Borys Malkin’s letters from the field (South America, 1959–1994)

Lecture with Dr. Magdalena Nierzwicka, Museologist, District Museum in Torún (Poland).

Born in Belarus, Borys Malkin (1917–2009) spent his childhood in Warsaw, Poland; in 1938 he emigrated to the United States. For almost 40 years, Malkin collected natural specimens and material culture of South American ethnic groups for many museums around the world. The letters he wrote from abroad to his wife Helena Przestalska-Malkin in Poland are a valuable source of knowledge about Malkin’s life and research. About 830 letters have been preserved. Another series of letters he sent to the Glenbow Foundation and Museum in Calgary in 1963–1972 deals with Malkin’s research in the Noanamá area. The lecture aims to shed light on the context of the Noanamá collection of the Ethnographic Museum in Zurich on the basis of this rather personal and largely Polish legacy.

Please note: At 4 pm research intervention in the exhibition with Dr. Magdalena Nierzwicka.