Director of the Hieronim Łopaciński Voivodeship Public Library in Lublin and Director of the National Centre for Culture have the honour to invite you to an exhibition entitled The January Uprising in foreign press. Prints from the collection of Krzysztof Kur."
The exhibition is the initiative of the National Centre for Culture and will be on display until 11.01.2014 during the opening hours of the library.
Admission is free.
“The exhibition comprises more than 200 authentic prints shown almost exclusively in European and U.S illustrated magazines from 1861-1868. The topic of all the prints is Poland and the turbulent events on its terrritory as well as the efforts of European diplomacy to solve “the Polish issue.”Most of the prints are from French illustrated magazines: “L’Illustration. Journal Universel”, “Le Monde Illustré”, “L’Univers Illustré”, “Le Journal Illustré”, “L’Ouvrier”. At the exhibition one can also find drawings which illustrated news from the Polish uprising and were published in newspapers and magazine in Great Britain– “The Illustrated London News”, „Illustrated Times”; Germany - „Über Land und Meer. Allgemeine Illustrirte Zeitung”, “Illustrirte Zeitung” “Waldheim’s Illustrirte Zeitung”; Sweden - “Illustrerad Tidning”; Italiy - “L’Illustrazione Universale”; and even in the USA - “New York Illustrated News”. There can also be found satirical drawings published by the French “Le Charivari” or English “Fun” and “Punch, or the London Charivari”.
The exhibits are displayed, with few exceptions, chronologicaly by their publishing dates. The order of publilishing is not always identical with the chronological order of events presented on the prints. The illustrations were often published with some delay, which is unerstandable when we take into consideration editors' technical conditions in the 19th century.It is often impossible to determine without any doubt which event is illustrated by a patricular print; however, in all cases the date of pubulishing the prints has been established. This allows us to track which events from te insurgent Poland were described by foreign press and twhen they appeared in print.
The exhibition is divided into six sections:
Prelude
The exhibition begins with the map of the 1st Rzeczpospolita (often referred to as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) with borders of all the three partitions shown. In this section there are also prints presenting patriotic demonstrations in Warsaw forcibly suppressed by the tsarist army in 1861 and military quarters of the Russian army at the Castle Square in Warsaw after declaration of the martial law in the Congress Poland.
Uprising
It is the main and the largest part of the exhibition. It contains prints showing skirmishes and battles, insurgent quarters in forests, everyday life duing the uprising and prospects of some Polish towns.Some engravings from this section present repression form the Russian goverment to which insurgents and civil residents were subjected.
Front pages
This section displays a collection of fornt pages of numerous European weekly magazines from the time of the January uprising (1863 and 1864) as wsell as those from the years 1861 and 1866-1868 (French: “L’Illustration. Journal Universel”,“Le Monde Illustré”, “L’Univers Illustré”, “L’Ouvrier”, Swedish“Illustrerad Tidning”, English “The Illustrated London News”, German „Illustrirte Zeitung” and “Über Land und Meer. Allgemeine Illustrirte Zeitung”), which published news form the insurgent Poland illustrated with scenes form the rebellion or portraits of the insurgents. It proves how important news of Poland fighting for independence were for the Europeans.
Portraits
A collection of portraits presenting insurgents, heroes and leaders od the January Uprising as well as representatives of tsarist government sent to supres the insurrection. There are also collective patraits of insurgent groups.
Satires
A group of satirical drawings published mainly by the French magazine “Le Charivari”, and the English “Fun” and “Punch, or the London Charivari” which presented in a humorous way some political events from the time of the uprising and ridiculed efforts of the European powers' diplomacies to solve “the Polish issue”.
International exchange of the plates
Wood engravings, which can be found in newspapers of that period, had the same function as contemporary press photography. They were even made by wood engravers on the basis of photographs. In the 1860s photochemical techniques for photography reproduction in the newspapers was not known yet. Newspapers with circulation of many thousands used wooden blocks to create a matrix to be used in the text. Editorial offices, often based in different countries, used the same blocks. Some of them were used to illustrate articles on the January Uprising in newspapers overseas (“New York Illustrated News”). These were probably the beginnings of the press photography market. This section of the exhibition presents examples of the wood engravings whis were used in several newspapers in different countries. Another interesting group of engravings are those which were used in various illustrated magazines as images of different battles and skirmishes.
I hope the proposed arrangement of the exhibition presents the course of the January uprising in an interesting way and makes us aware that it reverberated in European newspapers. The prints at the exhibition are the records of the events from 150 years ago and a memento to the insurgents.
Krzysztof Kur is the owner of the collection.
If you require any additional infromation about the exhibition, please, conntact our Promotion Department: Marta Tomasik – curator of the exhibition and Ewa Hadrian – tel. 81-53-207-38, 81-528-74-17.