Fotografie dyplomów Edwarda Okunia w albumie generała Józefa Hallera
Photographs of diplomas by Edward Okuń in the album of general Józef Haller

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with 53 amateur photographs presented as a gift to general Józef Haller, leader of the Polish army in emigration in France in 1918-19, by captain Marian Dienstl-Dąbrowa, a journalist, art critic and publisher of the fortnightly publication ‘Żołnierz Polski we Włoszech’ (The Polish Soldier in Italy, 1919). Dienstl-Dąbrowa was the first commander of a Polish solders’ camp set up at December 1918 to April 1919 in La Mandria di Chivasso near Turin. The photographs under discussion (ills. 10-11) mainly depict scenes from life in this camp, which continued to function until April of the following year. The authoress devotes most attention to four pictures of decorative diplomas (ills. 6-9) painted by a Polish painter, Edward Okuń (1872-1945), who was living in Rome at that time. These diplomas were awarded to the donators of standards to the Polish regiments formed in Italy. The ‘Pro Polonia’ committees from Milan and Turin which founded the standards of the regiments named in honour of Guiseppe Garibaldi and Adam Mickiewicz received diplomas that featured likenesses of their patrons, together with a female personification of their Polish fatherland known as Polonia (ills. 6, 9); the town of Chivasso, which donated the standard to the Zawisza Czarny regiment got a diploma decorated with a knight’s helmet (ill. 8), while for the National League from Milan there was the diploma of the White Eagle with panoplies in the form of scythes arranged to stand on end (ill. 7). The photographs in Haller’s album provide the only testimony that these diplomas ever existed. Digitalized and reedited material

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