Austro-węgierska wojskowa służba medyczna podczas I wojny światowej

Próba analizy zródła ikonograficznego – albumu dr. Mieczysława Górki

Abstract

MEDICAL SERVICE IN THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ARMY DURING WORLD WAR I. AN ATTEMPT AT AN ANALYSIS OF AN ICONOGRAPHIC SOURCE – DR MIECZYSŁAW GÓRKA’S ALBUM

In the present paper I attempt to recognize the value possessed by a photo album as a source in the study of the history of social life during WWI. It should be noted that the present analysis is the first-ever study of the artefact in question. The paper discusses the fundamentals of the functioning of health service in the Austro-Hungarian army during WWI, as well as the rules of conscription into the army for persons with medical education. I have analysed the structure of the photographs included in the album, grouping them into thematic sets and discussing the places and events presented in them; I have also made an attempt to determine why and in what circumstances the authors of the photographs could have found himself in the given locations. The Austro-Hungarian army during WWI organized an extended network of medical centres to provide health care to its injured and ill soldiers. The problems with attracting doctors to military service that arose already prior to WWI resulted in the fact that the army basically had to rely on civilian doctors of different specialities that had been called up to military service. The album that belonged to Dr Mieczysław Górka which is currently in the holdings of the Museum of Kraków is an interesting source of knowledge on the history of WWI. On its 81 cardboard pages 424 photographs are stuck. The majority of them were taken in Kraków in the years 1914–1918, and only a few date from the interwar period. The photographs from the times of WWI document the reality of a military hospital. The photographs that were taken outside of Kraków mostly come from the former Galicia region, and generally document the war damage which resulted from the ghts that took place in the May of 1915 (in Tarnów and Gorlice). The most exotic of the pictures are connected with the travels of Dr Antoni Wespanski. Dr Wespanski served in military hospitals in Albania and the Middle East during WWI, which he documented photographically. The photo album of Dr Mieczysław Górka is an object of great value for research as a visual description of everyday life in the reality of war.