Wciąż terra incognita? Turystyka górska w Karpatach Wschodnich w okresie autonomii galicyjskiej

Abstract

Still terra incognita? Mountain climbing in the Eastern Carpathians in the period of Galician autonomy

Early mountain climbing in the distant, expansive, and wild Eastern Carpathians in a far corner of Galicia then part of Austria-Hungary, today in Ukraine looked rather different from that practiced in the Tatra mountains. This is attested to by the near universal use of the services of the local Hutsul highlanders with their horses in order to cover the greater distances from the piedmont localities, reachable by carriage or railway, to the mountain peaks. The present article — based on descriptions of expeditions in newspapers and specialized journals, books, and memoirs — considers the experience of various individuals and groups that conquered or attempted to conquer the peaks of Czarnohora from about 1873 to to the first years of the 20th century.  Among the climbers of the period one finds Tatra Society activists, students from the Galician capital of Lwów/Lemberg/L’viv, as well as a young Scotchwoman. Among other things, the article analyzes the challenges of the expeditions and the motivation and impressions of the participants in order to better understand why, despite the passage of time as well as the experiences of earlier mountain climbers, the peaks of Czarnohora in this period long remained only lightly frequented.