1866

• 2^nd November -Zułów, Święciany District, 60 km north east of Vilnius, Bronisław Piotr Piłsudski was born in the family of Józef Wincenty Piotr Piłsudski and Maria de domo Billewicz.

• July The family estate was burnt out and the family settled down in Vilnius

• September registration entry in the Russian Gymnasium in Vilnius

• Bronisław with his brother Józef organise “Spójnia”(“The Linkage”) a self-study pupils’ group. First contacts with socialist ideas.

• Bronisław is not promoted to the 7^th form. His mother falls ill.

• 1st September Death of the mother.

• September Bronisław graduates the 7^th form and goes to St. Petersburg without graduating the gymnasium.

• Baccalaureate examination in St. Petersburgand registration entry at the Law Faculty of the local university
• In the village of Rykovskoye, in the northern part of the Sakhalin Island – the place of future Bronisław ‘s exile, a meteorological station is established on the basis of an initiative of a local doctor.

• first half of February during a prolonged Christmas and New-Year’s visit in Vilnius Bronisław is asked (probably by Józef Łukaszewicz) for help in completing materials which would serve the members of the Terrorist Fraction of the Narodnaya Vola Party to prepare explosives and on 12^th February hands them over to Mikhail Nikitich Kancherov, who came for them from St. Petersburg. Bronisław lends 40 rubles to Kancherov, arranges overnight accommodation for him and the next day leaves to St. Petersburg, leaving Kancherov under the care of his brother Józef, who serves the terrorist as a guide in Vilnius.
• 13th March in the morning hours, on the 6^th anniversary of assassination of Tsar Alexander 2^nd, a police patrol arrests in St. Petersburg 6 young assailants who have explosives with them. Mikhail Kancherov is among the arrested, during the examination he reveals the tsar authorities names of conspirators and other people connected with the conspiracy, including the names of Piłsudski brothers.
• 14th March Bronisław is arrested in his Petersburg flat.
• 27^th April and 1^st May during two sessions of a special court called up in the Senate, five of the 15 accused are sentenced to death (including Alexander Ulyanov – the brother of Vladimir, later known as Lenin), two – lifelong imprisonment (Łukaszewicz and Novorusskiy) and the other eight (including Bronisław and Kancherov not yet revealed as a traitor) – hard labour exile for 2 to 20 years long term. In that group Bronisław was sentenced to 15 years long hard labour exile on the Sakhalin Island.

• 20^th Mayexecution of 5 terrorists sentenced to death in the Schlüsselburg fortress
• 8^th June Departure from Odessa with a group of 525 exiles on the Nizhnyi Novgorod steamship to Sakhalin via Suez, the Indian Ocean and the Japan Sea,
• 3^rd August Bronisław Piłsudski together with a group of some 200 exiles is disembarked at the Alexandrovskiy Cape, at the western coast of northern Sakhalin, about 60 km from the Rykovskoye village in the Tymovskiy Rayon – the target area of his exile.
• 4^th August sent to work in prison of the Rykovskoye village (clearing the area of forests). Then he works as a cow barn keeper and finally as a carpenter at the building site of an orthodox church.

• Starts teaching children. The number of his pupils varies from three to eight

• January assigned to work at the cow barn at the prison
• February - May Because of shortage of educated people in the state administration he was released from physical work and transferred to work at the chancellery of the Police Authority of the Tymovski Rayon. He lives in a common room with Ivan Pavlovich Yuvachev (literary pseudonym Mirolubov), later an author of the book “Eight years on the Sakhalin Island” Increasing contacts with the local population – the Gilyaks (present name: Nivkhs).

