In Melchior Wańkowicz’s Archives. Albums of photographs from the collection of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw

Abstract

The author presents and describes the archives of Melchior Wańkowicz, donated by his daughter to the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw, in 1974. The researcher focuses on photographs, that the reporter mostly took himself. In the albums, arranged by him or his wife, the author seeks information on the true character of the “father of Polish reportage” and his life, which has been blurred by his great legend. The comparison of selected photos with the statements of the writer and the researchers of his works, allows to see the pictures as some kind of illustration and documentation of the writer’s life. The author indicates the wide possibilities of using the photographs and albums in the work of biographers or researchers of the writer’s work, as well as historians, interested in the turbulent period in Polish history, which Wańkowicz consolidated not only in his reports, but also in photographs.