POLISH TOURIST GUIDEBOOKS OF THE 19TH CENTURY IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT

Abstract

: In the 19th century there was an unprecedented development of tourism and guidebooks useful for tourists. A modern type of guidebook with sightseeing route suggestions and numerous practical information has been developed. Publishing houses that specialized in creating this type of travel books, such as Karl Baedeker's in Germany and John Murray in England appeared. The guidebooks issued by them served for templates adapted by other authors and publishers. In the analyzed period more than 150 Polish guidebooks were written, mostly connected with big cities, but also i.al. spa resorts and mountain areas. Difficult political situation consisting in breaking the country into three partitions, made it hard to create guidebooks about the entirety of Polish lands. The aim of the article is to characterize Polish nineteenth-century guidebooks compared to similar European publications. On the one hand, it should demonstrate the impact of European solutions on the form and content of Polish guidebooks, and on the other – the specificity of Polish guidebooks, determined by particular historical factors.