Wileńskie zdjęcie ryskiej "kolonii polskiej" z 1863 roku

ENA photograph of the Polish elite in Riga in 1863, discovered in the collections of the Lithuanian National Library in Vilnius is an interesting visual supplement to the narrative about the fate of Poles in the north-western governorates of the Russian Empire. It is also interesting because of the presentation of the so-called 'Poles by choice'. Photography around the mid-nineteenth century was still a relatively new invention, so it is worth paying attention to this group photo, as it shows a very diverse - although class-wise basically uniform - social group: children, adults and the elderly, women and men, landowners, people of culture and science, etc. Due to the fact that after both world wars and communism, which swept through the former north-eastern Borderlands of the First Polish-Lithuanian Republic, there were so few material mementos of the photographed people left in situ, this photo somehow gives shape, captures faces, "brings to life" people of whom only their names or surnames remained in the memories of relatives or friends. Keywords: Riga, Vilnius, Poles, borderland, history, photography, memory.