Bronisław Piotr Piłsudski (; ; 2 November 1866 – 17 May 1918) was an

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

, who researched the

Ainu people The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the ...

after he was exiled by the Tsar

Alexander III of Russia Alexander III ( rus, Алекса́ндр III Алекса́ндрович, r=Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich; 10 March 18451 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 18 ...

to the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The te ...

. Piłsudski pioneered research into

Lithuanian cross crafting Lithuanian cross crafting ( lt, Lietuvos kryždirbystė) is a traditional Lithuanian art of crafting crosses. The making of altars and crosses is an important part of Lithuanian culture. Lithuanian traditional crosses are part of the people's Rom ...

. Bronisław Piłsudski considered himself Samogitian,

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Je ...

and

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

. Therefore, some sources name him as a Lithuanian, while others as Polish. In addition to the Ainu, he conducted research on the Orork and

Nivkh Nivkh or Amuric or Gilyak may refer to: * Nivkh people The Nivkh, or Gilyak (also Nivkhs or Nivkhi, or Gilyaks; ethnonym: Нивхгу, ''Nʼivxgu'' (Amur) or Ниғвңгун, ''Nʼiɣvŋgun'' (E. Sakhalin) "the people"), are an indigenous et ...

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh: ...

island.

Early life

Piłsudski was born on November 2, 1866 in the

Vilna Governorate The Vilna Governorate (1795–1915; also known as Lithuania-Vilnius Governorate from 1801 until 1840; russian: Виленская губерния, ''Vilenskaya guberniya'', lt, Vilniaus gubernija, pl, gubernia wileńska) or Government of V ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

in present-day Lithuania. He was one of four brothers, including Józef,

Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

, and

Jan Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article Numb ...

. Józef later served as the

Chief of State A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and l ...

and First Marshal of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

. Bronisław and Józef Piłsudski moved to

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional u ...

in 1874, where they continued self-education for three years. After their mother's death in 1886, they left together for

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. Bronisław Piłsudski passed an examination at a local university.

Exile & Study of Ainu

For his involvement with a

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

in a plot to assassinate Alexander III of Russia in 1887 together with

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

's brother

Aleksandr Ulyanov Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Ильи́ч Улья́нов; – ) was a Russian revolutionary and political activist. He was the elder brother of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union. Early life Ulyano ...

, Bronisław was initaially sentenced to death, later commuted to fifteen years of hard labor on Sakhalin island (Ulyanov was hanged). He used his time there to conduct research. While on Sakhalin in 1891, he met ethnographer

Lev Sternberg Lev (Chaim-Leib) Yakovlevich Sternberg (russian: Лев (Хаим-Лейб) Я́ковлевич Ште́рнберг) (, Zhitomir, Russian Empire – August 14, 1927, Dudergof, now Mozhaisky, Soviet Union) was a Russian and Soviet ethnographer ...

. Piłsudski was then sent to the island's southern part. The rest of his prison sentence was changed to ten years of internal exile because he had settled without permission of the Russian authorities.

Research of the Ainu people

Three years later, Piłsudski was given a grant by the Imperial

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

to study the

Ainu Ainu or Aynu may refer to: *Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East *Ainu languages, a family of languages **Ainu language of Hokkaido **Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands **Sakhalin Ainu la ...

. That year he settled in an Ainu village, fell in love with an Ainu woman, Chufsanma, officially married her and had a son and daughter, Sukezo and Kiyo, with her. His wife was a niece of Chief Bafunkei of the village of Ai in Sakhalin. In 1903 he recorded the

Ainu language Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu, is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate ...

. From these original recordings an Ainu dictionary of over a thousand words was made, which was translated into over ten languages. Piłsudski also wrote down the myths, culture, music and customs of the Ainu. He built an elementary school in the village where he taught Russian language and mathematics to the local children. The schools were open only in winter, the slack season of the farm. In 1904, the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

broke out. Due to the rumor that if one spoke Russian they would be conscripted to the Russian Army, the locals began refusing to learn Russian. Also, Ainus were prepared to cooperate with the Japanese after they landed on Sakhalin. A local told Piłsudski that he would not send his son to the school. Chief Bafunkei told Piłsudski to return to Poland while the war continued. Piłsudski reluctantly agreed with him. Sakhalin Ainu Man

Piłsudski moved to Japan by himself, where he was befriended by

Ōkuma Shigenobu Marquess was a Japanese statesman and a prominent member of the Meiji oligarchy. He served as Prime Minister of the Empire of Japan in 1898 and from 1914 to 1916. Ōkuma was also an early advocate of Western science and culture in Japan, and ...

