Information about the object:
The aim of the project is to collect, organise and critically process sources concerning a widely unknown fragment of Polish cultural heritage abroad. It refers to the activities of a group of Polish migrants at the turn of the 20th century in Peru. This group was formed by a dozen or so Poles, specialists in technical and earth sciences, who migrated to Latin America from Europe under individual contracts related to the modernisation of Peru at the time. Thanks to their education and diligence, their names are still synonymous in Peru with high-class professionalism in various fields and a model of patriotism. Unfortunately, on the Polish ground, the knowledge of the contribution of Poles to the civilisational development of Peru (both in the sphere of material and intellectual culture) still remains scarce and materials about them have not been compiled.

Completed works:
The result of the task is the collection, ordering and critical elaboration of sources concerning a fragment of Polish national heritage functioning abroad that is not widely known. It refers to the activities of a group of Polish migrants from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Peru. This group was formed by a dozen or so Poles, specialists in technical sciences, who emigrated to Latin America from Europe under individual labour contracts related to the modernisation of Peru at the time. Thanks to their education, diligence and personality traits, their names are still synonymous with high-level professionalism in various fields in Peru today. They are also social role models of morality and patriotism, brought into the model of the republican society that was then being formed. Unfortunately, on the Polish ground, knowledge of the contribution of Poles to the development of Peru is limited to modernisation achievements in the sphere of material culture. Although these achievements were outstanding, they deserve wider dissemination than has been the case so far.

It will be interesting to discover more about activities in the social, scientific, cultural, political and civic spheres. The Poles moved and acted in the new country, introducing all that they could not realise in their own country - which did not then exist on the world map. They inspired the introduction of new forms of social self-organisation in Peru: associations, unions to organise the activities of particular groups, professional, sporting and ideological groups, to foster the development of civil society activities and to oppose and limit the nepotism that had been effectively present since colonial times. Materials on these topics are so topical today (among others, E. Malinowski was the author of the first letter to the President on the need for the state to fight the epidemic). The proposed project will include archival and library searches and from private and family collections, the scope of which will not only be limited to highlighting well-known professional achievements, but also to uncovering the unknown nuances of their work (e.g. E. Habich was the author of the first iron-framed building project in Peru) and other very wide-ranging activities that contributed much to the construction of modern civil society. In the historical memory of the descendants of Polish migrants, important information on this national heritage, unknown in Poland, has survived. The subject of the project will be the collection, systematisation and interdisciplinary elaboration of documentation on the achievements of selected Polish political migrants from the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Republic of Peru up to the rebirth of the Polish State after the First World War. The project will constitute the first stage of documentation of Polish migration in the Andean region. The first wave of Polish migrants to Peru has no parallel in the history of our exodus on a global scale. They are characterised by a number of common features. The group of migrants was strongly united by their common social origin of the landed gentry, almost analogous system of education and values in which they were brought up (respect for national traditions, love of the homeland, understanding of their own identity, patriotism, and the importance of the Catholic religion - going beyond the sphere of faith). All this influenced the nature of their work and life as migrants in Peru. Representatives of this group believed that working in Latin America was a transitional period before returning to their homeland. They introduced and proposed visionary professional solutions, dreaming of implementing similar ones in Poland in the future. Working with dedication for the country that employed them, they shaped an unequivocally positive and very lasting positive image of Poland and the Poles.

