Bronisław Gorczak – historyk i wołyński archiwista (1854–1918)

Bronisław Gorczak – historian and Volhynia archivist (1854–1918) Bronisław Gorczak (1854–1918) was a Leopolitan and a student of Ksawery Liski (1838–1891), who created a school of “didactic” type in Lviv. This gifted graduate of the Franciscan University was employed in the early 1880s by Prince Roman Damian Sanguszko as a conservator of the archives in Slavuta, Volhynia. Not only did he organize and did an inventory of rich archival collections, but he also prepared source publications financed by the prince and monographs of the Sanguszko family. At the beginning of the 1890s, he also took over the management of the Slavuta library. The previously unused correspondence of Gorczak with his Lviv friend and a professor at the University of Lviv, Ludwik Finkel (1858–1930), allows us to ask questions not only about the individual fate of the Volhynia historian and archivist, his ambitions, cares and dramas, but also to treat him as a representative of a guided by specific ethics in the performance of their professional duties. It was influenced by political, socio-economic conditions and ideological currents in Poland after 1864. Gorczak tried to realize the values he had reinfused during his studies in Lviv. Critical of the surrounding reality, he managed to preserve much of youthful idealism and faith in the sense of the work of a historian and archivist.