Stanisław Poniatowski's Siberian expedition

Siberia has always tempted travelers and explorers, because of its uniqueness and inaccessibility. Painful historical experiences are associated with Siberia from colonisation to wiping out of indigenous populations through genocide. Those who were exiled and forced to live there often undertook their own research on the indigenous inhabitants of this land, its fauna and flora. The first scientific expeditions to Siberia began at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. One of these was an expedition by the Polish ethnologist and anthropologist Stanisław Poniatowski (1884-1945) to the Nadamurski Region.

Poniatowski's expedition was in line with research of the time which aimed to prove a thesis that Native Americans were of Asian origin. According to this theory, they travelled through the Aleutian Islands and Alaska to the American continent and spread there. The expedition was sponsored by the University of Oxford, the Pennsylvania Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The expedition began on May 10, 1914. Poniatowski arrived first in the village of Sakaczialan in mid-June, accompanied by eight assistants. The research covered mainly the Tunguska peoples, the peoples of Olcz, Gilak, Oroczon and Nanaj.

The lack of land communication routes, difficulties with the organisation of efficient transport and the use of mainly water routes determined that the research was mostly conducted with the population living along the Amur river.

In addition to anthropometric measurements and photographic documentation, the researchers collected information about the spiritual and material culture of the indeginous people. This resulted in notes about the daily struggles of the Golds and Oroczons people living along the Amur river, environmental difficulties and descriptions of beliefs, holidays, games and other manifestations of social life.

He managed to collect many objects and works of Siberian art, including embroidery stencils and ornaments, cutouts and products made of birch bark, as well as drawings made by the inhabitants of the Sakachialan settlement.

The outbreak of World War I prevented Poniatowski from completing his research. He left Nadamurski Region on August 8, 1914, without complete data. Some of the materials he collected were published only after many years, so the importance of the expedition was underestimated.

The collection of Stanisław Poniatowski holds a special place in the collection of the Archives of the Polish Ethnological Society. The materials collected during the Siberian expedition were transported to Poland with great difficulty, together with the rest of the scholar's legacy. They have been preserved in good condition for over a century, despite both world wars and changes in the location of the Archives of the Polish Ethnological Society.

The Siberian collection includes photographs, photographic films and glass plates with images of the Golds and Oroczons and pictures of their everyday life. It is a unique material that is a testimony to a world and culture that no longer exists, also due to the technology used to record the expedition. The remainder are journals from the expedition that accurately describe the course of the expedition, drawings of the inhabitants of Siberia, notes and sketches of the ethnologist.

The complete collection 'Documents and photographs of Stanisław Poniatowski' consists of 7,200 objects from the years 1884-1945 and also includes materials and personal documents of the researcher, lectures, newspaper clippings, paper two-dimensional models of clothes, templates of folk patterns, samples of decorative motifs made of organic materials. The whole collection is an important source of research for representatives of many disciplines of the humanities.

From May 30 to June 3 2022, Wrocław Transcription Week was organised. People from all over Poland, mostly from Wrocław and the University of Wrocław, have worked together to unlock the important historical documents described in this blog.

As part of the Enrich Europeana Plus project, the University of Wrocław - University Library invites you to continue transcribing and enriching the documents presented in this blog and below:

• Journal of the Expedition of Prof. Stanisław Poniatowski in 1914 to Siberia and notes for lectures on St. John's customs (material in Polish).

• Correspondence addressed to Friedrich Haase (1808-1867), professor of classical philology at the University of Wrocław; Please note that these documents are all in old German handwriting style(s).