• January Bronisław Piłsudski gets acquainted with an already known ethnographer Lev Yakovlevich Sternberg, exiled to Sakhalin in 1889.
• 1^st May B. Piłsudski starts to write his Sakhalin diary (entries are continued until 20^th March 1892)

• end May – 1^st September. Brutal treatment of the forced labour exiles employed at the construction of a road from the Tymovskiy Rayon to the south of the Sakhalin Island (the Onorskaya Taiga) by their supervisors results in death or disappearance of about 100 prisoners. Bronisław Piłsudski together with Mikołaj Perłaszkiewicz become the main suppliers of information about the crime – its disclosure in the press leads to the initiation of an official investigation. In the documents of the chancellery of the administrator of the Tymovskiy Rayon Piłsudski and Perłaszkiewicz are mentioned as “state criminals” carrying out an independent, illegal investigation outside the mainstream of inquiries carried out by the examining magistrate Klimov. The authorities made attempts to hush the matter up.

• Probably the year of initiation of the first systematic efforts on the dictionary, tradition and culture of the Nivkhs.

• On the recommendation of the authorities Piłsudski starts systematic meteorological observations in the Rykovskoye village and undertakes to make botanical research at the newly established museum in Khabarovsk.
• The administration of Sakhalin makes a decision to establish a museum.

• 14^th May Thanks to amnesty announced after the death of Tsar Alexander 3^rd, Bronisław Piłsudski’s sentence of 15 years of hard labour exile was changed into 10 years.
• The first published work of Bronisław Piłsudski: Reports from observation of weather in the Rykovskoye village
• The activities of Piłsudski in the area of rural education. Permission of the authorities to make public lectures. Public reading of classic works of Russian literature. The firstmultimedia presentations in the Sakhalin Island: historical lectures illustrated with “foggy images” presented with a projector.
• Piłsudski is sent to the southern part of the Sakhalin Island to organise and equip a meteorological station at the Korsakovskiy Cape and in the Galkino - Vraskoye village (at present Dolinsk) and complementation of earlier ethnographical collections with materials about the Ainu people. The first meeting with the Ainus.
• 6^th December According to the decision of Governor General Merkazin a museum is opened at the Alexandrovskiy Cape. The future generations are inspired to profound considerations by the inscription in the charter of foundation of a stupendous fact – among the people who contributed to its establishment two “state criminals”: Piłsudski and Sternberg are mentioned. The museum owes nearly entirely to them the assembly and explanation of the first ethnographic collection of over 1000 objects.

• 16^th February Bronisław Piłsudski’s sentence is changed from the obligation to perform make hard labour works into permanent settlement without provision of the means of sustenance.
• 30^th April because of lack of remunerated employment he asks for permission to go to Annianskiye Mineralnye Vody (near Nikolsk on the Amur river)
• 23^rd May The Amur Region Research Society asks the authorities to issue permission of B. Piłsudski’s relocation to Vladivostok, where he would receive the job of a manager of the library in the museum of the Society
• 10 September refusal of the application because the term of the sentence of an exile – settler is not yet over.

• 23rd May the Amur Region Research Society asks for the second time for permission to transfer Piłusudski to Vladivostok.
• 28^th November The Governor General of the Amur Region allows to transfer Piłsudski to Vladivostok.

• 15^th March – Piłsudski’s arrival to Vladivostok
• B. Piłsudski prepares a selection of exhibits for the International Ethnographic Exhibition in Paris in 1900

• Visitors very positively assess the exposition of the Amur Region Research Society at the Paris Exhibition, it is awarded a silver medal and sold on the spot.
• Piłsudski is involved in processing the material collected on the Sakhalin Island, studies scientific literature, performs the functions of the secretary of the Vladivostok Branch of the Imperial Geographic Society, gives presentations, works in a statistical committee, co-edits the first far-eastern statistical bi-weekly and edits a local newspaper

• Piłsudski receives a preliminary proposition of the Imperial Academy of Sciences to go to Sakhalin on an official visit in order to complement the ethnographic material among the Ainus and Orocks.
• 5^th May He asks for permission to go to Blagoveshchensk because of unfavourable climate for him in Vladivostok
• 28^th May The Amur Region Research Society notifies the military governor about B. Piłsudski’s resignation from employment in the museum.
• 18^th October the military governor gives permission for his transfer to Blagoveshchensk.
• 25^th October Piłsudski files an application to change his status of an exiled settler to the status of a peasant because his term of exile is over.

