Literature of Poland XVIII century

Introduction

The 18th century in the history of Poland is a century of decline and national disasters. “This noble republic, based on robbery and oppression of peasants, was in a state of complete disorder; its constitution made any national action impossible and therefore doomed the country to the position of easy prey for its neighbors. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, Poland, as the Poles themselves put it, has been in disorder.”

At the end of the century, as a result of three partitions, Poland lost its independence. The gloomy prospects for the future fate of Poland were understood in the 18th century by the most far-sighted minds, even among Polish aristocrats. Stanislav Leszczynski, elected but not allowed to the Polish throne, in his political treatise “Free Voice” (1733) proposed strengthening state machine and eliminate the serfdom of the peasants. He wrote: “We owe everything we are famous for to the common people. Obviously, I could not be a nobleman if the clap were not a clap. The plebeians are our breadwinners; they bring treasures out of the earth for us; from their work we have wealth, from their labor the wealth of the state. They bear the burden of taxes and provide recruits; if they didn’t exist, we ourselves would have to become cultivators, so instead of saying: lord of lords, we should say: lord of claps.”

The weakness of the central government, the excesses of the feudal lords, the extreme poverty of the peasantry, cultural savagery - this is what is characteristic of “old barbarian, feudal, aristocratic Poland, resting on the enslavement of the majority of the people” (F. Engels).

Martin Matuszewicz

The internal discord and anarchy in the state are depicted in the famous “Memoirs” of one of the major state dignitaries of that time, the castellan of Brestlitovo, Martin Matuszewicz (1714-1768).

Without destining his notes for publication, Matuszewicz spoke with all sincerity about the orders and morals of contemporary Poland, about the behind-the-scenes intrigues, briberies, and sometimes violence that were inflicted on deputies of sejms and sejmiks or on deputies of judicial tribunals. For example, here is a description of the trial of one inheritance lawsuit: “The case lasted three weeks, finally, when the deputy of the Radziwill party, Gornitsky, was given a laxative, so that he was not able to appear at the meeting, then by one vote of the majority, Father Koadyotor Vilensky won the case for custody of the property of their nephews and themselves.” In some cases, they resorted to murder in order to eliminate unwanted persons who could influence the voting results. Matuszewicz reports on cash subsidies received by officials from foreign countries with naive simplicity, even trying to justify those who betrayed their homeland for the sake of handouts. “Was it really a state crime for people who were under such severe oppression to accept anything from the French king, so great?” - Matuszewicz asks naively.

A bright gallery of portraits of Polish magnates, depraved, unbridled, despotic, passes before the eyes of readers of Matuszewicz’s “Memoirs”. This is how he describes Karol Radziwill, the largest Polish nobleman. “The prince loved to beat, and it is difficult to describe what recklessness he did when drunk: he shot at people, rushed around on horseback, or went to church and sang prayers until he shouted out and came to sobriety.” The smaller ones behaved no better. This is what the author of “Memoirs” says about his mother: “My mother, having arrived in Goslitsy (the estate of the Matushevichs - S.A.), found some kind of disorder there, and since the nobleman Lastovsky was the manager there, she ordered him to be beaten lashes on the naked body so hard that this Lastovsky died.” Matuszewicz’s “memoirs” were published a hundred years after they were written, in 1874, in Warsaw by Pawicki.

Discontent was brewing in the depths of the masses. The people were burdened by dependence on foreign states, the anarchy and disorder that reigned in the country, the disorder of life and their plight. Popular protest resulted in a national liberation uprising in 1794, led by Tadeusz Kościuszko.

The scale of the popular movement frightened the large nobility of Poland, and they preferred to partition the country, to renounce national sovereignty, rather than allow the revolution that had just occurred in France. “...He was the last resort for the large aristocracy from the revolution...”

The cultural life of Poland was quite active. Many magazines appeared (by the end of the century their number reached 90). The tragedies of Corneille, Racine, and later “Emilia Galotti” by Lessing and “The School of Scandal” by Sheridan were published in translation into Polish. Voltaire was especially translated a lot. Wojciech Boguslawski translated Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The literature mainly contained educational ideas and was predominantly satirical in nature.

Adam Narushevich

He was a great master of political satire Adam Narushevich (1733-1796), a widely educated man, who visited France, Italy, Germany, and at one time occupied the department of literature at the Vilna Academy. The most famous are his satires “To the Poles of Old Time” and “The Voice of the Dead” 1. “Treason, extortion, assaults are considered virtues, because gentlemen robbers have money, coats of arms and estates, and you, poor man, for theft will again go to feed greedy ravens with your body,” the poet wrote gloomily.

Adam Narushevich was a major historian of Poland. Over the course of six years, he wrote the seven-volume History of the Polish People. This was the first scientific work on the history of the country, based on reliable sources. Narushevich somewhat idealized antiquity in order to contrast it with modernity. The political tendency of his “History...” is very obvious: to glorify the idea of ​​national unity, strong centralized state power.

Ignatius Krasitsky

The main exponent of the Polish Enlightenment was Ignatius Krasicki (1735-1801). By his origin and position, Krasicki was a major Polish aristocrat. A relative of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, he was appointed Bishop of Warmia in 1766. The position of one of the major dignitaries of the church did not prevent him from becoming the head of the Polish educational movement. A man of broad and versatile knowledge, who followed the development of advanced social thought in England and France, he did a lot for Russian culture.

In 1775, his poem “Mouseyda” was published. An ancient legend about the legendary Tsar Popel, eaten by mice for cruelty to the people, was told by the historian Kadlubek in the 12th century. This legend was used by Krasicki for a satirical depiction of feudal-gentry Poland.

Popel and his favorite, the cat Mruchislav, organized a great persecution of mice. The kingdom of mice is in turmoil. A mouse meeting is gathering. In the scene of the meeting of the mouse and rat council, a witty satire is given on the Polish Sejm, on the ever-present discord in it, which hinders any reasonable decision.

And the bot met in a luxurious room

Nobles...

And at that very moment the meeting split.

And the noise and din are clamor, not advice;

Gryzomir himself on the throne and with his retinue

He screams about freedom, about protection

Fatherland, and therefore there is no grief.

They responded with only one thing: “As you wish,

Let freedom perish - it’s not a problem!”

And they went their separate ways in peace!

(Translation M. Pavlova.)

Three years after the publication of “The Mice,” Krasicki published his satirical anti-clerical poem “Monachomachy,” which caused a stir in the camp of Polish churchmen, especially since the blow came from one of the princes of the church. Krasicki was often called the “Polish Voltaire”. He was truly a man of the most free views, an opponent of all hypocrisy, and he took the position of a clergyman forcedly, at the insistence of his father, who did not allocate him part of the inheritance, not wanting to fragment his huge possessions. Krasitsky treated the monks with undisguised contempt; he rarely visited his diocese, living more in Warsaw, studying science and literature.

The educational tendency of the poem is outlined from the very first lines, from the description of a poor country in which

Three taverns and three gates left,

There are dozens of little houses and monasteries.

In this country

Losing track of the years

Holy stupidity lived peacefully,

Choosing to cover God's temple.

(Translation M. Pavlova.)

The poem, of course, does not contain those sharp attacks against the church that we see in the anti-clerical literature of the French enlighteners, but it was enough that the monks appeared in a stupid and funny form. The church servants were indignant. Complaints and denunciations began to fly against the author of the poem, and Krasitsky, in order to pacify them, wrote the poem “Antimonachomachy,” in which, in a conciliatory tone, he recommended that the monks calm down and reduced his attack against them to a harmless joke. -

Nevertheless, the poem "Monachomachy" played a significant role in the Polish Enlightenment, instilling in readers a spirit of religious skepticism. Ignatius Krasitsky was an extraordinary prose writer. He wrote the stories “The Adventures of Nikolai Dosvyadchinsky”, “Pan Podstoly” and others.

The first story is written in the genre of an educational philosophical novel. Feudal-gentry Poland with all its vices is contrasted with a utopian society of savages living according to the Rousseauist ideal - in the lap of nature, far from civilization. The hero of the story, Nikolai Dosvyadchinsky, having experienced a lot and seen a lot in the world, returns to his homeland to honestly serve it, respect the work of the peasants, and be a humane landowner.

