, Jerzy Vetulani was a religious boy; he served as an
altar boy at
St. Mary's Basilica. Jerzy Vetulani recalled the war years as interesting, full of fascinating activity and exploring the surrounding world, undermining the collective, martyrological picture of despair and misery. Together with his younger brother Jan and their friend from the tenement house, Andrzej Mirocki, they founded an insect gatherer club. They gathered a diverse collection of butterflies. Irena Latinik-Vetulani never allowed her children witness a street execution. Jerzy Vetulani began his education in 1942 and immediately entered the second class of
secret sets led by Mrs. Iwiczowa, as he was already able to read and write. From 1948 he attended the , and then, after his liquidation,
Bartłomiej Nowodworski High School, where he passed
matura in 1952, obtaining a certificate with a distinction for best pupils. Already as a teenager, Jerzy Vetulani has completely walked away from religion. He described himself from a young age as “a rebel who did a lot of things in spite of his parents.” At the age of twelve he enrolled in the
Union of Polish Youth. He was removed from the organization as a result of a typo in the school newspaper article. In the text he mistakenly and unconsciously, instead of “the basis of socialism” (
podstawy socjalizmu), he wrote “the washers of socialism” (
podsrawy socjalizmu). Later he joined the
Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. He belonged to the , a formation of idealistic communists who were striving for reform of Polish communist system that they considered defective.
1952–1973: Studies, cabaret, Institute of Pharmacology In 1952 he began his studies in biology at the
Jagiellonian University (specializing in animal physiology), In March 1956, he began a volunteer internshipat at the
Department of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (later renamed the Institute of Pharmacology), where he has been working since, until the end of his life. Janusz Supniewski was head of the department at that time. It was in Piwnica that he met his future wife, Maria Pająk, whose appearance at the time he compared to
Marina Vlady's. They married on 8 July 1963. Soon after that their sons Marek and
Tomasz were born, respectively in 1964 and 1965. They also had four grandchildren. In 1955–1962 he acted as a speaker at the Kraków Student Film Discussion Club. After the death of his brother, who drowned during a canoeing on the
Dunajec River in 1965, he mobilized to begin work on his Ph.D. dissertation. He obtained Ph.D. degree in natural sciences in 1966 from Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy of the Polish Academy of Sciences upon dissertation
The action of isoxazole and pyrazole derivatives on the metabolism of the animal system prepared under the direction of Professor Józef Hano. In the same year went to Great Britain for one year Riker scholarship. In the UK he worked on mastering spectrofluorimetric methods at the
University of Cambridge under the direction of
Arnold Burgen. In 1991 he was appointed a correspondent member of the
Polish Academy of Learning. He was appointed a full member in 1996. He regularly held meetings of the Scientific Cafe at the Polish Academy of Learning at Sławkowska Street 17, as the opening and moderator of the discussions. He was a member of the board of the
Kraków Society of Friends of Fine Arts (2001–2017) and a member of the chapter of the
Laurel of Kraków of the 21st century (also 2001–2017). He was a member of the board of the Society for the Advancement and Promotion of Science and member of the
Warsaw Scientific Society and the European
Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB). In 2002 he was appointed vice-chairman of the Scientific Council of the Insitiute of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Over the years, his students (many of whom worked in the Department of Biochemistry he led) included
Irena Nalepa (collaboration in the years 1986–2017),
Piotr Popik,
Lucyna Antkiewicz-Michaluk (close cooperation in the years 1976–2006),
Andrzej Pilc,
Krystyna Gołembiowska,
Jolanta Zawilska,
Marek Sanak, and
Dominika Dudek. In 2002 he was a founding member of the Forum for Małopolska Association and ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of the city of Kraków, obtaining 2375 votes (1.19%) in the first round of elections. In 2008 he was elected a correspondent member of the
Polish Academy of Sciences. Over the years, he held various functions in the academy's structures. He was the secretary of the Committee of Physiological Sciences (1978–1981), chair of the Neurobiology Committee (2007–2011), a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Experimental Biology (1993–2007) and the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Medicine (2003–2007) of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The direct cause of the founding of the site was the removal of Vetulani's column in
Wprost magazine by the newly elected editor-in-chief
Tomasz Lis. As the main motivator for blogging Vetulani has pointed the desire to share his own knowledge with others. In a 2011 interview he said, “Soon, what's in my brain will kick the bucket, so I have to try to pass on to others as much as I can.”. He chose this form of sharing his texts because of the ability to reach wide group of readers, as well as because of the independence and freedom of content and deadlines. Vetulani published several popular articles on the topic of neuroscience, he has often given interviews for various magazines and appeared in the radio and television, becoming, especially in the last decade of his life, a celebrity in science. After 1989 Vetulani politically sympathized with the center and the left. He has publicly supported specific candidats for public offices. In the
