Heleniusz [Iwanowski, Eustachy], Polish Memorabilia from Various Periods. Vol. I–II [1882]

Title: Polish Memorabilia from Various Periods. Vol. I–II.

Author: Eu...go Heleniusz [real name: Eustachy Antoni Iwanowski] (1813–1903) [historian, memoirist, and journalist; collector and publisher of sources on the history of Volhynia, Podolia, and Ukraine].

Publisher: Kraków, published by the author, at the printing house of Wł. L. Anczyc and Co.

Year of publication: 1882.

Format: 23 cm.

Number of pages: 578, [4] pp.

Binding: Half-leather binding.

“Polish Memoirs from Various Eras” is a comprehensive collection of materials on the history of the southeastern lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—namely, Volhynia, Podolia, and Ukraine. It combines memoir-style narratives with the publication of archival documents. This first volume opens with a preface and a treatise on ancient Polish constitutions. This is followed by an extensive section of primary sources: excerpts from the records of Kyiv and Zhytomyr, border protocols from 1776–1782, and a partition decree of the Bracław Land Court from 1794. This material is invaluable to historians and genealogists, as court documents and town records from the Ruthenian lands of the Crown are today largely scattered or difficult to access. The volume was published in Kraków in 1882 at the author’s expense, at the printing house of Władysław Ludwik Anczyc. Iwanowski, who lived in the Kiev Governorate, published his works in Kraków, where, in autonomous Galicia, he could print without Russian censorship.

Eustachy Antoni Iwanowski of the Łodzia coat of arms was born in 1813 in Chałaimgródek in the Kiev Governorate, to Dezydery and Klara née Chojecka. He was a graduate of the Krzemieniec Lyceum. He spent most of his life on his family estate, devoting himself to researching the history of the nobility of Volhynia, Podolia, and Kyiv. Under the pseudonym Heleniusz—also in the form “Eu... Heleniusz,” he published in Kraków numerous volumes of memoirs, biographies, documents, and stories from the history of Southern Rus’. He was one of the most important chroniclers and memoirists of those lands. He was also an archivist and collector. In 1897–1898, he donated his vast archive to the Jagiellonian Library. The poet Aleksander Groza, who was associated with his home, died in Chałaimgródek in 1875. Iwanowski died on July 7, 1903, in Chałaimgródek, at the age of 90. He was buried in the church in Białopol, which was destroyed in 1950.

Provenance: on the title page, a stamp reading “Gubrynowicz and Schmidt. Bookstore and Sheet Music Store in Lviv”—a mark of a well-known Lviv-based bookstore through which the piece passed in commercial circulation.

This volume is rich in source material on the history and genealogy of the nobility of the Ruthenian lands, written by one of the most distinguished chroniclers of the Eastern Borderlands, with Lviv book trade provenance. A must-have for researchers of the history of the Eastern Borderlands, genealogists of noble families from Volhynia, Podolia, and Ukraine, and collectors of works related to the Borderlands.

The first volume of a two-volume set is offered here. The pages are intact, and the paper is clean, aside from the stamp described above. The half-leather binding is in very good condition, with minor scuffs on the spine.

Catalog ID: 7012x1-23-A-Z