Krasicki, imitating Voltaire, wrote the Polish epic “The Khotyn War” in the spirit of his “Henriad”. His poem, full of allegorical figures (“Glory”, “Faith”, etc.), is cold and abstract. Krasicki translated a lot, trying to expand the reading circle of his compatriots: “The Songs of Ossian”, the works of Lucian and Plutarch.

1. History

1.1. Middle Ages

Virtually nothing has survived from Polish literature from the period before the Christianization of Poland in the year. The pagan literary tradition existed exclusively in oral form and Christian authors did not consider it necessary to record it in writing.

A peculiarity of this period is that almost all works related to Poland were not written by Poles. For example, the author of the oldest Polish chronicle, whose works have survived to this day, was a foreigner, most likely a Hungarian. In Poland he was considered a Frenchman, and hence his nickname Gallus Anonymous. His chronicle has been updated to a year. His work, written in Latin, is the founder of the Polish literary tradition in Latin.

Vikenty Kadlubek

This tradition in Polish historiography was continued by the first Polish author, Bishop of Krakow Wikenty Kadlubek. On behalf of King Casimir the Just, Kadlubek wrote a history of Poland. This is a work from the period of Polish history until the beginning of the 13th century.

The first use of Polish was in the Book of Henryk, a chronicle of the Cistercian monastery in Henryk, Silesia, written between and.

Most early Polish texts were heavily influenced by Latin religious literature. For example, the oldest monument of Polish literature is the religious hymn and battle song written in the 13th century, Theotokos. In addition to this song, excerpts of Franciscan sermons have also been preserved in records dating back to the 14th century. These works are known as Sermons of the Holy Cross,- according to the area where these sermons were kept (the monastery on Bald Mountain, later called the Mount of the Holy Cross). They are short notes that priests used for sermons.

The prose of this period mainly consists of religious songs, which were created for women and ignorant people who did not know Latin. Quite a few of these songs have survived. The authors are mostly unknown. In addition to religious songs, legends from the 15th century written in verse have also been preserved. Among them, the most processed legend is about Saint Alexius. Also preserved (from the second half of the 15th century) is a satire on peasants, the author of which, a nobleman, reproaches them for laziness and an unkind attitude towards their masters.

1.3. Polish Baroque

This period, however, produced many satirists, of whom the most prominent was the magnate Christoph Opalinsky. His numerous satires are directed primarily against the gentry's self-will.

The satirist was Christoph's brother, Lukasz Opalinski. Among the writers of this period, the following are known: Andrei Maximilian Fredro, Hieronymus Morshtyn, Andrei Morshtyn, Samuel Tvardovsky, Vespasyan Kokhovsky, Stanislav Irakli Lyubomirsky.

One of the most famous representatives of literature of that time was Ignatius Krasitsky. Krasitsky left much more prose works than poetic works. He compiled the first publicly available Polish encyclopedia in two large volumes, most of the articles of which were his own. He also wrote eight comedies.

Stanislaw Trembecki was also a famous Polish fabulist. Trembetsky spoke in defense of the oppressed peasantry.

A sharp satirist was Thomas Cajetan of Hungary, who wrote free-thinking poems in honor of the “mind without prejudice.”

A man of completely different convictions was Francis Karpinsky, a pious and sentimental pre-romantic who enjoyed enormous popularity, especially among the poorest gentry. He is the author of sentimental and religious songs.

A social reformer was Father Hugo Kollontai. He played a big role as a school reformer. He outlined his views in the famous work “Several Letters from an Anonymous Man.”

Julian Ursin Nemtsevich took an active part in the political life of the gentry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the last years of its existence, but began to develop literary activity after the partition of Poland.

1.5. Romanticism

1.6. Realism

A famous Polish realist writer is Vaclav Berent.

Notes

1. Mikoś, Michael J. (1999). "MIDDLE AGES LITERARY BACKGROUND" - staropolska.gimnazjum.com.pl / ang / middleages / Mikos_middle / Literary_m.html. Staropolska on-line . http://staropolska.gimnazjum.com.pl/ang/middleages/Mikos_middle/Literary_m.html - staropolska.gimnazjum.com.pl/ang/middleages/Mikos_middle/Literary_m.html .

Literature

• Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, 2nd edition, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983, ISBN 0-520-04477-0.
• Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski, ed. Literatura polska od średniowiecza do pozytywizmu(Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism), Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979,

Folk literature. There are no epics in it, nor what are usually called youth songs. True, some chroniclers of the 12th and 13th centuries. there are references to folk historical songs related to modern events ; There are even traces that in the 15th century. there was an epic about the struggle of Bishop Zbygnev of Odesnitsky with Kosmidr Grushchinsky, the enemy of the church and peasants, or an extensive song about the Grunwald victory; but these works belong to book literature, and not to folk literature. It is possible, however, that the fabulous legends about Krak, Wanda, Popel, Piast, Přemysl, Leszky, forgotten by the people themselves and preserved only by some chroniclers, are fragments of a once-existing epic cycle; but there are no solid grounds for such an assumption. The basis of folk Polish literature was formed by the same principles that we find in other related literatures. Her works are divided into the same main groups: lyrical and epic. In the first group, as elsewhere, the most remarkable songs, which have preserved the most ancient traces of antiquity, are ritual songs and especially wedding songs. Other lyrical works are distinguished by a wide variety of moods: among them there are those imbued with deep sadness; they were especially inspired by representatives of romanticism, who borrowed many subjects from here; their tunes were a source of inspiration for Chopin. But there is also a whole mass of cheerful, passionate Krakowiaks, obereks or obertas, mazurkas, etc., which are also strongly reflected in literature and music. The composer Wieniawski is the best exponent of this trend: his Krakowiaks and Mazurkas are typically folk. The area of ​​Polish epic poetry is divided into fairy tales, fables, historical legends, religious legends, etc. Fairy tales, generally speaking, have the same character that we find in Russian fairy tales: and here you can find mythological, historical, everyday, borrowed themes stories from the West and the Far East. Between the fables there is a long series of works belonging to the animal epic; there is no shortage of moralizing apologists. There are relatively few historical legends. Religious stories are distinguished by a naive belief in miracles, but are almost alien to what might be called the apocryphal element, and generally alien to sectarian aspirations; there is no tendency towards mysticism here. There is nothing that resembles East Slavic spiritual poems like “The Virgin Mary’s Walk through Torment”, “The Book of the Dove”, etc. In Polish legends, a miracle seems to be a natural phenomenon, although it goes beyond the framework of everyday life. The Holy Queen Kinga, with God's help, carries entire mountains full of salt from Hungary to Wieliczka; The body of the saint killed by King Boleslav the Bold, crushed into small pieces, grows together. Stanislaus, Bishop of Krakow; the pious queen Jadwiga, although not a saint, leaves a footprint on a stone, etc. Even two angels come to the pagan Piast, in whom one can see a saint. Cyril and Methodius. Jesus Christ walks the earth with the apostles, of whom St. Peter often reveals human weaknesses; The Virgin Mary spins a web, called. "baby lato" Satan always seems to be either enslaved by a dark force, or a rather stupid creature, deceived by people. Even the need is quite easily dealt with by a reasonable man, and a “pestilence” is dealt with by a brave nobleman, sacrificing himself for the common good. In this entire area of ​​​​popular views, a clear, calm mood, realism, and sometimes humor prevail. This is especially noticeable in the group of very original folk works - the so-called. Kalends (kolędy), carols. These songs are sung in Polish churches during services and at home, especially in the evenings, from Christmas until the end of Maslenitsa. In many of them, describing the Nativity of Christ, there is a whole range of genre scenes, imitative sounds, ancient folk customs, and jokes. There are also apocryphal stories in Polish literature, but they had almost no impact on folk literature: works such as the “Gospel of Nicodemus” or the story about the creation of the world and the punishment of man were almost never read by the common people and were not altered in a native way. The dramatic element in Polish folk literature is almost not noticed at all; some manifestations of it can be seen only in ritual songs, wedding songs, bathing songs, etc. The philosophy of the people is expressed mainly in their proverbs and sayings; the most complete collection is Adalberg's, “Księga przysłów polskich” (Warsaw, 1894). Quite a lot of material has been collected for the study of Polish folk literature; in addition to the aforementioned work of Adalberg, collections of Rysinsky, Darowski, etc. are known. The most complete and comprehensive picture of folk art is the monumental publication of Oscar Kohlberg: “Lud, jego zwyczaje, sposób życia, mowa, podania, przysłowia, obrzędy, gusła, zabawy, pieśni , muzyka i tańce” (23 volumes have been published so far). For a bibliography of the subject, see the article by Appel and Krynski in “Prace Filologicznej” (1886), in the work of Dr. Fr. Pastrnek “Bibliographische Uebersicht über die Slavische Philologie” (Berl., 1892), in “Lectures on Slavic linguistics” by prof. Tim. Florinsky (vol. II, St. Petersburg, Kiev, 1897) and (most fully) in the work of Adolf Strzheletsky “Materjały do ​​bibliografji ludoznawstwa polskiego” (in the Warsaw ethnographic magazine “Wisła”, 1896 and 1897). ). Three magazines are dedicated specifically to the study of folk literature and, in general, the ethnographic features of the Polish people: published since 1877 by the Krakow Akd. sciences “Zbiór wiadomości do anthropologji krajowej” (18 volumes), renamed from 1895 to “Materjały antropologiczne i etnograficzne”, published in Warsaw “Wisła” (11 volumes published since 1887) and “Lud”, organ of the Lviv Ethnographic Society (since 1895). In general, works on the history of folk literature have not yet left the preparatory period. So much material is being accumulated that soon it will be difficult for a researcher to cope with them, especially since many versions are printed in their entirety, without any comparisons with already published monuments; only Karlovich tried (in Wisla) to systematize some of the material. There is not even a satisfactory popular account of the fates and content of folk literature. What Wisniewski (“Hisiorja literatury polskiej”), Maciejewski (“Piśmiennictwo polskie”) and Zdanowicz-Sowiński (“Rys dziejów literatury polskiej”) wrote about this subject does not satisfy the requirements of scientific criticism.

