Encyklopedia Powszechna (Universal Encyclopedia, Orgelbrand's Encyclopedia) published by Samuel Orgelbrand in 1859 - 1868 was one of the first modern Polish encyclopedias.[1]
This encyclopedia is often called the first modern Polish encyclopedia (that is also universal and multi-volume). The title of the first Polish encyclopedia is also claimed by older works, e.g. Inventores rerum by Jan Protasowicz encyclopedia from 1608, Encyclopaedia Natvralis Entis by Stanisław Stokowski from 1637 and the Nowe Ateny from 1745.
Universal Encyclopedia was published in Warsaw in Congress Poland - the Polish territory of the Russian partition. Its content was censored by the official tsarist censorship.[2] Later resumes of the first edition of the years (1872-1876, 1877–1879, 1883–1884, 1898–1904) had a volume-reduced form. In 1984–1985, a reprint of the original version was published in Poland.
The creators of the publication's content were many representatives of the Polish nineteenth-century intelligentsia. In entry to the first volume published in 1859, a list of authors of the encyclopedia has been published. It contained the following names:[2]
It counted a total of 28 volumes, each of which had almost 1000 pages: