The fate of the politically exiled Bronisław Piłsudski, one-year-older brother of Marshal Józef Piłsudski, was by turns both tragic and remarkable. Condemned to hard labour, he nevertheless left in his wake an extraordinary ethnographic legacy and a lifetime of deep social commitment. He attained notable recognition for his pioneering studies of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin and Hokkaido. Utilizing the most advanced technology available at that time — a camera, a film recorder, and Edison’s phonograph — he took approximately 300 photographs and 30 wax cylinder recordings. Other notable achievements included the compiling of close to1,900 pages of notes on the Ainu. To this day, his work remains an invaluable resource for cultural anthropologists.

Bronisław Piłsudski was born on 2 November 1866 in Zułów. His educational life began at secondary school in Vilnius, attending together with his brother Józef, where they both founded the self-education circle Unity. He continued his studies in St Petersburg, and after graduating from high school he undertook a law degree at the university. Accused of participating — in cooperation with the terrorist faction of People’s will — in the preparations of a plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander III, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. At the age of twenty, following the intervention of his father, the death sentence imposed upon him was commuted to fifteen years of hard labour.

Now as a prisoner, transported by train to Odessa and then by steamship through the Suez Canal and the Sea of Japan, Piłsudski arrived at Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky – his place of exile and penal colony on the remote island of Sakhalin in the Pacific Ocean. At first, like other convicts at the Rykovskoye settlement, he had to perform grueling physical labour — clearing forests, carrying out construction and carpentry work, as well as tending to livestock. Over time, owing to his level of education and literacy, he was assigned to lighter duties as a teacher and clerk at the district police administration. He was also tasked by the authorities with conducting meteorological observations and botanical research.

In exile, far away from his homeland and loved ones, Piłsudski refused to succumb to despair, instead finding the inner strength to channel his energy into his intellectual passions and research activities. He developed a strong fascination for the local indigenous peoples — the Gilyaks (Nivkh), Oroks, and Ainu — and began to systematically study their languages and cultures. What’s more he treated them, taught them and helped them out with bureaucratic issues, establishing schools and giving public lectures. He also became familiar with their languages, which later enabled him to compile dictionaries. His dedication earned him the respect and affection of both the indigenous communities and local administrators.

He worked tirelessly for the improvement of the living conditions of indigenous peoples. At the governor’s request, he drafted a “Project for the Living Conditions and Administration of the Ainu of Sakhalin Island”, which proposed a form of limited self-governance. He also collected ethnographic materials for the newly established museum in Alexandrovsk. He subsequently spent several years in Vladivostok, first as curator and later director of the Museum of the Amur Region Research Society. He put together an ethnographic collection for the 1900 Paris Exposition, work for which he was awarded a silver medal.

Piłsudski also contributed to studies of the Ainu during Wacław Sieroszewski’s expedition to Hokkaido, which was organized under the auspices of the Russian Geographical Society. Returning to Sakhalin, he resided in the Ainu village of Ai on the island’s eastern coast, where he met Ciusamma, an Ainu woman who he would later marry. Their marriage bore two children — a son, Sukezo, and a daughter, Kiyo.

The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905 signaled both danger and the opportunity to leave Russia. Piłsudski ultimately made the decision to leave Sakhalin. His wife’s family would not allow the pregnant woman and her young son to accompany him, and he was never to see them again. His descendants live in present-day Japan. The bulk of the material culture he amassed remains in Russia — in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) and the Ethnographic Museum in St Petersburg, along with museums in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Vladivostok.

Piłsudski eventually made his way to Europe on a circuitous route that took him through Japan and the United States, heralding the beginning of a new chapter in his life of wandering. At the end of 1906, after close to twenty years in exile, he found himself in Kraków, there receiving both financial and emotional support from his brother Józef. Adjusting to a free life proved most difficult, prompting him to travel all over Europe, writing prolifically, in 1912 publishing perhaps his most significant scholarly work, Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Culture.

For a time he settled in Zakopane. Fascinated by the folk culture of Podhale, and the neighbouring regions of Spiš, and Orava, he began to carry out extensive fieldwork, greatly enriching the collections of the Tatra Museum with the artefacts he had collected and studied. He became an active member of the Tatra Society, where he founded and chaired the Ethnographic Section. He also initiated and served as the editor-in-chief of the first volume of the Podhale Yearbook.

At the outbreak of the First World War, as a Russian subject he was compelled to leave Galicia. He did not follow in his brother’s footsteps, deciding instead to emigrate to neutral Switzerland. He did not remain inactive there however, becoming deeply involved in political and social work. He headed up the General Committee for Aid to War Victims in Lithuania, organized relief efforts, lectured, and oversaw the publication of the Polish Encyclopedia. He later moved to France, where he worked for the Polish National Committee in Paris.

Bronisław Piłsudski drowned in the Seine on 17 May 1918 and according to the most probable chain of events, it was an act of suicide fueled by a deep depression, causing him to hurl himself into the river. He was buried at the Polish Cemetery in Montmorency near Paris. In 2000, an urn containing soil from his grave was placed at the Old Cemetery on Pęksowy Brzyzek in Zakopane, where a symbolic tomb was erected in honour of the former deportee who came to be known simply as the “King of the Ainu.”

Translated by Jan Dobrodumow