From ancient times, not a single monument of purely folk art has reached our times, and we can have only the vaguest idea about the state of literature in the pre-Christian period. It is very likely that in this area, as in the area of ​​language, the Slavic peoples in ancient times stood much closer to each other than now. Only later did the influence of Catholicism, Western culture, political events, social and economic conditions strongly affect the soil of folk literature, giving it an increasingly specific character. At first, purely Slavic, folk P. literature began to feed on alien elements over time. P.'s book literature did not initially contain either a Polish spiritual make-up or even a Polish appearance. Polish writers expressed borrowed thoughts in a foreign language. Everything Polish was rejected with contempt as a remnant of paganism and barbarism. With the adoption of Christianity in the 10th century. Together with Dubravka (Dombrovka), the wife of the baptized Meszko I, Czech priests arrived in Poland and began to organize the Polish church. There is some reason to think that along with Latin, Slavic worship spread among the Poles; but if this fact existed, it had no influence on the development of P. literature. The spread of Latin, Western European culture through schools began. Thanks to the excellent work of A. Karbowiak “Dzieje wychowania i szkòł w Polsce w wiekach średnich” (vol. Ι, St. Petersburg, 1898), we have a clear understanding of the structure of school affairs in the medieval period of Polish history. Already under the first episcopal sees, schools arose, which over time began to open also at collegia, that is, more significant dormitories of the secular clergy, as well as at monasteries and parish churches. The capitular or episcopal and collegiate schools were headed by scholastic canons, under whose leadership the teachers worked; The head of a monastery or parish school was the rector of the monastery or church. All these schools were of the same type and pursued one goal: the study of the Latin language. The vernacular language was not only not taught, but was only allowed for the time being until the students learned a sufficient number of Latin words. The teacher first of all taught to read Latin, and the first textbook was the psalter. When a boy knew several psalms by heart and could sing them, he moved from the parish school to a capitular or collegiate school. The program of the latter contained information on the so-called. trivium and quadrivium (see Quadrivium); but, strictly speaking, in Poland only the trivium flourished in the Middle Ages, and the quadrivium was neglected. The most important subject of study was grammar, which included reading literary monuments, as well as metrics and explanations of authors. Greek grammar was not taught at all. Rhetoric included dictamen, that is, the art of writing state charters and legal acts; At the same time, some information was provided on state and canon law. Studies in dialectics intensified only from the second half of the 11th century, when disputes flared up between secular and spiritual authorities and scholastic philosophy appeared. Until the 13th century, schools were attended almost exclusively by people who, from childhood, had devoted themselves to spiritual or monastic life. Even the Piastovichs and P. nobles were engaged only in “knightly craft” and had no attraction to the book; much more curiosity is noticed among medieval women, among whom literate persons are more often encountered than among men. Of the three first kings, only Mieszko II knew Latin and even Greek. Of those who devoted themselves to book writing, many even before the 13th century. went to Italy and France to complete their education. In the XIII and XIV centuries. the number of schools in Poland has increased; Preparatory parish schools began to open especially in large numbers. Sources for the period between 1215 and 1364 mention of 120 schools of various types; it is very likely that many others remain unheard of. Book education began to spread greatly among the urban merchant class, and since the Polish element in the school became stronger, it became a tool for the Polonization of the originally German population of the cities. It was forbidden to teach in schools those Germans who did not know Polish, although teaching was conducted in Latin and only as a last resort it was customary to resort to the help of the Polish language. At the same time, the number of Poles receiving higher education abroad increased so much that at the University of Bologna they already constituted a separate corporation (“nation”); there was no shortage of Polish students in other universities - in Padua, Rome, Paris, Montpellier, Avignon, Prague. Travel to the West did not stop either after 1364, when Casimir the Great founded a law school in the vicinity of Krakow, or after 1400, when Poland's first full university was opened in Krakow. The Poles made more than one contribution to medieval science; in some areas of knowledge they gained pan-European fame; but they worked exclusively in a pan-European direction, completely depersonalizing in national terms. Only by external signs can one sometimes recognize a Pole in an author: when he talks about events that happened in Poland, when he mentions some characteristic features of the Polish people, when, finally, he simultaneously writes in his native Polish language.

