Parnas was a great scientist, one would like to write after Gombrowicz. Niels Bohr himself chose him to chair a conference in Copenhagen, and another Nobel laureate, Richard Willstätter, directed his research on organic chemical compounds present in plants. In his private life, however, he was a controversial figure, forever remaining loyal only to science.

Citizen of the world from Mokrzany

Jakub Karol Parnas, to whose memory a memorial plaque is dedicated in Lviv, was born in 1884 in Mokrzany, near Drohobych (now Ukraine). He was certainly a citizen of the world. In a way, he was predestined by the geopolitical situation at the time, which meant that he was born as a subject of Franz Joseph I, the ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After graduating from the gymnasium in Ternopil and passing his matriculation exams in Lvov, he studied in Berlin and Strasbourg.

His scientific career had an international dimension: he worked in Zurich, Naples or Cambridge. He was recognised by research centres all over Europe and was awarded honorary doctorates in Athens and at the French Sorbonne.

After the Second World War, he wanted to take up the chair of chemistry at the Jagiellonian University, but the Soviet authorities prevented him from doing so. They also ensured that the memory of Parnas' scientific achievements in chemistry and physiology was distorted or even erased for many years.

Plaque in memory of the professor of medicinal chemistry

The modern Daniel Halytsky National Medical University of Lviv is housed in neo-stylistic buildings, designed by the Polish architect Jozef Braunseis, for the Faculty of Medicine of Lviv University. The university consists of several separate buildings, surrounded by the lush greenery of a botanical garden on one side and a park on the other.

Near the square with a historical fountain, at 52 Piekarska Street, there is the main building, which several decades earlier housed the Department of Medical Chemistry of the Jan Kazimierz University, directed by Jakub K. Parnas. Today, the department has been relocated to a new building, and a representative hall has been erected in its historic location, housing two important memorial plaques: to Marceli Nencki (1847-1901), a January insurgent, chemist and collaborator of the physiologist Ivan Pavlov, and to Jakub Parnas.

Both scholars were united by their research interests in medicinal chemistry, and in Nencki's youth, like Parnas, also by the issue of sugars in the body. While the bust of Nencki dates back to 1907, the memory of Parnas had to wait until the 1990s and the establishment of an independent Ukraine. It was not until 1996 that the first Polish-Ukrainian biochemistry conference was organised at the university under the patronage of Jakub Parnas. After decades of deliberate eradication of the scientific legacy of the great Lviv scientist in the Soviet Union, it was an opportunity to commemorate his figure and achievements in the form of a bronze plaque, decorated with an image of Parnas and inscriptions in Ukrainian and Polish, separated by a floral ornament. The inscription reads:

"In this building in 1920-1941 / worked JAKUB KAROL PARNAS (1884-1949) / professor of medicinal chemistry, world-famous / scientist, founder of the Lviv school of biochemistry. / Polish and Ukrainian biochemists / 9.IX.1996".

The Lviv scientific phenomenon of Parnas

The scientific achievements of Jakub K. Parnas and the "Lvov biochemical school" are so important that it is difficult to describe them briefly. In the 1920s and 1930s, biochemistry was a very young science. Its beginnings date back to 1897, when the brothers Hans and Edward Buchner performed fermentation experiments using yeast. This marked the beginning of a new scientific era, based on the study of chemical reactions in living organisms. Parnas, who was also distinguished by his scientific reflexes, was an innovative figure, as evidenced by the fact that he wrote his Handbook of Physiological Chemistry , as the discipline was then called, as early as 1922.

Subsequent discoveries only strengthened his research status. He also entered the scientific canon as a co-discoverer of glycolysis, and the reaction sequence itself is named after him and functions as the 'Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway', or EMP for short.

Interestingly, Jacob K. himself. Parnas struggled with diabetes throughout his life, and his research discoveries undoubtedly contributed to progress in the fight against the disease.

Parnas' death in Lubianka

Jakub Karol Parnas died on 29 January 1949 in Moscow, with a heart attack as the official cause of death. However, it is certain that he spent the last moments of his life in Moscow's Lubianka prison. One hypothesis is that he was not given the medication he requested in time, while another is that he would have faced a death sentence anyway for disobeying the prevailing para-scientific interpretations and being critical of Trofim Lysenko's theories.

Forever faithful to Science

In the context of the figure of Jakub Parnas, two of his speeches are often mentioned: the first, in June 1921, when he took over the chair at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów; he pledged then: "I will contribute in my field of activity with all my strength to the consolidation of the freedom, independence and power of the Republic of Poland". And the second, from January 1941, during the inaugural meeting of the Lviv Regional Council of Workers' Delegates, when he said: "Long live the working people of the Soviet Union, who created the world's first great state of workers and peasants!" (after "The Red Banner").

In these two statements, which are, after all, mutually exclusive, the whole tragedy of this figure is stretched. A great scientist, a great pedagogue, known for his unusual approach to didactics, and yet a man who sold himself to the devil. Initially, he managed to win quite a lot, because when his friends were killed by the Germans in the so-called massacre of Lviv professors in 1941, he and his family were safe in Moscow. Later, when other scientists were in prison, he had excellent conditions for his research work (as Director of the Department of Chemistry and Physiology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the Soviet Union in Moscow). However, the idyll could not last forever and the Soviet authorities also reprimanded Parnas. They first blocked him from going to Poland and taking up a chair at Jagiellonian University, and then imprisoned him and probably took his life.

The moral assessment of the political choices of the eminent chemist remains unequivocal. It should be emphasised, however, that this great Lvov scientist remained faithful to Science to the end of his days.