• May Piłsudski fulfils duties at the Coastal District Authority
• 15^th May a telegram from the Vice-president of the Academy of Sciences asking to send B. Piłsudski to Southern Sakhalin in order to collect ethnographic collections
• 31^st May permission of Governor General for his voyage to Sakhalin
• 5^th June Piłsudski files an application for permission to travel to Khabarovsk together with Baron Bugsgweden – secretary of the Society of Care over the families of the exiled, to review the issues of children’s education on the Sakhalin Island.
• 7^th –11^th June – Piłsudski’s stay in Khabarovsk
• 8th July Piłsudski leaves Vladivostok on the “Zea” steamship to Sakhalin, taking an Edison phonograph and wax cylinders with him.
• 8^th October Bronisław Piłsudski receives again some of his citizen’s rights – he is granted the status of a peasant.

• End of the year Piłsudski settles down in the Ai village at the eastern coast of the Sakhalin Island in the house of the Ainu Chief Kimur Bafunke. He gets acquainted and falls in love in a beautiful niece of his host, Chuhsamma. The first attempt to organise a school for the Ainu people.

• The Russian Geographical Society grants him a little silver medal for his efforts spent for the sake of science.
• Piłsudski organises the first schools for the Ainu people
• Chuhsamma gives birth to his son named Sukez (?)

• 29^th May The Russian Geographical Society asks the governor-general for permission for B. Piłsudski’s voyage with W Sieroszewski for 4 months to the Yesso Island (the former name of the Hokkaido Island).
• 11^th June – permission of the Minister of Interior for B. Piłsudski’s voyage to the Yesso Island.

• July- September B. Piłsudski, thanks to the support of the Russian Geographical Society joins W. Sieroszewski’s expedition to Hokkaido
• 24^th September return to the Sakhalin Island. Piłsudski gets acquainted with the military governor of the Island – Lapunov, who asks him to prepare documents about the aboriginal population of Sakhalin for the Russian administration.

• February Outbreak of war between Russia and Japan
• Piłsudski collects complete statistical data about the Sakhalin Ainu population concerning the location of settlements, number of inhabitants, family status, number of births and deaths and the number of crippled people not able to work.

• 11th June B. Piłsudski leaves Sakhalin on the steamship “Vladivostok”. The ship on her route to Vladivostok calls at Nikolayevsk, Maryisk and Khabarovsk. B. Piłsudski is involved in studying life of the Oltcha people (a Tunguz tribe) in the area of the lower Amur River.
• Early autumn the second stay in the southern part of the Sakhalin Island. Having the permission to go back to his homeland, Piłsudski makes attempts to carry his family with him, but Bafunke staunchly opposes the idea. Besides a son, Piłsudski has a daughter Kyzh, whom he will not be able to see with his own eyes any more.
• October – voyage to Japan (Kobe), where he supports a Russian escapee naturalised in the Kingdom of Hawaii – a journalist named Nikolay Russel (real name Sudziłowski) organising anti-tsar opposition among Russian prisoners of war in Japan. He goes back from there to southern Sakhalin again.
• November B. Piłsudski arrives at Vladivostok, and goes back to Japan at the end of the month.

• Late January Piłsudski arrives to Tokyo and promotes the sale of a periodical publication “Vola” published by Russel in Nagasaki. At the same time he develops contacts with Shimei Futabei, a renowned Japanese journalist and translator of Russian literature. The two activists set up the Japanese-Polish Society with the aim to mutually promote national literary works. The first translations were made after Bronisław Piłsudski’s arrival to Cracow.