P. writing in the first period of its development - until the end of the 15th century. - is divided into three main departments: scientific, didactic and poetic. In the field of scientific literature, chronicles come first, preceded by private annals (roczniki). The most important Polish-Latin chroniclers before late XIV V. were: an unknown foreigner called Martin Gall, in whom Max Gumplowicz suggests Bishop Baldwin Gall of Kruszwica (1110-1113; see Gumplowicz, “Bischof Balduin Gallus von Kruszwica, Polens erster lateinischer Chronist”, B., 1885, "Sitzungsber. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss.", vol. 132); followed by Vikenty Kadlubek, b. in 1160, Baszko (or some other person), who wrote the Greater Poland chronicle between 1280 and 1297, and Janko from Charnkov, who died in 1389. All of them in their writings preserved many legends important for the history of literature and culture; They also have some contemporary songs in Latin adaptations. Gall has a simple style, a lot of humor; Kadlubok's syllable is artificial, pretentious, his Latin is distinguished by all the characteristic features of medieval taste; Yanko from Charnkov is a bilious man, not without satirical habits. Great fame in Western Europe acquired by Martin Polyak, died. in 1279, the author of the first chronicle about four monarchies: Babylonian, Carthaginian, Macedonian and Roman, to which he added the chronicle of the popes. By the 13th century. refers to a description of the journey of two Polish Franciscans, the famous Jan de Plano-Carpino and Benedikt Polyak, to the Tatar Khan Gayuk. Vitellion, in the same century, was the first to introduce medieval Europe to the theory of optics; he is considered the author of the philosophical treatise “De inleligentia”, where he tries to explain dark philosophical questions on the basis of facts obtained by natural science (see V. Rubchinsky, “Traktat o porządku istnień i umysłow i jego domniemany autor Vitellion”, in “Rozpr. Ak. Um .Wydz. historyczny", vol. XXVII). The didactic group of monuments consists of sermons, recently beautifully edited by Prof. Alex. Brückner, in the work entitled. “Kazania średniowieczne” (“Rozprawy Akademji Umiejetności. Wydział filologiczny”, vol. XXIV and XXV, Krakow, 1895 and 1897). The monuments of this group mainly date back to the 15th century, that is, to the time when the Polish clergy was already well acquainted with the Latin language and wrote exclusively in this language, which more easily opened the way to wide fame. Later writers, especially Protestants, concluded from this that Catholic priests talked preaching to your flock Latin . This is incorrect: the oldest monuments of Polish church eloquence, namely the “Świętokříż” and “Gniezno” sermons, were preserved in the Polish original. In other cases, only the opening prayers, spiritual songs quoted by the preacher, and finally, individual sentences or words (glosses) were written in Polish in order to make it easier for the priest to work in the pulpit, when he would have to express thoughts drawn from the Latin model in the vernacular language. Only spiritual speeches with which priests addressed young students or highly educated persons do not have Polish glosses. In their form, Polish-Latin sermons are no different from the pan-European medieval type. According to their content, they can be divided into three main groups. The first includes those that, for example, the sermons of Matthew from Grokhov, are replete with anecdotal material that is very valuable for the history of literature. The second group includes teachings “de superstitionibus”, which contain rich material for the study of the superstitions of that time. Finally, the third group consists of moral and instructive sermons, where one can find many important indications of the moral state of the society of that time. From this group of monuments, the “Świętokříż” sermons date back, at the latest, to the half of the 14th century. and represent the oldest and most extensive monument of Polish writing known to this day. The Świętokříż sermons were published by Brückner in “Prace Filologiczne” (vol. III, Warsaw, 1891), the Gniezno sermons by Count Dzialynski under the title. “Zabytek dawnej mowy polskiej” (Poznan, 1857). The third section of medieval literary monuments consists of Latin and Polish poetic works. In the study of this area, the works of A. Brückner are especially important: “Sredniowieczna poezja łacińska w Polsce” (“Rozpr. Ak. Um. Wydz. filologiczny”, vol. XVI, XXII and XXIII), “Wiersze polskie średniowieczne” (“Biblioteka Warszawska” , 1893) and “Drobne zabytki języka polskiego” (“Rozpr. Ak. Um.”, vol. XXV). Few collections of poetry have survived, only a few dozen, while many theological manuscripts from the Middle Ages remain. Such collections included almost exclusively works by medieval authors (fables, moralizing poems, satires, pornographic poems). Very few of the classics were read, most often Ovid; Virgil, Lucan, Persius, Juvenal and, least of all, Horace were also known. Of the poems of Polish authors recorded in the chronicles of Gall, Vincent and Dlugosz, of particular interest are epitaphs, a poem about court life, a satire on merchants and other classes, poems about the defeat at Varna, love poems, an extensive poem about the war of Zbygnev Olesnitsky with Kosmidr Grushchinsky and , finally, the poem by Frovin or Vidvin (Vidrina) “Antigameratus”. This poem, written by the Leonines, aims to set out the precepts of morality and at the same time teach to distinguish the meaning of monosounding Latin words. The author addresses in turn bishops, priests, princes, judges, masters, servants, spouses, talks about clothing, hairstyle, etc., gives advice on how to behave at the table, what farmers should do at different times of the year, how to live in general and what to do under different circumstances. The poem was probably written in the Krakow region, after 1320; it was especially popular in Germany, where even printed editions of it appeared. Religious Latin poetry was less widespread in Poland: “Aurora” (exposition of the Old and New Testaments in hexameters) by Peter de Riga and “Carmen Paschale” by Sedulius. Of the Polish church songs, the oldest is considered to be “Bogurodzica”, which, according to legend, belongs to St. Wojciech (10th century) and known from five lists of the 15th century. The songs published by Bobovsky in “Rozpr. Akad. Um." (vol. XIX) and Brückner in “Biblioteka Warszawska” (1893) and in “Rozpr. Akad. Um." (Vol. XXV). Some of these works are distinguished by poetic merits, but they do not yet contain that treatment that appears for the first time on Polish soil only in Kokhanovsky. With the founding of the University of Krakow, the dawn of new times began. Fresh currents of humanism begin to penetrate into Poland along with Protestant ideas. The number of schools is increasing significantly, not only clergy, but also secular people are receiving education; the number of people going abroad to complete their education and returning from there not only with new knowledge, but also with new ideas is increasing. At the university, a struggle breaks out between the scholastics, led by the founder of phrenology, Jan of Glogova, and the humanists, among whom Gregory of Sanok is nominated. Nicolaus Copernicus creates a new theory of rotation celestial bodies. Dlugosz writes the first history of Poland; Jan Ostrorog, Doctor of Laws, socialite and magnate, composes a treatise on government. Educated foreigners come to Poland, some of whom, for example. Callimachus writes in Latin, others write in Polish, such as the Serb Mikhail Konstantinovich from Ostravica, who wrote the history of the Turkish state (“Pamiętniki Janczara”). Already in the middle of the 15th century. literature is sometimes a tool of religious propaganda: for example, Andrei Galka from Dobchin composed a poetic praise of Viklef.