The group in question comprised only a dozen or so people, comprising only highly qualified specialists (representatives of the sciences), mainly graduates of Paris universities, who finished with the highest grades. They also became the first choice of Peruvian diplomats looking for qualified specialists in Paris. Poles came to Peru on two- and four-year government contracts related to the modernisation and expansion of the infrastructure of a backward post-colonial country further devastated by conflicts in the first two decades of the republic - most of them stayed for life, becoming permanently inscribed in the history of their host country - carrying out a wide range of activities, going well beyond their contractual narrow professional commitments. In this way, part of the Polish national heritage developed by our compatriots in the other homeland is unknown. It should also be emphasised that the names of only some of the figures covered by the project are more widely recognised and in Peru (to this day), while they are not known in Poland. One of the aims of the project will therefore be to systematise sources to gather knowledge on the subject. In addition to figures such as Ernest Malinowski (constructor of the highest railway in the world), Jan Edward Habich (founder of the first Polytechnic in Latin America), the analysis of the activities of figures such as: Władysław Kluger (pioneer of the changes in the irrigation of Central Indian lands, and at the same time precursor of the first archaeological and anthropological research in Peru and Bolivia, founder of the first Latin American studies collection in Poland); Aleksander Babinski (author of the first comprehensive geological maps - including mining plans, who drained mines that had not been used since the late colonial times, restoring in them the exploitation of key natural resources: gold, silver, copper); Richard Jax Malachowski (author of the reconstruction of Lima into a modern city - architect of Lima's most important public buildings, m.The programme includes the creation of a new museum, the creation of a museum of the history of Lima, and the creation of a museum of the history of Lima.) Organising and adding to the knowledge of several hundred technical achievements of a group of only a dozen or so Poles is one important aspect of the project. Another will be to complete the data on the activities of the above-mentioned figures in the field of non-professional activities in several areas: social, political, cultural, religious, lifestyle (ways of spending free time, behaviour, passing on knowledge of the country of origin Poland and its history - at that time officially non-existent on world maps). This part includes, inter alia, organisations of professional, social, cultural, scientific and sporting associations, libraries, scientific and specialist periodicals, codes of conduct, etc. This aspect remains unknown and requires more archival and documentary work to be undertaken, compiled and disseminated. The planned search will make it possible to draw up a new, broader dossier, to update the material on which previous researchers have based their work, in line with the contemporary possibilities offered by science today, and to make it more widely known and disseminated. A critical analysis of the material hitherto compiled on E. Habich and E. Malinowski, indicate that the evaluations to date are rather stereotypical and limited. The space covered by the search was deliberately narrowed down to Peru as a region hitherto poorly researched in terms of the activities of a small group of early migrants. A critical analysis of the fragmentary source base used so far will perhaps make it possible to get to know and popularise an important, though more widely unknown fragment of the Polish national emigration heritage formed in the other hemisphere in the 19th and 20th centuries. Restoring them to their rightful place in the history of Polish statehood seems to be an obligation in the context of the 2018 celebration of the 100th anniversary of regaining independence , the 200th anniversary of the birth of E. Malinowski, falling in 2019. 110th anniversary of the death of Edward Jan Habich and the 200th anniversary of the Independence of Peru in 2021. The task of highlighting the figures of Poles of merit in Peru's civilisational development also appears to be a particularly important task during the upcoming 200th anniversary of the country's independence. The celebrations are planned for two years (2021 - 2022) and will allow for the dissemination of knowledge about this more widely unknown fragment of Polish and at the same time common Polish-Peruvian historical and cultural heritage. In view of the scarce activity of Polish scientists and diplomats to date to highlight our contribution to the development of Peru, the achievements of Polish migrants are more and more often attributed or even appropriated without any reaction from Poland by representatives of other nationalities (e.g. the attribution of part of E. Malinowski's work to American engineers, or the research of zoologist K. Jelski to the Italian naturalist A. Raimondi). The main result of the project will be the presentation of a hitherto unknown but significant fragment of Polish cultural and scientific heritage created abroad by a very small group of Polish migrants to Peru in the 19th and 20th centuries. The author of the project plans to carry out a search for Peruvian sources from private family archives which have not been taken into account and researched so far (e.g. descendants of J.E. Habich, R. Jax Małachowski, W. Szyszłła, M. Tarnawcki. Another hitherto unexplored source of valuable documentation may be the state archives.

Funding: Programme of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage "Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad".

More about the project: https://polonika.pl

• Polskie Towarzystwo Studiów Latynoamerykanistycznych, realizacja w roku 2021.