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POLISH ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN GEORGIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

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Wozniak A.

Lud

2004

vol. 88

105-121

Polish-Georgian contacts have had a long tradition. As early as the 17th and 18th centuries Polish missionaries in Georgia, who also acted as diplomats, wrote reports about Georgia. The most outstanding among them was T.J. Krusinski, a Jesuit, whose work was a source of information about Persia and the Caucasus (including the Georgians) from which Europe has drawn for centuries. Contacts between Poland and Georgia became most intense in the 19th century when both countries were part of the Russian empire. The first half of the 19th century was particularly abundant in works about the Caucasus and Georgia. It was the time when this area, called 'warm Siberia' by Russians, was populated by Poles deported here for their political activity. These publications, containing a lot of ethnographic information, were mostly memoirs and diaries, containing very picturesque descriptions of the country. In many cases the ethnographic aspect served as a background to purely literary works, often very romantic in genre. Among writers of that period mention should particularly be made of Mateusz Gralewski (1826-1891), whose memoirs describing his exile in the Caucasus, also carrying a lot of information about Georgia, were published after his return to Poland in 1877. One of the most outstanding scholars writing about Georgia, its history, literature and folklore was Kazimierz Lapczynski (1823-1892). He conducted his research, including paremiological studies, in the 1850s. Unfortunately, when he returned to Poland he managed to publish only a small part of the materials collected in Georgia. Among them was his translation of a poem by Schota Rustaweli, the most outstanding Georgian poet, entitled 'A knight in a tiger skin'. Lapczynski, with the extent of his research interest, inquiring mind, rare diligence and particularly the soundness of his research methods, was much ahead of his time. These qualities would rather place him in the positivism than romanticism, the epoch that shaped him spiritually. The second half of the 19th century was a new stage in Polish ethnographic research in Georgia. After the fascination with the Caucasus, which left its mark on the works written in the first period, which were mostly descriptive in nature, time has come for attempts at synthesis (Artur Leist, Edward Strumpf) and thematic research into Georgian folk medicine (Jan Minkiewicz), urban folklore (Józef Stefan Ziemba) or pioneer research into Polish community in Georgia (Rev. Julian Dobkiewicz), which opened new prospects of research focused on this region.

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POLISH ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN GEORGIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY