The Czarnohora Album

In 1876 the folklorist Oskar Kolberg in a play of words juxtaposed Czarnohora (called sometimes in Polish “Czarnagóra”, i.e. black mountain), the mountain range of the Eastern Carpathians with the Alps: “The mountains are full of wild rocks and forests and thus instead of a Mont Blanc they [the Hutsuls] have their Black Mountain, a dark woody peak, the habitat of wolfs and bears”.

Indeed, in Kolberg’s words resonates the recent interest in the Eastern Carpathians marked by the foundation of two branches of the Tatra Society (Towarzystwo Tatrzańskie) established by local landlords and intelligentsia in Stanisławów (1876) and in Kołomyja (1878) with the aim of studying, promoting and creating a basic mountaineering infrastructure in the region. Among the first initiatives of both branches was a photographic survey aiming at the production of a set of photographs of the Czarnohora mountain range. In 1879 the Tatra Society embarked on this project by allocating a small found for the acquisition of “a photographic apparatus” for the dry plate process. The new, just commercialized technique, simplified significantly the work of photographers: the glass plates coated with photographic emulsion, were ready to be loaded in the camera and could be developed at any time after exposure.

The survey project was launched by the Stanisławów attorney, Marceli Eminowicz, the driving force of the Stanisławów branch but it was realized in the framework of the Kołomyja branch by the local photographer, Juliusz Dutkiewicz. A well-planned excursion to the Czarnohora mountains organized in 1879 by one of its most active members, Marceli Turkawski, a professor of the gymnasium in Kolomyja, was a perfect opportunity to accomplish the photographic survey:

“when looking at the landscapes with our own eyes, we could point to the most beautiful and rare sights to the photographer. The board of the [Tatra] Society assigned a subvention of 50 guldens to Mr D[utkiewicz], the local photographer, who was supposed to accompany us with an appropriate camera and according to the contract provide us with a certain number of views to form an album”.

In the next months it was Leopold Weigel, another teacher of the Kołomyja gymnasium and active member of the Czarnohora branch, as well as passionate amateur researcher of this mountain region to accompany Dutkiewicz on a trip to finish the photographic survey.

Indeed, the ambitions of the Stanisławów and Czarnohora branches were modest as were the plans of the Tatra Society for the outcomes of Dutkiewicz’s survey. As stated by Turawski: “we had the intention of publishing an album of the views of Czarnohora, even in a smaller size and not so exemplary executed (after all, we are in Kołomyja!) as the beautiful [Awit Szubert’s] Tatra albums just published in Krakow.” In the 1878–1879 minutes of the both branches, however, the expenditure for such an album are not mentioned. However, in 1880 in the framework of the ethnographic exhibition organized as one of the events of the Inspection Trip of the Emperor Franz Joseph I, the Kołomyja branch has ordered from Dutkiewicz a set of views and types of the region as an important highlight of the show. As stated by Turawski in a in-depth overview of the exhibition: “One must admit that the author of the album has magnificently accomplished his task. Thus we had at the exhibition many photographs hanging  in a long row or lying on the tables from all over Pokucie (a region in the Eastern Carpathians), in particular the views of Czarnohora”. Even though the Kołomyja branch has ordered from Dutkiewicz just two sets of pictures (albums), the 1880 show marked a turning point in the popularization of the region with the mean of photography. Members of the branch have acquired their own sets of pictures and have intermediated between the photographer and scholars and amateurs interested in the views of the Eastern Carpathians. Moreover, in 1881 the Kołomyja branch has presented the headquarters of the Tatra Society with an album of Czarnohora views. From that time on Dutkiewicz has successfully commercialized his views: they were on sale in many shops in Kolomyja as well as in his photographic studio. He also included the views in the presentation of the output of his studio at the exhibitions organized in Galicia and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the following years, as well as in albums presented to various scientific and museum institutions in Cracow, Lwów and Vienna.

The 1885 guidebook of Czarnohora published by Leopold Weigel from the initiative of the Kołomyja branch was the first one to included not only a geographical, natural and ethnographic description of the region, but also tips for tourists wishing to explore the Eastern Carpathians: how to get there, how to move in the region, what to see, where to stay, etc. Despite the activity of the branch – the institutionalization of guides, the building of several mountain paths and a modest tourist infrastructure in the village of Żabie, the main starting point of a trip to Czarnohora – the region remained still hardly explored. Indeed, such an excursion was more demanding than a trip in the Tatra: Weigel advised to travel in a group of three, to hire horses as well three local guides to show the path and to scare away wolfs and bears. Despite their activity – the institutionalization of local guides, the building of several mountain paths and a modest tourist infrastructure in the village of Żabie, the main starting point of a trip to Czarnohora – till the end of the century the region remained however still hardly explored. In the 1880s excursions in the Eastern Carpathians were still undertaken almost exclusively by local members of the Tatra Society and occasionally by the most wealthy Galician aristocrats and landlords. Even the Lwów branch established in 1883 from the initiative of Włodzimierz Dzieduszycki (1825–1899) to promote the Eastern Carpathians among the elites of this center was short-lived and failed in accomplishing its mission. In this context, Dutkiewicz’s large choice of views on offer in many shops in Kołomyja and advertised in the press and in Weigel’s guidebook should be considered as one of the most successful initiatives aimed at transforming the region in a touristic attraction. It is thanks to his views that the peaks of Pop Iwan, Howerla or Szpyci, the mountain river of Prut or the villages of Jamna and Żabie have become widely known in the last decades of the 19^th century.