Waclaw Sieroszewski

(also wrote under the pen names Wacław Sirko and K. Bagrynowski). Born Aug. 21, 1858, in Wólka Kozłowska, near Radzymin; died Apr. 20, 1945, in Piaseczno, near Warsaw. Polish Siberian specialist, ethnologist, and writer.

In 1880, Sieroszewski was exiled to Yakutsk Province for his participation in the revolutionary movement. During his 12 years in exile, he conducted ethnologic research. His monographs on the Yakut are the most thorough studies available on that people’s traditional way of life. In the late 1890’s he traveled through the Caucasus, and in 1902 and 1903 he participated in a Russian Geographical Society expedition to study the peoples of the Far East.

Sieroszewski was the author of numerous short stories and novellas, primarily ethnologic in content. He also wrote the novels Beniowski (1916; Russian translation, 1927) and The Ocean (1917; Russian translation, 1927). He joined J. Prtsudski’s Polish Legion in 1914 and was a nationalist in bourgeois-landowner Poland.