Agata Koprowicz

University of Warsaw

Self-Portraits of Social Change. Photographs as Egodocuments on the Example of Wojciech Migacz’s (1874–1944) Works 

At the turn of the twentieth century, photography slowly, though not without obstacles, spread in rural areas. Although peasants constituted almost 80% of the Polish society (approximately 22 million), there are represented in really few photos reaching us from the early 20th century. One of the exceptions are the photos made by Wojciech Migacz (1874– 1944), one of the first Polish peasant photographers, living in Galician village Gostwica near Nowy Sącz. Migacz photographed everything and everyone: himself, his family, neighbors, guests, work, rituals, celebrations, and important political events in the area. About 2,700 of his photos and negatives have survived and are stored in various Polish museums. Migacz’s photographs and self-portraits are the visual records of his self-perception in the context of family, community, country, and social class.

In my paper, I will present the challenges of analyzing photographs as egodocuments by employing the example of Migacz’s works, comparing them with other photographic egodocuments produced by Polish peasants in the 19th century. Moreover, I will demonstrate how photography can become a useful source for studying marginalized groups, such as Polish peasants, who did not leave behind an extensive corpus of written egodocuments. My paper is intended to fill the ‘visual’ gap in the studies of egodocuments, which are still dominated by written sources.