Paper Short Abstract:

The paper will be deal with the establishment and creation of cultural sciences and their mutual relations in the complicated situation of 19th-century Polish science. The paper will take into account both native and foreign traditions related to the names of the branches of knowledge discussed.

Paper Abstract:

The paper will consider the early history of such sciences as ethnography, ethnology, anthropology, folklore studies, ludoznawstwo (since the 19th century) and kulturoznawstwo (since the first half of the 20th century). The overview will include selected proposals by Polish theoreticians and researchers of culture, as well as examples of academic teaching and school programs. In principle, it will be an attempt at a preliminary framework synthesis conducted not so much from the perspective of research programs (and later also teaching programs) but rather from assigning to these broadly (or only sketchily formulated) programs specific terms constituting names of branches of knowledge. In Polish science, theoretical work on defining the identity of sciences (which I call here for simplicity ‘cultural sciences’) and their mutual relations began in the early 19th century (Joachim Lelewel), when empirical research was still in its infancy. Discussions on the identity of individual sciences and their mutual relations (including the subsequent classifications of sciences) were only beginning – the growing detailed knowledge and the emergence of new branches from older sciences enforced them. As far as academic teaching is concerned, the focus of this paper will be not so much on the content of the curriculums but rather on subjects (and later, from the 20th century, also fields of study) whose names referred to specific branches of knowledge; one of the earliest examples can be indicated by the course in general ethnography (1851/1852) taught by Wincenty Pol in the geography course.