Mathematics in the interwar period in Central-Eastern Europe. The report on an international research project for the years 2018–2020

Abstract

In the article, we will show the main important results of the international research project The impact of WWI on the formation and transformation of the scientific life of the mathematical community. It was supported by the Czech Science Foundation for the years 2018–2020 and brought together ten scientists from five countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, USA, and Ukraine) and used the collaboration with historians of mathematics and mathematicians from many other European countries. We will discuss our motivation for the creation of the project, our methodological and professional preparations which profited from the international composition of the team and its longtime collaborations, profound specializations and experiences of the team members, and their deep and long-term studies of many archival sources and basic published works. We will present our choice of the general research trends, our definition of the scientific questions, and our determination of the main topics of our studies. We will describe our most important results (books, articles, visiting lectures, presentations at national and international conferences, seminars and book fairs, exhibitions, popularizations of the results between students, teachers, mathematicians, historians of sciences, and people who love mathematics and its history). We will analyze the new benefit that the project created for the future, for example, good platforms for future international research and cooperation, the discovery of many new interesting research questions, problems, and plans.