Żydzi polscy na szlaku podróży galicyjskiego globtrotera Sygurda Wiśniowskiego
Polish Jews on the Journey Track of a Galician Globetrotter Sygurd Wiśniowski

Summary/Abstract: Sygurd Wiśniowski (1841–1892), Galician globetrotter, writer and literary reporter, piercingly fathomed the world mysteries of the second half of the 19th century. His interests included the reasons and effects of the growing emigration tendencies from Europe to Australia, the USA and Cuba, emigrant assimilation, and their competition on the labour markets. In his literary reports published in Lviv and Warsaw press Wiśniowski often wrote about the waves of emigrants from Poland, and was especially absorbed by Hebrew emigrants. Among the Polish Jews he kept contact with were wealthy merchants, street vendours, but also beggars; people of different age. Wiśniowski took note of their Polish sensitivity, melancholy, yearning for the country on the Vistula, fear of loss of identity. His accounts break with the stereotype of a Jew – a cunning fox, a heartless rich man, a Christian foe, and also emphasise the intensified anti-Semitism in the USA. In his assessment, the Germans demonstrated special bellicosity towards the Polish Jews. Wiśniowski’s political, anthropological, and sociological competencies hold respect of the reports’ readers.

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