At the beginning of the 16th century, when printing spread, the Polish language began to come into general use in literature and displace, especially thanks to religious reformers, Latin speech. At the same time, a new period began in the history of P. literature. The first representatives of humanism in Poland not only in the 15th, but also in the 16th century. also wrote in Latin: they included Jan from Wislica, the author of the epic rhapsody about the Battle of Grunwald, Andrei Krzycki, Jan Flaxbinder Dantyszek, Clemens Janicki. Even Kokhanovsky first wrote in Latin and only from Paris sent the first Polish poem to Poland, with which a new era in Polish poetry began. Humanism in Poland found very fertile soil. The gentry of that time enjoyed all the benefits of political freedom, which had not yet degenerated into extreme self-will; young people studied at the University of Krakow, traveled through foreign lands and completed their education at the courts of magnates who tried to be real philanthropists. An interesting picture of such a court is given by Luka Gurnicki’s book “Dworzanin polski”, adapted from “Il libro del cortegiano” by Castiglione. Thanks to the patronage of the aristocracy, epic poems, elegies, odes, songs, satires, bucolics, epigrams, jokes, etc. appeared. Rey († 1569) painted vivid pictures of morals, typical portraits of individuals, and gave lively scenes copied from life. But Rey’s language, although expressive, strong, figurative, does not rise to the level of truly artistic treatment: his verse is heavy and is rhymed prose, so in this respect he is closer to medieval writers. Jan Kochanowski († 1584) is already a poet in the full sense of the word. In the field of lyric poetry, he achieved high perfection: his translation of the psalter is still considered exemplary; in “Trenach,” written for the death of his daughter, and in some other songs, the depth and sincerity of feeling is combined with a truly beautiful form. Caustic in satire, Kokhanovsky's poetry is full of fun and even widespread revelry in jokes (Fraszki). He failed to create a national drama: his “Odprawa posłów greckich” is an imitation of classical models. Among Kokhanovsky's contemporaries, worthy of attention are Nikolai Semp Sharzhinsky (died in 1581), the author of several sonnets and religious songs, Stanislav Grokhovsky, Gaspar Myaskovsky, Pyotr Zbylitovsky, Pyotr Kokhanovsky, the author of very popular poems imbued with love for the peasant people, Shimon Shimonovich ( Bendonsky, 1557-1629) and, finally, who did not have great poetic talent, but was an apt satirist Sevastyan Klenovich (1551-1602). Of the prose writers, he became very famous in the 16th century. used by the priest Stanislav Orzechowski, a passionate Catholic, but who fought with Catholic bishops over the right of priests to marry. The Polish language undoubtedly owes a lot to this talented publicist. The historians Vanovsky, Kromer, Orzhelsky, Heidenstein, Bielski, Stryjkovsky wrote in Latin or Polish. Paprocki was a special historian of noble families. The political writer Fritch Modrzewski, the philologist Nidecki, and others enjoyed fame. The same place as Kokhanovski among poets is occupied by the famous Jesuit preacher Peter Skarga (Pavenski, 1532-1612) among prose writers. Neither before nor after him, no one in Poland rose to such inspired eloquence. Skarga spoke only from the church pulpit, but this pulpit served for him as a political leader. podium. Its name is especially important. Diet sermons. Skarga stands on purely Catholic grounds and takes up arms against Protestants, who enjoyed complete religious tolerance; but at the same time he stands up for the oppressed peasantry, pursues highly humane ideas and threatens Poland with heaven’s punishment for its many disorders. Since the end of the 16th century. The reign of humanism in Poland ends. Circumstances have changed: instead of the former freedom there came self-will, instead of calm - external and internal wars, instead of the flowering of free thought - a reaction that suppressed any mental movement. The persecution of the Arians was followed by the persecution of Protestants, who could not resort to literary protection: their printing houses and schools were closed, their churches were locked and destroyed. The Jesuits took education into their own hands. All this greatly influenced the decline of science and literature in Poland. To the numerous names of Poles who between the XIII and XVI centuries. gained pan-European fame, XVII century. adds only one name of Matvey Sarbevsky († 1640), a Polish-Latin poet, whose works are still ranked on a par with the works of the ancient Latin classics. In the half of the 17th century. it was difficult to meet a nobleman who could not speak Latin; but education did not go further than this. The lack of a thorough education led to a decline in taste; the Polish language began to be considered a barbaric language, incapable of expressing high feelings: it had to be decorated with Latin phrases and individual words. Hence the so-called macaronism (see). The understanding of real beauty in art has disappeared, or, better said, has degenerated: ugly techniques gain dominance - unnatural rearrangement of words, pretentious descriptive forms, accumulation of loud phrases in which the common sense of speech is drowned. Moreover, semi-educated people had nothing to write about: the place of ideas, which were felt to be lacking, was replaced by purely personal interests. Literature becomes a means of profit and political machinations: it is flooded with panegyrics, lampoons, public speeches, distinguished by the most bizarre forms. This fashion is even breaking into prayer books and church pulpits. The number of writers is increasing significantly, but literature is not benefiting from this. The best writers who did not slavishly imitate fashion did not publish their works, so they were completely forgotten for a long time and even now are not well known, as for example. Vaclav Potocki. The translation activity developing at the same time was more fruitful. Polish translations of Western European and other stories appeared in manuscripts and printed publications as early as the 16th century. (see S. A. Ptashitsky, “Medieval Western European stories in Russian and Slavic literature”, St. Petersburg, 1897); but the wide distribution of this type of literary work dates back only to the 17th century. At the same time, a permanent theater began in Poland. Vladislav IV was a lover of dramatic performances; English, French and Italian actors alternately played at his court. There was no local repertoire yet, but they had already begun to translate foreign plays into Polish: for example, Jan Andrei Morsztyn translated Kornelevsky’s “Sid” and Tassa’s comedy “Amintas”. In general terms, the earlier history of Polish drama (cf. Piotr Chmielewski, “Nasza literatura dramatyczna”, St. Petersburg, 1898) is as follows. If we leave aside the oldest dialogues, in which, apart from the colloquial form, there is no dramatic element (the oldest monument of this kind in Polish - “Rozmowa śmerci z magistrem” - dates back to the 15th century), then the earliest monuments of P. dramatic literature should be considered dating back to the 16th century. Op. Nicholas from Wilkowieck: “Historja o chwalebnem Zmartwychwstanni Pańskiem”, a kind of medieval mystery. Rey writes a dramatic "Zywot Józefa", in many ways reminiscent of medieval dialogues. Šimonović's Latin dramas "Castus Joseph" and "Pentesilea" are written in classical style. In the same XVI century. Echoes of religious disputes penetrate into dramatic literature. In 1550 the op. was published in Krakow. the Hungarian Mihaly “Comoedia lepidissima de matrimonio sacerdotum”, then “Komedja o mięsopuscie” appears, Belsky’s dialogues - “Prostych ludzi w wierze nauka”, “Tragedja o mszy”. Aesthetically, all this is very weak. The later, so-called. Rybaltovskaya comedy is a type of school dialogue, the oldest of which is considered “Tragedja Zebracza” (1552). This type of satirical comedy includes “Wyprawa plebańska” (1590), its continuation “Albertusz wojny” (1596), “Tragedja o Scylurusie” by Yurkovsky (1604), the dramatic trilogy “Bachanalia” (1640) and many others. other unnamed comedies that appeared throughout the entire 17th century. The most typical representative of the trend that dominated the literature of the 17th century is Jan Andrej Morsztyn (see Eduard Porembowicz, “Andrzej Morsztyn”, Krakow, 1893). Thanks to a thorough education, he avoided the crude literary tastelessness of his time and the monstrous turns of phrase that abounded in the writings of the then petty panegyrists and lampooners; but in his poems he also willingly resorted to refined stylistic effects, imitating the Italian and French writers of his time. Another typical representative of the 17th century. - Vespasian Kochovsky, author of an ode glorifying the expulsion of the Arians from Poland, and many religious poems. His works are distinguished by sensuality, rough realism, even triviality, and, however, ancient classical deities constantly appear in his works. Less remarkable are Zimorovichi, Gavinsky, Tvardovsky. Opalinsky is promoted as the author of caustic satires. An exceptional position among writers of the 17th century. occupied by Jan Chrysostom Pasek and Vaclav Potocki. The first, the author of valuable memoirs, is somewhat reminiscent of Ray. And he paid tribute to his time, weaving Latin expressions into his story, but he did this occasionally and generally wrote simply and picturesquely. Pototsky in the works published during his lifetime was no different from his contemporaries, but in the poems that he left in manuscript, especially in the “Khotyn War,” he is, like Pasek, a realist, without going to extremes. We can say that without Pasek and Pototsky in the 17th century. would seem to be an era of complete impoverishment of literary talent in Poland. From the first half of the 18th century, which still belongs to the same literary period, it is worth mentioning only one Martin Matuszewski (1714-65), the author of memoirs in which the picture of the moral decline of the then society is drawn with complete ruthlessness. Then the first warning voices begin to be heard: Karwicki, “De ordinanda republica”, Jan Jablonowski, “Skrupuł bez skrupułu w Polsce”, Stanislav Leszczynski, “Głos wolny, wolność ubezpieczający”. Załuski founded a famous library in Warsaw; Konarski takes up the reform of public education and publishes the famous journalistic work “O skutecznym rad sposobie”, where he rebels against the liberum veto. The time of new ideas is approaching, which made a radical mental revolution in Polish society (see Wladislav Smolensky, “Przewrót umysłowy w Polsce wieka XVIII”, Krakow and St. Petersburg, 1891). A strong mental movement arises again, although under completely different circumstances than in the 16th century. Poland not only does not occupy its former position among other European powers, but has already lost half of its independence. The imminent danger prompts a desire for self-defense through radical reforms. But only more far-sighted people see this necessity; The mass of the gentry stubbornly clings to the old order. An intensified ideological struggle begins between representatives of the old and new directions; French rationalist philosophy also appeared on the scene. The throne was occupied by a weak, characterless but highly educated king, gifted with refined taste; he surrounds himself with poets, encourages their activities, gives them funds and high positions. On the basis of fruitless political efforts and moral insanity, the flower of highly artistic literature grows. The most important fact of mental life of the 18th century. There was a secularization of the school in 1773, after the destruction of the Jesuit order. Already before this time, an order of PR had appeared in Poland, competing with the Jesuits in the school field, which introduced the teaching of natural sciences into its schools, thereby forcing the Jesuits to make some concessions in favor of the new direction; but this cannot be compared with the radical reform, according to which all educational institutions came under the direct jurisdiction of state power. The educational commission founded to carry out the reform consisted of educated people brought up in the spirit of French rationalism. The reform began with the universities of Krakow and Vilnius, which were remade according to Western European models. The secondary school program processed by Piramovich introduces teaching in the Latin language and limits the scope of teaching Latin. and expands the scope of other subjects. Literacy schools are opening in cities and villages, new manuals and textbooks are being written. French ideas and tastes triumph; after the long dominance of Catholicism, a strong philosophical reaction began, which embraced almost all the talents in the country without exception. Consciousness of political and social ills aroused the desire to reveal them in all their nakedness, and for this the best means were satire and the satirical fable. One-sidedly accepted rationalism and criticism led, however, to dryness and impoverishment of feelings. Hence the need to improve the form, since without this literary works would be too colorless. Virtuosos of the language appear - Trembecki († 1812), Hungarian († 1787), Krasitsky († 1801). Their innate wit, trained in French. samples, significantly improved compared to the 7th century; The subtly sarcastic Krasitsky is especially remarkable. These three luminaries of their time armed themselves mainly against the rigidity of prejudices and, in general, everything that resembled the “barbarism” of former times or the senseless external imitation of a new fashion with internal vulgarity and rudeness. The fourth luminary - Narushevich - was inferior to them in terms of talent, but surpassed them in the breadth and depth of his views: as a historian who has thoroughly studied the past of Poland, he paints, like a poet, with bright colors a picture of the moral corruption of Polish society; he does not limit himself to light pricks, does not laugh, but cries, imbuing his satires not with spices, but with bile. In the form of pseudo-classics of the French type, these four writers still connected their literary activities with real life much more than their predecessors. Literature, imitative in its form, became popular in its content, as it was among only a few writers of the 16th century. and among some representatives of P. thought in the 17th century. (Pasek and Potocki). If she did not create outstanding artistic types, this was because at that time there was still too much inclination towards caricature. The comedy had a fairly large representative in the person of Zablotsky († 1821), in its satirical character and general direction akin to Trembetskoy, Hungarian and Krasitsky. Zablotsky would have created, perhaps, a better comedy if he had not been constrained by the well-known rules of unity of place, time and main person: in all his comedies the action takes place within one room and 24 hours; Everywhere, moreover, the minor faces are only lightly drawn. Boguslavsky also has great merits in the history of the P. theater, who was the first to properly organize a society of actors (a permanent theater existed in Warsaw since 1765) and in 1794 staged his operetta “Cud mniemany, czyli krakowiacy and gòrale”, where for the first time peasants appeared on the scene. The first author of a political comedy was Yulian Ursyn Nemcewicz, author of the comedy “Powrót posła” (1791). Felinsky († 1820) wrote pseudo-classical tragedies. The most outstanding writer of this movement and, in general, one of the best representatives of dramatic literature in Poland was the epigon of neoclassicism, Count Alexander Fredro (1793-1876). His comedies, written in a clear, flowing language, mostly in verse, still serve as a decoration for the P. stage: the intrigue is natural and deftly carried out, the characters are very lifelike, the wit is always genuine, the action is extremely lively. In some places Fredro is not free from sentimentalism, but much more often he is a satirist. Sentimental literature flourished alongside satirical literature. Even the most typical representatives of satire were not always free from sentimentalism. Krasitsky translates Ossian's songs, writes "The Khotyn War" and utopian-didactic novels, in which the sentimental overtones appear quite noticeably. Karpinsky and Knyaznin devoted themselves exclusively to sentimental poetry. Karpinsky especially knew how to hit the tone of “sensitive” hearts and gained great popularity.

