After 1945, the Gdańsk Library became a treasury for the surviving collections of Po-meranian libraries liquidated during and after the Second World War. The safeguarded manuscripts included an anonymous notebook – a diary describing the route of a summer trip through Eastern Lesser Poland in 1926 (Ms. 5872). A detailed analysis of diary entries made it possible to identify the author – a landowner, Maria Chełmicka, née Wybicka (1901-1968).
The programme of Maria Chełmicka’s trip was based on visiting castles and palaces constituting a priceless heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as temples characteristic for Eastern Lesser Poland (churches of various Christian denomi-nations, including the Orthodox Church, and Jewish synagogues). The description of the state of the historical buildings of the time, both the ones which are currently in ruin and the ones restored by Ukrainian authorities after 1991, is of a timeless value. The notebook is also a precious source familiarising readers with the realities of sightseeing trips of the time. One of the most interesting fragments of the diary is a description of a hike along the mountain range of Chornohora and the tourist infrastructure on the routes leading to its highest peak of Hoverla.