Michał Fedorowski’s world of books (1853-1923)

Abstract

Michał Federowski dealt with ethnography and Polish and Belarussian folkloristics. The first part of the article presents his life and activity. The other – his interests in a book. He collected archival objects, books, and graphics; he run an antiquarian activity; he was an author of 4 works concerning bibliophilism and collecting. The next part of the article is characteristics of the Fedorowski collection. The author describes in detail the part of the ethnographer’s collection given to the Library of the Ethnology Unit, Institute of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences of the Warsaw Scientific Society before the World War II. After the war the remained Fedorowski’s collection from this library (193 identified books) were moved to the Library of the Ethnography Unit (Department) at the University of Warsaw. The inventory of the Library of the Ethnology Unit was found in the University Library in Warsaw, registering (among others) titles of works belonging previously to Fedorowski (288 books in 416 volumes). Thanks to this inventory the author identified 288 works of his collection and listed them at the end of the article. Descriptions include provenance information and the Fedorowski’s ex libris.