The so-called “political literature of the four-year Sejm” (1788-92), the main representatives of which were Staszic (1755-1826) and Kollontai (1750-1812), embraces a number of works written in the spirit of political reform and serves as a transitional step from the literature of the 18th century . to the literature of the beginning of this century. The tragic fate of the P. state deeply affected the hearts and minds; the rise of patriotic feelings was also expressed in literature. There was no longer room for satire; the sweet sounds of the sentimental singers of love for the “Justins”, “Rosines” and “Chloes” fell silent. However, the tradition of form remained unshaken, the former authority of Aristotle and Boileau remained; Only the plots have changed radically. Not daring to dream of a quick restoration of political independence, the writers of that time turned their gaze to the past and began to look for a golden age in the past. Voronich (17b7-1829) publishes the poem “Sybilla”, in which he turns his thoughts to the times of the initial unity of the Slavs and expresses the hope that in the future all Slavic peoples will unite together in one friendly union. Nemtsevich writes “Historical Songs” (1816) and a tendentious novel; a number of historical tragedies appear. Linde (1771-1847) is working on a historical dictionary of the P. language, Charnotsky (Khodakovsky, 1784-1825) is studying traces of the prehistoric culture of the Slavs, Matseevsky (1793-1883) is writing a history of Slavic legislation. Somewhat later, after a short but fierce struggle with supporters of the old trends, romanticism took possession of the best part of society, reflected not only in poetry, but also in all manifestations of the mental activity of the nation. He brought to the fore the idea that new peoples, different from the ancients in religion, social structure, etc., should free themselves from slavish imitation of the Greeks and Romans and create their own poetry, original in content and form. The idea of ​​Slavic unity could not gain popularity at a time when P.'s youth, carried away by Napoleon, set out on a campaign against Russia under his banner. From then on, new political horizons opened up for the Poles: they began to count on European help and raised the issue of their own political agenda. freedom with the question of freedom in general. This formulation of the matter had very important consequences, not only political, but also literary: literature becomes the leader of life, romanticism takes on a political revolutionary character; After the failure of 1831, the idea of ​​Poland, suffering for the sins not of its own, but of other peoples, gained dominance in literature, is the image of the “Christ of the nations”, who died in order to be resurrected and usher in a new era of universal freedom. In the purely literary sphere, romanticism brought to the fore imagination and feeling, which it considered a truer criterion of truth and a guide in life than cold reason. This, too, was quite to the liking of the Poles: when a person or a people suffers misfortune, when all his calculations turn out to be erroneous and do not lead to the desired results, he willingly relies on everything that is not amenable to calculation and cold-blooded criticism. The passion of desire overcomes calculation; It is not forces that are the measure of intentions, but intentions of forces, as Mickiewicz expressed it in his “Ode to Youth.” Hence also the attraction to everything wonderful, and above all to folk literature, imbued with this element. This was not complete news in Poland: Szymonovich was not forgotten, Skarga’s sermons were very popular, and even at the end of the 18th century. prepared minds to look differently at ordinary people. The idea arose that the liberation of Poland required the assistance of all classes of the people and, above all, the peasants. Political circumstances also contributed to the revival of Polish literature: Alexander I granted the Kingdom of Poland some liberties, the country enjoyed a certain autonomy, had a constitution and its own army. Part of the country's spiritual forces went into the area of ​​state and administrative concerns, but there still remained an excess of mental forces for which there was no scope in the political or military field. The very ranks of the intelligentsia increased significantly thanks to the educational reform in the second half of the 18th century. and the later activities of Chatsky and Prince. Chartoryzhski: the number of schools has increased, teaching has improved. The new writers, among whom there were also those gifted with extraordinary talent, no longer looked for patrons of the arts: for them the only patron of the arts was the people, the fatherland. Although romanticism came to Poland from outside, mainly from Germany, in essence, the German influence was not particularly great (aka Murko, “Deutsche Einflüsse auf die Anfänge der böhmischen Romantik”, Graz, 1897); new trends found well-prepared soil and soon took on a completely national character. As Spasovich rightly put it (Pypin and Spasovich, “History of Slavic Literatures,” St. Petersburg, 1879), romanticism served only as a shell for a new poetry born from an egg, completely original and even more popular than all previously existing literary movements. The first to speak about romanticism in Poland was a professor at the University of Warsaw. Brodzinsky. (cm.). Translations of Schiller, Goethe, Herder, Walter Scott, Byron, and Shakespeare began to appear more and more often. A circle of young people, mainly students of the Kremenets Lyceum, was keen on new ideas. Its members included Joseph Korzhenevsky, Karl Sienkiewicz, Tymon Zaborovsky, Mavriky Mokhnatsky, Bohdan Zalesky, Severin Goschinsky, Mikhail Grabovsky, Dominik Magnushevsky, Konstantin Gashinsky - all future poets and critics who dreamed of creating original folk literature. In their aspirations they found support in the person of professors Brodzinsky and Lelewel, who, according to Mokhnatsky, was also an inspired poet, when, with all the fervor of youth, but at the same time with acute scientific insight, he reproduced images of past times. Since the folk literature that inspired the romantics was not uniform throughout the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this name appeared. provincial schools, of which the Ukrainian one became especially famous. It consists mainly of three writers: Anton Malczewski (1793-1826), Bohdan Zaleski (1802-1886) and Severin Goszczynski (1803-1876). Malchevsky (q.v.) was a Byronist; his poem “Maria” is imbued with pessimism, shrouded in some kind of mystery, the characters are presented as extraordinary creatures and belong to the magnate or gentry class, and the common people appear only in the person of one Cossack. The free Cossack life found a singer in Zalesky (see), who glorified the ancient Cossack prowess and the delights of Ukrainian nature. If we can say that Malchevsky sang the gentry’s Ukraine, and Zalesky the Cossack Ukraine, then Goshchinsky (see) can rightly be called the singer of the Haidamak Ukraine with all its customs and beliefs. In contrast to the first two representatives of the Ukrainian school, Goshchinsky is more of an epic than a lyricist: his descriptions breathe truth, he understands nature and knows how to describe it vividly and picturesquely; Its coloring is dominated by dark colors; its landscape seems to reflect the dramatic nature of the bloody scenes taking place between people. Earlier than all of the three named poets, Zaleski (1822) began publishing his songs and thoughts, but he did not make a strong impression, at least on the classics, who passed over these first fruits of romanticism in complete silence. A storm of indignation arose only when Mickiewicz published the first two volumes of his poems (1822 and 1823). But the first shots were also the last: Mickiewicz’s works soon forced all supporters of classicism either to shut up or go over to the side of romanticism. Polish romanticism was first born in Warsaw, but flourished in Vilna, where it found more favorable soil. In Warsaw, “French” tastes and literary traditions were still very much alive, finding strong support in the literature professor Osinski, the critic Dmochowski, and the poet Kozmian; the Vilna classics were less authoritative, and as a result, university youth more boldly entered the literary field with new ideas. She joined circles - Filaretov, Filomatov, “Promenistykh”, etc. - working diligently on internal self-improvement, dreaming of the liberation of the fatherland, composing ballads and romances in a purely romantic spirit. Soon, however, the imprisonment of several dozen students accused of conspiracy, the exile of Mickiewicz, Zahn, Chechotte, and the almost complete emigration of all poets abroad led to the fact that the new P. poetry, having emerged from a romantic source, took a unique direction, which was reflected in poetic the activities of Mickiewicz (1798-1855) and all those who are considered to be in the same group with him, for example Julius Słowacki (1809-1849) and partly Sigismund Krasiński (1812-1859); the latter was not an emigrant, but lived mostly abroad and published his works anonymously. Mickiewicz (q.v.) armed himself against hungry, soulless classical poetry, defending the rights of the heart and soul. This is the nature of his first works: ballads, romances and the fourth part of “Dziady”. As a singer of love, he was the first in P. literature to present this feeling in all its purity and depth. In “Grazyna,” which is also one of Mickiewicz’s first works, he was inspired by the idea of ​​sacrificing himself for the common good. His next works (“Ode to Youth”, “Conrad Wallenrod”, “Faris”) express the political ideas that worried Polish society at that time. When the armed struggle broke out, Mickiewicz's muse fell silent for a while: he wrote several poems on military themes, but did not reach the same height of inspiration in them as in other poems. More popular were the revolutionary poems of Julius Slovacki (“Kulich”, “Hymn to the Mother of God”, etc.) and especially the militant “Songs of Janusz” written by Vincent Pol. With the war of 1831, the first period of P. romantic poetry ended, completed by Mokhnatsky’s book (see): “On the literature of the 19th century.” In 1832, Mickiewicz published the third part of Dziady, where the hero of the fourth part, Gustav, who appears here under the name of Conrad, completely indulges in the thought of saving the fatherland. He wants to dominate all hearts and minds, rebels against God and collapses in powerless despair. Mickiewicz symbolically portrays Conrad as being in the grip of an evil spirit, who is driven out by the humble, unlearned, obedient priest Peter. He also loves his fatherland, but humbly accepts everything sent by God; therefore, in a foggy half-sleep, the future is revealed to him and he sees the coming liberator. Here are already the first beginnings of messianism, noticeable also in the “Books of the Polish People and Pilgrimage,” in Słowacki’s poem “Angelli,” and in some of Krasiński’s works. Its beginning can be found back in the 17th century. from Vespasian Kochovsky, but Mickiewicz created this form himself, under the influence of Saint-Martin and other mystics. "Pan Tadeusz" was Mickiewicz's last poetic work. There is almost no politics here, but there is a completely new literary direction; The place of romanticism, which was ridiculed not only in the person of Telimena, but also in the person of the count, is taken by idealistic realism, which was destined to establish itself for a long time in Polish literature and especially in novels. Pan Tadeusz is considered the greatest work of Polish literature. Of Mickiewicz's two great contemporaries, Krasinski is closer to him than Słowacki. Krasinski (q.v.) began with universal ideas and then moved on to national ones. All of his works, except “Agai Khan” and “Summer Night”, are based on political or social plots. The background for the “Unfinished Poem” is poetic historiosophy; here a struggle arises between two ideas - the dominant order and revolution. In “Iridion,” Krasinski tries to solve a political problem: the hero of the poem is saved from hell by love for his homeland, but he must repent of his sins, living in the land of “graves and crosses” and waiting there for the fulfillment of his dreams of freedom. The “Legend” is imbued with the belief that over time humanity will fulfill the covenants of the Gospel, and then redemption will come for the poet’s homeland. Dreams of a better future were also expressed in the poem “Przedświt” (“Dawn”). The idea of ​​messianism is taken to the extreme in Krasinski; according to the fair remark of one of the newest historians of P. literature, Beltsikovsky, Krasinsky does not take into account either the past or the future, having lost sight of the real conditions of life and history. Slovaksky, compared to Mickiewicz and Krasinski, is little involved in politics, and his politics are different: the heroes of his poems act and strive for a specific goal. Therefore, he willingly resorted to dramatic form. Of Słowacki's political works, the most outstanding are “Kordian” and “Angelli”. In this latter, the idea of ​​messianism is again revealed: Angelli is a silent victim who redeems the people, but does not herself rise from the dead. Political poems also include one of Słowacki’s last works, “The Spirit King,” the idea of ​​which, as far as one can judge from the unfinished passages, was to show in a number of pictures the cultural and political development of the Polish people. Słowacki adheres to the democratic trend, expressed, among other things, in “The Tomb of Agamemnon” and in the poetic letter to Krasiński “Do autora trzech psalmów”.

