Bronisław Piłsudski

A Sakhalin mixed-blood Ainu-Russian man, photographed by Bronisław Piłsudski ca. 1905

Piłsudski was born on November 2, 1866 in the Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire in present-day Lithuania. He was one of four brothers, including Józef, Adam, and Jan. Józef later served as the Chief of State and First Marshal of Poland. Bronisław and Józef Piłsudski moved to Vilnius in 1874, where they continued self-education for three years. After their mother's death in 1886, they left together for Saint Petersburg. Bronisław Piłsudski passed an examination at a local university.

For his involvement with a socialist in a plot to assassinate Alexander III of Russia in 1887 together with Vladimir Lenin's brother Alexander Ulyanov, Bronisław was sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor on Sakhalin island. He used his time there to conduct research. While on Sakhalin in 1891, he met ethnographer Lev Sternberg. Piłsudski was then sent to the southern part of the island. The rest of his prison sentence was changed to ten years of internal exile because he had settled without permission of the Russian authorities.

Three years later, Piłsudski was given a grant by the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences to study the Ainu. That year he settled in an Ainu village, fell in love with an Ainu woman, Chufsanma, officially married her and had a son and daughter, Sukezo and Kiyo, with her. His wife was a niece of Chief Bafunkei of the village of Ai in Sakhalin. In 1903 he recorded the Ainu language. From these original recordings an Ainu dictionary of over a thousand words was made, which was translated into over ten languages. Piłsudski also wrote down the myths, culture, music and customs of the Ainu. He built an elementary school in the village where he taught Russian language and mathematics to the local children. The schools were open only in winter, the slack season of the farm.

In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War broke out. Due to the rumor that if one spoke Russian they would be conscripted to the Russian Army, the locals began refusing to learn Russian. Also, Ainus were prepared to cooperate with the Japanese after they landed on Sakhalin. A local told Piłsudski that he would not send his son to the school. Chief Bafunkei told Piłsudski to return to Poland while the war continued. Piłsudski reluctantly agreed with him.

Piłsudski moved to Japan by himself, where he was befriended by Ōkuma Shigenobu, Futabatei Shimei, Torii Ryūzō, Katayama Sen, and others, and helped an organization of anti-imperial Russian refugees. Among them, Futabatei Shimei became Piłsudski's very close friend. He described Bronisław as "an 'odd ball' who was so kind-hearted and innocent like a child that he would always insist in a very excited tone that he needed to do something to help Ainus and that it was his destiny to do that despite the fact that he was always a 'complete broke' then".[1]

In the same year, Piłsudski arrived in Kraków, Austria-Hungary, after traveling from Japan via the United States. When there was upheaval preceding World War I, Piłsudski escaped to Switzerland. In 1917 he left for Paris, where he worked at the Paris office of Polish National Committee, which had been founded by Roman Dmowski, the political archrival of Bronisław's younger brother Józef.

On 17 May 1918 Piłsudski drowned in the Seine River near the Pont Neuf. On 21 May 1918 his body was found near the Pont Mirabeau. His death was thought to be a suicide.

Piłsudski's descendants currently live in Japan.[2]

• Polish Museum, Rapperswil

The Collected Works of Bronislaw Pitsudski, translated and edited by Alfred F. Majewicz with the assistance of Elzbieta Majewicz.
Volume 1: The Aborigines of Sakhalin
Volume 2: Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore (Cracow 1912)
Volume 3: Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore II
Volumn 4: Materials for the Study of Tungusic Languages and Folklore
TOWARD A RESTORATION OF BRONISLAW PItSUDSKFS SCHOLARLY BEQUEATHAL. Materials for International Symposium on Bronislaw Pilsudski's Phonographic Records and the Ainu Culture University of Hokkaido, Sapporo, Japan September 16 - 20, 1985

• "Piłsudski, Bronisław," Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN (PWN Universal Encyclopedia), Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, vol. 3, 1975, p. 521.
• "Piłsudski, Bronisław," Encyklopedia Polski (Encyclopedia of Poland), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 1996, ISBN 83-86328-60-6, p. 505.

• Bronisław Piłsudski's life and work
• Large volume of documents related to Bronisław Piłsudski from Józef Piłsudski Institute of America