Futabatei Shimei was a Japanese writer, translator, and literary critic. His writings are in the realist style popular in the mid to late 19th century. His work '' The Drifting Cloud'' (''Ukigumo'', 1887) is widely regarded as Japan's first modern novel. Bi ...

Torii Ryūzō Ryuzo Torii (鳥居龍藏; May 4, 1870 – January 14, 1953) was a Japanese anthropologist, ethnologist, archaeologist, and folklorist. Torii traveled across East Asia and South America for his research. He is known for his anthropological rese ...

Katayama Sen is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: Entertainers *, Japanese stage actress *, Japanese film actress *, Japanese film actress and singer, former AKB48 member Politicians *, Japanese-born member of the American Communi ...

, and others, and helped an organization of anti-imperial Russian refugees. Among them, Futabatei Shimei became Piłsudski's very close friend. He described Bronisław as:

an 'odd ball' who was so kind-hearted and innocent like a child that he would always insist in a very excited tone that he needed to do something to help Ainus and that it was his destiny to do that despite the fact that he was always a 'complete broke' then".

In the same year, Piłsudski arrived in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 159 ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

, after traveling from Japan via the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

World War I

When there was upheaval preceding

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Piłsudski escaped to Switzerland. In 1917 he left for

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

, where he worked at the Paris office of Polish National Committee, which had been founded by

Roman Dmowski Roman Stanisław Dmowski (Polish: , 9 August 1864 – 2 January 1939) was a Polish politician, statesman, and co-founder and chief ideologue of the National Democracy (abbreviated "ND": in Polish, "''Endecja''") political movement. He saw th ...

, the political archrival of Bronisław's younger brother Józef. On 17 May 1918 Piłsudski drowned in the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plate ...

River near the

Pont Neuf The Pont Neuf (, "New Bridge") is the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. It stands by the western (downstream) point of the Île de la Cité, the island in the middle of the river that was, between 250 and 225 BC, ...

. On 21 May 1918 his body was found near the Pont Mirabeau. His death was thought to be a suicide. Piłsudski's descendants currently live in Japan.
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References

Sources

*"Piłsudski, Bronisław," ''Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN'' (PWN Universal Encyclopedia),

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...

Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN (''Polish Scientific Publishers PWN''; until 1991 ''Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe'' - ''National Scientific Publishers PWN'', PWN) is a Polish book publisher, founded in 1951, when it split from the Wydawnictwa Szkolne i ...

, vol. 3, 1975, p. 521. *"Piłsudski, Bronisław," ''Encyklopedia Polski'' (Encyclopedia of Poland), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 1996, , p. 505.

The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski

The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski, translated and edited by Alfred F. Majewicz with the assistance of Elżbieta Majewicz. * Volume 1: The Aborigines of Sakhalin
Volume 2: Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore (Cracow 1912)
* Volume 3: Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore II * Volume 4: Materials for the Study of

Tungusic Languages The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...

and Folklore * Toward a Restoration of Bronisław Piłsudski’s Scholarly Bequeathal: Materials for ''International Symposium on Bronisław Piłsudski’s Phonographic Records and the Ainu Culture''. University of Hokkaido, Sapporo, Japan. September 16–20, 1985

External links

Bronisław Piłsudski's life and work

Large volume of documents related to Bronisław Piłsudski
from

Józef Piłsudski Institute of America The Józef Piłsudski Institute of America (full name: Józef Piłsudski Institute of America for Research in the Modern History of Poland) was created in New York City in July 1943. It is an archive, museum and research center devoted to the stud ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pilsudski, Bronislaw 1866 births 1918 deaths People from Švenčionys District Municipality People from Sventsyansky Uyezd Anthropologists of the Ainu Polish anthropologists Polish exiles in the Russian Empire 1918 suicides Suicides by drowning in France

Bronisław Piłsudski Bronisław Piotr Piłsudski (; ; 2 November 1866 – 17 May 1918) was an ethnologist, who researched the Ainu people after he was exiled by the Tsar Alexander III of Russia to the Far East. Piłsudski pioneered research into Lithuanian cross ...