Oszkár Vojnich (Subotica, 18.5.1864 – Port Said, 18.5.1914) was a landowner, world traveller, explorer and travelogue writer. He was the oldest child of Olga Vojnich and the landowner Sándor Vojnich Sr. (Stara Moravica, 13.4.1835 – Subotica, 16.6.1906). From 1874/5, he attended the grammar school in Subotica, in order to continue his education at the Faculty of Law in Budapest (IAS, F:2 2808/polg. 1883). He had begun his expeditions in the mid eighties of the 19th century, from which he returned with a host of artefacts, photographs and experiences, which he recorded in his travel books, written in Hungarian and English. When in 1894, he sold his own land of 750 acres for 300,000 florins, he gained a secure financial background for his journeys (Subotičke novine, 8.7.1894). His hunting trophies and the ethnographic objects from his journeys are kept in the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest and in the Municipal Museum of Subotica. His travelogues: Budapesttől Sitkáig (1894), Oroszországban – a 40. és 62. szélességi fok között (1904), A Vesuvion (1906), A Csendes-óceán szigetvilága (1908), British India, Burma, Maláji félsziget és Siam (1913) and A kelet-indiai szigetcsoporton (1913).
Mirko Grlica