• 6^th February Piłsudski holds a speech (in Russian, with the help of an interpreter) at a meeting with Japanese socialists who welcome Sen Katayama, their comrade coming back to his country.
• 25^th February Piłsudski takes part in a dinner party with Japanese socialists and poses to a common photograph. Eight years after those events he will meet again one of its participants – Sanshir Ishikawa –in Brussels.

• 10^th March – a meeting with a Chinese revolutionary activist – Song Jiao-Ren. Later a visit to a Chinese revolutionary group “Minposha”, lead by Sun-Yat-sen, concluded with a common photograph.
• Futabei introduces B. Piłsudski to Gennosuke Yokoyama – a journalist specialising in the problems of the lower classes. The information received from Piłsudski was used by Yokoyama to write two biographies.
• Contact with a Japanese right-wing organisation Kokurykai.
• Contacts with Japanese anthropologists resulting in the translation of two works of Piłsudski into Japanese.
• July Piłsudski goes to Nagasaki and directly supports Russel in his activities.
• 30^th July B. Piłsudski embarks a ship and goes to Yokohama via Kobe.
• 5^th August B. Piłsudski leaves Japan on board “Dakota”- an American ship
• September – voyage across the United States of America: Seattle, Chicago to the New York City. B. Piłsudski loses his passport during the voyage.
• (? Early autumn?) Intermediate stages of his return voyage to homeland: London, Paris.
• November dates of B. Piłsudski’s letters with Cracovian return addresses indicating Topolowa street No. 16 (the address of his brother Józef and his family)

• June (?) several weeks lasting voyage to Karlovy Vary/Karlsbad in order to improve health
• August short stay in Cracow and voyage to Zakopane. Stay in the boarding house of the Bratnia Pomoc  (“Brotherly Help”) and then transfer to the brother’s house at the edge of the Poronin village.
• November another transfer within the borders of Zakopane. This time Piłsudski settles down in a pension house at the Krupówki street no. 78. It is probably here that Maria Żarnowska, a friend from the younger age, at that time a wife of a tsar official joins B. Piłsudski. Without regard to law and generally accepted moral standards they publicly declare to be a married couple.

• March the couple stays in Lvov, at the Turecka street no. 3. Piłusdski sells 8 phonographic cylinders from his Ainu collection and several photos.
• An illness of Maria Żarnowska. The diagnosis suggests a cancer of the throat. Doctors suggest an immediate surgical operation. Maria’s family finds surgeons in St. Petersburg who agree to carry out the operation.

• May a team of ten surgeons carry out the operation of elimination of the malignant tumour.
• Metastasis of the malignant tumour leads towards a near end of the publicly declared community of Piłsudski and Żarnowska. The Żarnowska family claim Piłsudski’s guilt for her moral and material degradation.
• Żarnowska remains under the care of her family and Piłsudski – who cannot accompany her because of the lack of a passport – decides to leave Lvov.

• summer – Piłsudski settles down in Limanowa, continuing the correspondence with M. Żarnowska
• August – voyage to France
• September Piłsudski goes to Paris. Working as a correspondent of “Kurier Lwowski” develops a broad network of contacts with the local community of exiled Poles including Władysław Mickiewicz (son of the poet), Maria Skłodowska-Curie and St. Szpotański – a historian. He joins the Polish-Turkish Society and the French Geographical Society.

• February Piłsudski makes a quick visit to Cracow and returning via Vienna brings Maria Żarnowska with him.
• End of April progressing illness of Maria Żarnowska who is not able to wake up from her bed.
• Unclear circumstances of separation of Maria and Bronisław. They cease to call each other husband and wife. Probably her husband, who, encouraged with a telegram, comes for her to Paris, takes her to St. Petersburg.
• Beginning of June voyage to London to visit a Japanese exhibition. A stay at the friendly house of the Wojnicz family at St. Peter Sq. 37.
• After some time Piłsudski relocates himself to an inn at Shepherd Bush Green 45, where a large group of Japanese participants of the exhibition was staying. Soon after that Stefan Żeromski (a renowned Polish writer) with his family stay at the same address. Thanks to the assistance of the Wojnicz family, Piłsudski manages to sell some objects from his Ainu collection.

• End of January Bronisław Piłsudski returns to Cracow and stays at the flat of his brother staying in Italy at that time, at the Szlak street no. 25.
• April a visit of a former Sakhalin exile friend, E. Płosski in Limanowa.
• May return to Cracow. Bronisław Piłsudski stays at Stachowskiego Street no. 12. It is probable that he finishes the writing of this book “Materials for the study of the Ainu Language and Folklore” at that address.
• 12th May the death of Maria Żarnowska
• summer – voyage to Kuźnice
• 25^th November on the initiative of Bronisław Piłsudski a Folk Research Section of the Polish Tatra Society (SL PTT) was established. Piłsudski is elected its first president.

• End of May Bronisław Piłsudski changes his address to Bystre, staying at the house of Dr Korniłłowicz - friend and active member of the SL PTT.
• October Voyage to Prague where he gets acquainted with a technical exhibition of the museum in Vinogrady. On his way he probably visits the Slovak Museum in Martin.
• December He pays short visits in Cracow and Zakopane on his way home.
• beginning of the year B. Piłsudski comes to Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where he is registered as a student at the local university
• beginning of May voyage to Paris
• 25 June date of a letter sent to PTT and signed for the first time with the name Ginet- Piłsudski
• 10^th July departure from Paris to Brussels
• 3^rd August building of the corner stone at the foundations of the Tatra Museum in Zakopane during the absence of B. Piłsudski
• October Piłsudski returns to Zakopane and stays again at the Korniłłowicz family in Bystre.

• March relocation to Cracow. The Polish Academy of Abilities establishes an Ethnographic Section of the Anthropological Commission, which elects Bronisław Piłsudski as their full time managing secretary.
• Several visits to Zakopane allow him to finish the edition of the first issue of the “Podhalański Annual”. Unfortunately, this issue would appear in print in 1921 only, after the tragic death of Bronisław Piłsudski.
• 3^rd June visit at Professor Benedykt Dybowski’s house in Lvov.
• 5^th August official beginning of the 1^st world war. Austria gives a public announcement about being at war with Russia.
• Beginning of December Piłsudski departs to Vienna and stays at Schindlergasse no. 44.

• 31^st March B. Piłsudski receives an Austrian passport.
• April B.Piłsudski leaves to Lausanne in order to initiate the co-ordination of efforts aimed at the preparation of a Polish encyclopaedia in Vienna, Lausanne and Warsaw.
• September B.Piłsudski goes to Zurich to support professor Gabriel Narutowicz.
• visit at the Polish museum in Rapperswill
• 12 December a “Comité général de secours pour les victimes de la guerre en Lithuanie” is formed in Fribourg and Piłsudski is elected its president.

• Numerous voyages across Switzerland: Lausanne, Vevey, Zurich, Geneva, Fribourg and Rapperswill. Editorial work on the “Encyclopédie Polonaise”

• February B.Piłsudski gives a speech in Lausanne and Geneva about “The Poles in Siberia”
• 15th August the Polish National Committee (KNP) is formed under the leadership of Roman Dmowski in Lausanne. Bronisław Piłsudski joins the group of supporters of the most important opponent of his brother.
• Mid November. Bronisław Piłsudski arrives to Paris and stays in the official residence of KNP at Avenue Kléber 11 bis.

• early spring B.P. goes to Le Puy
• 17^th May 1918 the probable date of death of Bronisław Piłsudski as a result of drowning in the river Seine.
• 21^st May a press note about finding the body of an unidentified victim of drowning without documents at the Mirabeau bridge.
• 25^th May date of medical examination carried out at the order of the prefecture of the police (Dr Socquet). Report on the examination is recorded under the number 598 page 101 of a May logbook of the archives of Paris police of 1918.