Their satellites were grouped around three great Polish poets: Tomasz Zan, Anton Eduard Odyniec, Stefan Witwicki, Anton Goretsky, Stefan Garczynski and others. After the disastrous outcome of the uprising of 1830-31, Polish romantic poetry flourished abroad, mainly in Paris, where Mickiewicz and Slovacki lived permanently. The emigrants believed that they represented a truly free Poland, that it was their responsibility to work to restore the fatherland. The idea of ​​messianism that animated some of them soon degenerated into extreme vague mysticism, especially when Andrei Tovyansky appeared, who for a time attracted almost all the outstanding representatives of Polish thought in emigration circles. Mickiewicz stopped writing completely and only lectured at the Collège de France; Although Slovak wrote, he wrote so vaguely that they no longer understood him. However, messianism soon outlived its time; Emigration literature did not have enough strength to create new ideas, and it was not among them that a number of writers appeared who followed the path indicated by Mickiewicz in “Pan Tadeusz.” Calm internal work began on the transformation and improvement of society - everyday work, small, but fruitful and quickly moving forward. The people's thoughts, exhausted by constantly looking ahead, willingly transferred themselves to the happy past and dwelled on those moments when life was better, when the soul was not tormented by fears for the future. The feeling after the romantic explosion did not freeze, but calmed down, giving literary work a soft and moderate flavor, especially in novels. Of the poets who mainly depicted the past, Vikenty Pol (see) became especially famous. By the nature of his plots, he is close to the author of many historical novels written in the same idealistic direction - Sigismund Kachkovsky and his predecessor in this field, Heinrich Rzhevusky. Most other poets turned to more modern themes. Ludwik Kondratovich (Vladislav Syrokomlya, 1823-1862) especially came to the fore. His poetic stories are excellent, the heroes of which are a petty nobleman, a tradesman, a peasant. He was the first, looking into an area of ​​​​the life of the masses that had not been developed before him, and became an inspired singer of the feelings and aspirations of the people in the direct sense of the word. Another Lithuanian poet, Eduard Zheligovsky (Anton Sova), published in 1846 under the title. "Jordan" was a caustic satire in which it rebelled with great force against social ills. Quite close to Kondratovich is Feofil Lenartovich (1822-1893), who drew his themes from folk tales and managed to convey their simplicity in an elegant form. A separate group consists of the so-called. enthusiasts whose activities were concentrated in Warsaw: Wladimir Wolski, Roman Zmorski, Narcisa Żmichovska, Richard Berwinski, Edmund Wasilewski, Cyprian and Ludwik Norwid, and others. All of them acted in an era when Polish society began to recover from the apathy into which it fell after 1831 d. Like their great predecessors, they extolled feeling as a force that can do more than cold reason. The tension of feeling, however, was no longer as great as that of the romantics, and could not create such works of art as the literature of the first half of the 19th century shines with. The democratic-progressive ideas of the new poets were expressed almost exclusively in the form of small lyric poems , which almost all did not survive their era. The activity of Arthur Bartels († 1885), called the Polish Beranger, dates back to the same time. The greatest talent of this partly revolutionary movement was Cornel of Uey (1824-1897). His “Biblical Melodies” and “The Complaints of Jeremiah” borrow plots from the Old Testament, but they draw an analogy between the destinies of Judea and Poland. Ueysky managed to touch the hearts of his contemporaries; his “Chorale” became the national song. With the exception of Pol and Kondratovich, all other poets of the era 1840-63. strived for a revolution and were the spokesmen for the ideas that caused the uprising. Their influence was especially strong on the younger generation. Two currents formed - one stormy, the other calm; the goal of one was a coup, the other - gradual internal reform; the expression of the first was poetry, the second - the novel and story. A new story in Poland appeared at the end of the 18th century, when Princess Czartoryska wrote (for the common people) the book “Pielgrzym w Dobromilu”, and her daughter, Princess of Württemberg, wrote the sentimental novel “Malwina czyli domyślność serca” and several stories for the peasant people. Kropinsky, Bernatovich, Elizaveta Yarachevskaya, Klementina Tanskaya, and Goffman belong to the same group of sentimental writers. Most remarkable of all is Joseph Ignatius Krashevsky (see), according to the correct remark of Khmelevsky, who always strived for the golden mean. He did not seek or discover new directions in the field of ideas, but tried to reflect all possible manifestations of the cultural life of his people. In a moderate form, it was affected by romanticism, and the idealization of everything native that replaced it, and national revolutionary aspirations, and, finally, the confidence that only calm, peaceful and tireless work serves as the most reliable means of achieving the goal. When the positivistic trend began, Krashevsky was at first afraid of the dominance of extreme materialism, but then more and more inclined to admit that taking reality into account means promoting the implementation of ideals corresponding to the available reserve of strength. In his artistic style, Krashevsky was a realist in the full sense of the word, and at the beginning of his activity one can even find some features that characterize the later representatives of French naturalism. Joseph Korzhenevsky (q.v.) differed from Krashevsky mainly in that he pursued more progressive tendencies in his novels and dramatic works, armed himself against the prejudices of the gentry, and was a more profound psychologist. Reality was idealized by Pyotr Bykovsky, Julius Count Strutynsky (Berlich Sas), Ignatius Chodzko, Mikhail Tchaikovsky, Edmund Choetsky, Maria Ilnitskaya, Jadwiga Lushchevskaya (Deotyma), and others. Among the energetic champions of democratic ideas is Sigismund Milkowski (Theodor-Tomasz Jerz), who carried out even historical novels have their own tendencies. Progressive ideas also found defenders in the persons of Jan Zakharyasevich and Anton Petkevich (Adam Ploeg). The now forgotten Ludwik Štyrmer (who wrote under the pseudonym Eleonora Štyrmer) possessed subtle psychological analysis. A very popular satirical writer was August Wilkonsky.

