„Cóż można by więcej wyszperać?” Józef Pilch jako użytkownik, twórca i krytyk archiwum
“Anything else to find?” Józef Pilch as a User, Creator and Critic of the Archive

Summary/Abstract: Katarzyna Szkaradnik’s article is devoted to the archival work of Józef Pilch, a well-known Silesian bibliophile, diarist, biographer and cultural activist from Ustroń, who, above all, was also an amateur historian researching and popularizing the history of Cieszyn Silesia. Drawing on the typology of Uriel Orlow – who divided artists interested in real and metaphorical archives into archive users, archive makers and archive thinkers – Szkaradnik examines Pilch’s activity as a user, creator, and critic of the archive. A self-taught peasant, Pilch not only used materials collected in archives and scientific libraries to shape the historical awareness of the local community with his studies, but also created his own archives. This is how we can interpret the fact that he collected (with a view to creating a dictionary) his collection of expressions of the local dialect, a rich library containing many unique publications and documents, as well as his diary and correspondence preserved in his home archive. Moreover, Pilch reflected critically on the archive as an instrument of power, as evidenced by his publications on the PPS-WRN (Polish Socialist Party – Freedom, Equality, Independence) and the history of the Jewish population in Ustroń.

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