Włodzimierz Kirchner, Walka z nędzą na Bałutach i inne pisma o dobroczynności
The fight against poverty in Bałuty and other writings about charity

Contributor(s): Jadwiga Goniewicz (Editor), Dorota Samborska-Kukuć (Editor)
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: philanthropy; charitable organizations 20-th century
Summary/Abstract: The edition consists of scattered works published in daily newspapers and magazines (e.g. "Rozwój", "Kurier Warszawski", "Bluszcz", "Słowo", "Tygodnik Ilustrowany") and brochures written by Father Włodzimierz Kirchner, an activist charity organizations in Lodz and Warsaw at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Their subject matter deals with the issue of almsgiving, which Kirchner finds demoralizing. As a theoretician of philanthropy, he proposes a prudent consideration of individual cases in its place, especially replacing it with specific proposals for gainfulemployment, which is supposed to improve not only the economic but also the moral situation. Kirchner's philanthropic thought revolves around other, but close to mainstream, issues: vagrancy, juvenile crime (knife-throwing), prostitution, domestic violence, the tasks of vocational schools for women, etc. Thanks to the author's erudition, experience and concepts, his philanthropic sketches may constitute a kind of paradigm of the theory of charity in organizations of this type 19th/20th centuries. The edition also includes two introductions: a scientific one by D. Samborska-Kukuć and a memoir by Kirchner's daughter, prof. Hanna Kirchner.

• Details
• Contents