Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski o Hucułach

The article examines the image of the Hutsuls in Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski’s oeuvre. The author analyses the writer’s monograph Huculszczyzna, Gorgany i Czarnohora, reportage writing, articles (published by Kurier Warszawski), so-called Hutsul novels (Postrach gór [The Terror of the Mountains]), examining the use of traditional stereotypes forming part of the cultural heritage of a given ethnic group and referring to e.g. perception of other nationalities, and ways of combining them with individual opinions stemming from observation and personal experience. She points to the symbiosis between the apologetic and Romantic concepts of the folk hero with nationhood ideas of Ossendowski’s times using e.g. the principles of inter-war regionalism.