Michał Borch’s Grand Tour – life musings of a learned aristocrat

Abstract

The Grand Tour of a naturalist, mineralogist, poet, playwright and translator, Michał Jan Borch (1753–1811), is the period of his greatest scientific activity. Based on previously unused materials from the Borch Archives in Warklany (now in the W. Stefanyk Lviv National Scientific Library of Ukraine), the article discusses various aspects of his journey: contacts with scientists, visit to Voltaire’s in Ferney, expeditions and research reconnaissance (planned and conducted), the circumstances of the creation of scientific publications, the financial conditions of the trip, etc. Another theme are the “life strategies” devised by the young aristocrat, such as: a foreign correspondent of the National Education Commission, ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, head of a new branch of the family transferred to the Habsburg state, director of exploration and exploitation of minerals in the Republic of Poland. In addition to the most important scholars and thinkers of the era, there are at least a few people who really decided about the course of events in Europe at that time (such as, for example, all three rulers responsible for the partitions). This is quite an exceptional situation in the case of a representative of the intellectual culture of the Commonwealth in the 18th century. The Grand Tour of Borch shows a reflection of the contemporary Western European tendencies (especially the pattern of British tours after 1740). It is also a reconnaissance and research expedition of a cosmopolitan representative of the “era of lights”, a bit of an adventurer and a poser aspiring to participate in the real scientific life of Europe. This way of getting to know the world is far from the late Baroque old Polish theatrum peregrinandi.