2010 presidential election in both rounds he supported
Bronisław Komorowski and in the
parliamentary election a year later
Józef Lassota. In
2014 European Parliament election he supported
Jan Hartman, expressing at the same time his solidarity with
Róża Thun. Prior to the first round of
presidential election in 2015, he supported
Janusz Palikot. In the same year, in the
parliamentary election he again supperted Lassota's candidature, congratulating him after obtaining a seat in the
Sejm. In the 2000s he lectured regularly at several colleges in Kraków. He was a Professor of the Małopolska Higher Vocational School of J. Dietl in Kraków, where he taught classes in cosmetology and dietetics (neurobiological aspect) and the School of Medicine in English at the
Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum. He also lectured at the Faculty of Applied Psychology at the
Jagiellonian University and at the
Pontifical University of John Paul II. In 2010 he performed in a
lip dub created by the community of Jagiellonian University. He appeared in its opening sequence as a grandfather of a little girl, the main character in the clip. Also from 2010 Vetulani regularly appeared on the stage of the talking magazine
Gadający Pies (
The Talking Dog), of which he became one of the main attractions and recognizable signs over time. One of the showrunners, Maciej Piotr Prus, described Vetulani as “the star of the first magnitude”, adding that all participants were always waiting for his speeches. Vetulani compared the atmosphere of
The Talking Dog to the ambience present in the beginnings of Piwnica pod Baranami. In his short presentations, the scientist used obscene humor and vulgarity, which some considered to be a violation of good taste, but most of the audience was enthusiastic to this kind of performance. In 2013 Vetulani performed and was the executive producer of the short film
Hydrophobia, a
mockumentary that ridiculed social phobias and premiered also at
The Talking Dog. He co-created the performance
Dreams Music directed by Czet Minkus, where he performed alongside
Jan Peszek and
Agata Zubel; the show was presented on December 19, 2013, in the Małopolska Garden of Art (MOS). In 2010 and 2015 Vetulani performed with
Leszek Długosz with a concert program
Rozumie mój (
Oh, My Mind), in which poetry sung by Długosz was exchanged with Vetulani's neuroscience commentary. On December 31, 2014, he was appointed a member of the Program Board of the . Since 2014, he has been supporting auctions of the
Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity; he devoted for auctions signed books and the opportunity to meet him at coffee or dinner. In 2015 and 2017 he was in the Honorary Committee of the
Parada Równości (Equality Parade,
pride parade held in Warsaw). Following the rule of
Law and Justice party in Poland he sharply criticized their reforms, expressing his support for some of the actions undertaken by the
Committee for the Defence of Democracy; he participated in the protest against taking over public media by the ruling party in January 2016, saying that he “had the fantastic atmosphere of the event: in spite of the January chill – the crowds of old and young full of energy, each step you meet a friend (...). The event had both high civic and social value”, although he kept certain criticism to the form of the protest. Invited by students, he participated in the protest on the Main Market Square in Kraków in January 2017. He also supported
Black Protest, what he manifested by simply wearing black clothes. In November 2016, an exhibition of photographs by from Vetulani's eightieth birthday party, that Vetulani organized in his home hosting at once around one hundred and eighty people, was opened at the
Galeria Olympia. During the party, Golec portrayed the participants in a specially prepared mini-studio, on the background painted by .
Accident and death in Kraków On March 2, 2017, in the evening, Vetulani, who was at the age of 81, was hit by an automobile at the pedestrian crossing receiving serious injuries. Vetulani was walking home from his regular place of work, the Institute of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, taking a route he knew very well. Directly after the accident he was put into a pharmacological coma, and his condition was determined as severe but stable. He was being treated at the Emergency Medicine Rescue and Disaster Center at the Szpital Uniwersytecki (University Hospital) in Kraków, under the supervision of the team of Professor
Jerzy Wordliczek. Vetulani's health did not improve and he died in the hospital on April 6, 2017. He was buried on April 18, 2017, in the Avenue of the Meritorious at the
Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków.
Aleksander Janicki, visual artist and Vetulani's friend was the master of the ceremony which was carried out in a secular rite. Among the speakers at the funeral were Mayor of Kraków
Jacek Majchrowski, president of the Polish Academy of Learning , Member of the Sejm
Józef Lassota, and also friends and family of Jerzy Vetulani. His wife Maria Vetulani died on 21 September 2017. == Views ==