The article highlights the imagological intentions in the poetry of Wlodzimierz Wysocki, a famous Kiev photographer of the second half of the 19th century, in relation to ethnic images that form artistic representations of the multi-ethnic and multicultural world of Volyn in the middle of the 19th century. The starting point of reasoning is E. D. Hirsch's thesis, which is important for imagology, about the textual meaning as the author's verbal intentions, which must be adequately read and restored. Wysocki consistently operates in his work with images with the indicated ethnicity, therefore, the fact of the presence of the author's imagological intentions is difficult to deny. The poet's texts are full of messages about the ethnic and cultural Others who form the ethnocultural imago of a Jew, a German, a Ukrainian, and proper the imago of a Pole, for the study of which the imagological method and definitions proposed by foreign (M. Beller, H. Dyserinck, D. Leerssen, D.-H. Pageaux) and Ukrainian (D. Nalyvaiko, I. Pupurs, T. Sverbilova, G. Sivachenko and others) scientists were used. In the reconstruction of imagological intentions it is important to consider the subject of perception and expression – the author of the constructs, because the Other's imago is built at the expense of the author's factors: the imagological point of view, the imagological position and textual strategies in relation to the Other. The imagological point of view, that is, the perception of the Other through one's own national or ethnic identity, is transparent: Wysocki’s letters to the Polish writer Eliza Orzeszko testify to the unambiguous and unshakable national and ethnic identity of the Pole and the perception of the world through the prism of Polish national values. But the author's imagological position – the perception of the Other through his own social identity and psychological attitude – is twofold. On the one hand, Wysocki writes about the Others and about Himself as a financially secure businessman and bourgeois, born into a poor noble family, but thanks to his perseverance and hard work, achieved a high position in society. This position determines Wysocki's views on Own (Pole) and the Other (Jew, German) in relations with Own: it allows him to criticize and ironic, to express sharp, and sometimes even controversial judgments. On the other hand, having a position in society and financial support, Wysocki formed the position of a supporter of the idea of Polish-Ukrainian ethnic and social solidarity and formulated it in a poetic form. The psychological component in these positions is also different: if in the first case the author's mood can be defined as moralizing, instructive, in the second it is romanticized-sentimental. Accordingly, the author's intentions in relation to the images of a Pole, a Jew, a German, a Ukrainian are realized in various genres: the moralizing imago position is embodied in satirical forms, and the romanticized sentimental – in a historical and social poem.