Bronisław Piłsudski

Bronisław Piotr Piłsudski (2 November 1866, Żułów – 17 May 1918), brother of Józef Piłsudski, was a Polish cultural anthropologist who conducted outstanding research on the Ainu ethnic group on Sakhalin Island. In the 21st century, there are very few Ainu left on Sakhalin, and the largest Ainu population is the one on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Bronisław and Józef Piłsudski lived in Vilnius in 1874, where they continued self-education for three years. After their mother's death in 1886, they left for Saint Petersburg. Bronisław Piłsudski passed an examination at a local university.

Bronisław, for his involvement with a socialist in a plot to assassinate Alexander III of Russia in 1887 together with Vladimir Lenin's brother Alexander Ulyanov, was sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor on Sakhalin island (Ulyanov was hanged). He used his time there to conduct research. While on Sakhalin in 1891, he met ethnographer Lev Sternberg. He was then sent to the southern part of the island. The rest of his prison sentence was changed to ten years of internal exile because he had settled without permission of the Russian authorities.

Three years later, he was given a grant by the Imperial Academy of Sciences to study the Ainu. That year he settled in an Ainu village, fell in love with an Ainu woman, Chufsanma, officially married her and had a son and daughter, Sukezo and Kiyo, with her. His wife was a niece of Chief Bafunkei of the village of Ai in Sakhalin. In 1903 he recorded the Ainu language. From these original recordings an Ainu dictionary of over a thousand words was made, which was translated into over ten languages. Piłsudski also wrote down the myths, culture, music and customs of the Ainu. He built an elementary schools in the village where he taught Russian language and mathematics to the local children. The schools were open only in winter, the slack season of the farm.

...
Wikipedia