Pol, Wincenty

Pol, Wincenty, b 20 April 1807 in Lublin, d 2 December 1872 in Cracow. Polish Romantic poet, geographer, ethnographer, and founder of the anthropogeographic method in ethnography. After graduating from Lviv University in 1827, he lectured at Vilnius University (1830–2). In 1849 he became the holder of the first chair of geography in Poland at Cracow University. He was the first professor in Poland to give a course in general ethnography. His books about his travels in Ukraine (1835), the philosophy and proverbs of the people in Poland (1836), episodes from his life and travels (1846), the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains (1851), and the natural environment of northeastern Europe (1851) contain much information about Ukrainian folklore, folkways, and folk customs and rites. He also wrote a book on the Hutsuls (1847) and published a collection of Ukrainian folk songs in German translation (1853). Many of his manuscripts have been preserved at the Tatry Museum in Zakopane and Cracow University. Some of them, including several articles on the Hutsuls, Lemkos, and Boikos, were published in Wincenty Pol: Prace z etnografii północnych stoków Karpat (Wincenty Pol: Works in the Ethnography of the Northern Slopes of the Carpathians, 1966).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]