PA Polish scholar of the Ainu People – Bronisław Piłsudski (1866–1918): On the hundredth anniversary of death

Abstract

Bronisław Piłsudski, the elder brother of Marshal Józef Piłsudski, made a long-term home in Sakhalin, where he conducted research on the local population for nearly two decades. He became famous as an advocate of protecting the rights of the aborigines, who fought an unequal battle with the dominant cultures surrounding them from the south and the north. During his research, Piłsudski recorded the unique rites of the disappearing Ainu culture. This article is devoted to a profile of this Polish pioneer of ethnographic and oriental studies.