Wincenty Pol

Established in 1906 in Warsaw, the Polish Tourist Society (PTKraj.), which until Poland regained its independence covered only the Russian partition, among other forms of activity was active in publishing guides, guides, the yearbook Ziemia [Earth] and postcards. In 1915, a series of cards Portraits of Land Sightseers was published. One of them was devoted to Wincenty Pol (1807-1872), a poet, sightseer, geographer and ethnographer, Jagiellonian University professor and Krakow Scientific Society member. The publisher made use of an image captured in watercolour in 1849 by Friedrich Lider (1807-1884), incidentally a contemporary of the portrayed. The original of the portrait can now be found in the collection of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków.

Beneath the portrait (bust), the postcard features one of the opening stanzas of Wincenty Pol's Pieśń o ziemi naszej (Song about Our Land) which was supposed to have been written on the peak of Łopiennik in the Bieszczady Mountains in 1833. The entire work was first published in print in 1843 in Poznań by the J. K. Żupański Bookshop. Pieśń o ziemi naszej has sometimes been called a poetic or even heartfelt geography of Poland.

The purchaser or addressee of the card, after turning it over, could read a short biographical note about the portrayed figure. Also found here is the publisher's mark – the PTKraj. badge, featuring the coats of arms of Warsaw, Kraków and Poznań, fastened with a hoop around the ruins of the castle at Ogrodzieniec. In the footer there is also a trace of the activity of the Russian wartime censorship (which allowed the publication of the postcard) as well as the name of the company to which the printing was commissioned; it was the ‘Jan Cotty’ Printing and Lithography Company from Warsaw.