21st October 2011
A Botanist in Eastern Europe
by Professor Mark Seaward, Honorary Research Professor of
Environmental Biology at Bradford University
Since 1976 the speaker has been a regular visitor to Eastern Europe, spending
more than 10% of his academic life in Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, DDR,
Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Estonia. Much of this time, mainly in Poland, was
spent under communism. However, despite censorship, mobility and access problems,
difficulties in communication and shortages of just about everything, he was able to
undertake his research and forge rewarding links with fellow scientists throughout
the countries he visited. His academic career and scientific output undoubtedly
profited in so many ways from his experiences pre- and post-communism; these and
his eventual, and occasionally alarming, adventures he is now able to relate.