Brief history of the forest scientific journal 'Sylwan' publishing (1820-2020)

The paper describes the two-century-long history of the forest scientific journal 'Sylwan', with the division into 3 main periods, 6 sub-periods and 11 stages of the journal development. It characterizes successive owners and publishers operating since 1883 as the Polish Forest Society (primarily Galician). Despite the fact that the Polish state remained under Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Prussian occupation, 'Sylwan' in the first century of its operation was always published in Polish. Depending on the political and economic situation, the journal was either a quarterly, semi-annual or annual, but for the longest period was issued as a monthly. Published volume varied as prior World War II it was 8.0-14.5 of publishing sheets, currently - 5.5. In the whole period of `Sylwan' publishing, scientific dissertations, articles, various announcements and information have totalled over 110 thousand pages. The number of copies also varied, from initial 350 copies in 1820, 5 thousand copies in the 1970s annually to 1.2 thousand copies today. In total, over 13.5 thousand bibliographic items have appeared. The paper describes also in detail the printing houses, printing techniques and types of paper used in `Sylwan'. It contains addresses of editorial offices, editors-in-chief and chairmen of the programme board. Changes in the bibliometric indicators of `Sylwan' are shown (IF and the assessment by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education). The funding of `Sylwan' publishing and its distribution are characterised as well. For most of the long publishing period it has been subscribed by the members of the Polish Forest Society and foresters employed in the State Forests. The number of authors who had published in 'Sylwan' from the beginning of its publishing has not been established yet; only in the last 50 years their number has exceeded 2,000. 'Sylwan' is a monument of the Polish forestry and native culture. Having an impact on the past and modern forestry and nature protection, it holds a significant position in the history of Polish and European forestry.