Tomasz Jakubowski's publication is a pioneering study of graphic documents of social life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Until now, it has been to a large extent terra incognita. Indeed, this subject has not been the subject of research.

The book contains a catalogue of over four hundred selected objects of very diverse types, but of Polish provenance and housed in one department of a particular institution. The department in question is the Graphic Arts Department of the State Museum of the History of Religions in St Petersburg. This is the first in the Polish literature on the subject such a large and comprehensively systematised material of graphic documents of social life.

The book contains unique material that presents a picture of Polish fate. Many of the documents are published for the first time.

Particularly valuable are a dozen or so parchment documents dating from the 16th to 18th centuries, including those issued by Queen Bona and King Władysław IV. They testify to how various Polish documents and mementos of the past ended up in distant places due to the vicissitudes of history.

The publication contains a representative collection of material not previously seen on such a scale. It includes folk woodcuts, religious oleo-prints, postcards, including Christmas cards, often illustrating customs and village life, engravings depicting historical figures and scenes or images of saints, but also photographs and prints showing sacred buildings. A significant group are oleo-prints, which still do not have professional studies in Polish, although they are an extremely interesting part of graphic production in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Author: Tomasz Jakubowski

Language editing: Małgorzata Merkel-Massé

Translation: Aleksandra Idzikowska (in English)
Natalia Mizerniuk-Rotkevich (from Russian).

Year of publication: 2022

Number of pages: 596

Binding: soft

Format: 200 x 250 mm

ISBN: 978-83-66172-57-9