Гуманитарный вектор (Jun 2021)
Artistic Work of Polish Exiles in the Trans-Baikal Region of Russia in the Second Half of the 19th Century
Abstract
Polish political exiles to Siberia of the latter half of the 1800s were involved in many aspects of the social and cultural life of the time in the Trans-Baikal Region of Russia. However, in contrast to their scholarly research conducted while in exile, their artistic activities have never been a topic of independent studies. The objective of this paper is to study artistic work of Polish exiles in the context of penal labor and penal settlements. When developing the topic of this study, the author relied on fundamental research principles and methods. Using a broad range of archive materials and private sources, the author describes the artistic journeys of the most famous Polish artists in exile who left a prominent legacy in the Trans-Baikal artistic life of the time. When working on the topic of the article, the author used the following methods of historical research: analysis of written sources, bibliographic method, historical and genetic method. While being formally convicted to penal labor in the mines and factories of Nerchinsk mining region, some Polish exiles were not actually required to engage in hard labor. The most artistically minded among them were looking for the opportunities to selfeducate themselves and engage in artistic activities. The author identified several previously unknown facts associated with the artistic legacy of Polish exiles. Against the backdrop of Polish deportation in the 1800s, the author reconstructed the artistic work of Jozef Baerkman and Stanislaw Wronski. During their time in the Siberian penal system, Polish artists created paintings, taxidermic works, and illustrations to the scholarly works of Benedykt Dybowski. However, their most active creative period began when they were released from hard labor and settled in penal colonies. Today, some works of Polish artists in exile created during the second half of the 19th century are part of collections of regional museums.
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