The era that followed 1864 resembled to a certain extent the era that followed the war of 1831. The failed attempt at insurrection, even more strongly than then, ruined dreams of political independence and turned the thoughts of the new generation in a different direction. The leading role began to shift to the periodical press. The number of newspapers and magazines has increased over the years; New ideas began to be preached in their columns, causing passionate polemics on the part of the epigones of the previously dominant movement. In order to spread enlightenment among the masses, cheap popular books were published, the authors of which rebelled against idealism and speculative philosophy and defended scientific methods based on observation and experience. An energetic development of economic issues in connection with the needs of the country began. Among the younger generation, the slogan has become “organic labor,” unnoticeable but tireless, striving to increase material and spiritual well-being. This movement was facilitated by the opening of a university in Warsaw called the Main School. Older poets either stopped writing or did not receive the same sympathy. Of the young, some protested against the new time, “devoid of ideals,” while others followed the general mood of the era. Society turned away from poetry, partly because it was occupied mainly with material concerns caused by the destruction of the former lordly-serf economic system, and partly because it did not see in poets the aspirations with which it itself was imbued. A critical look at poetic works extended generally to literary and social authorities. The main organ of this public criticism became the weekly “Przegląd Tygodniowy”, then “Prawda”. Of the two Warsaw monthly magazines, Ateneum was and still is in a progressive direction, while Biblioteka Warszawska has a conservative tint. Young writers called themselves positivists, understanding positivism not in a closely philosophical sense, but as a set of progressive elements in all manifestations of life. Around the middle of the 70s, the struggle between directions calmed down and softened; both sides influenced each other to some extent. The newspapers started talking louder about the Slavic idea; in 1885, the newspaper “Chwila” was founded by Przyborowski, expressing the idea that it was time to leave the “politics of the heart” and, on the basis of Slavic reciprocity, embrace the politics of reason and broad horizons. This first conciliatory attempt was not successful, but her thoughts did not freeze and over time created a strong party, the organs of which are currently mainly the St. Petersburg “Kraj” and the Warsaw “Słowo”. In Galicia, similar work was going on, with the difference that already after 1866, publicists there began to resolve political issues. The country received autonomy; Following this, voices began to be heard loudly, urging him to abandon revolutionary thoughts and be loyal to the Austrian monarchy. One of the most outstanding phenomena of this time was the brochure “Teka Stańczyka”. for which the whole monarchist party received the nickname “Stanchikov”. The organ of the party was and remains “Czas”. Recently, the peasant and partly socialist movement has strongly manifested itself, but it is still little reflected in Polish literature, although a school of poets is emerging, calling itself “Young Poland.” The Poles in the Duchy of Poznań are making every effort to protect their people from the pressure of Germanism. And there there is a struggle between conservative and progressive, often even extreme ideas, but the popular forces, engaged in the struggle for existence, do little to enrich literature. In all three parts of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they care more than before about the moral and mental needs of the common people. One of the most ardent defenders of the interests of the people was the Warsaw weekly Głos. All the ideas and trends outlined above were reflected in the literature of the last period: weaker in lyric poetry, stronger and deeper in drama, and especially in the novel, which became the everyday spiritual food of a huge mass of readers from all classes of the people. The most prominent representative of the last thirty years in the field of lyric poetry was Adam Asnyk, who died in 1897. He was particularly distinguished by his virtuosity of form and responsiveness to a wide variety of moods. Maria Konopnitskaya stands next to Asnyk. She is deeply shocked by the plight of all the unfortunate and oppressed, and she ardently stands up for them; in her poetry there is a certain rhetorical quality, but there is also a genuine feeling with great elegance of form. Both of these poets tried their hand at drama; Konopnitskaya also gained fame for her short stories in prose. Victor Gomulicki can be called a singer of nature and feelings, whose gentle brush, however, sometimes draws pictures that are distinguished by considerable strength in a pathetic and satirical tone. Of his prosaic works, the collection of sketches from life under the title is very valuable. "Zielony Kajet". In the small poems of Felician of Falen there is more wit and grace than feeling; in his dramatic works (Krakow, 1896 and 1898), violent passions are depicted rather coldly and do not make such a stunning impression on the reader as one might expect from the nature of the plots. Vaclav Szymanowski, Leonard Sowinski, Vladimir Vysotski and others wrote short epic poems. Vladimir Zagursky, under the pseudonym Khokhlika, publishes satirical poems; Nikolai Bernatsky's satires sometimes have the character of a pamphlet. Modern P. comedy reflects various manifestations of social life in a light satirical or dramatic light; it provides a varied gallery of characters and is distinguished by its stage presence, good style, and liveliness of action. Of the comedy authors, the most famous are Jan-Alexander Fredro (son of Alexander), Joseph Narzymsky, Joseph Blizinsky, Eduard Lyubovsky, Kazimir Zalevsky, Mikhail Balutsky, Sigismund Sarnetsky, Sigismund Przybylsky, Alexander Mankovsky, Daniil Zglinsky, Sofia Meller, Gabriela Zapolskaya, Mikhail Volovsky , Adolf Abragamovich, Felix Schober. Historical drama has not reached the same level of development as comedy, and does not arouse as much interest in society: Joseph Shuisky, Adam Beltsikovsky, Vikenty Rapacki, Bronislav Grabovsky, Kazimir Glinsky, Julian Lentovsky, Stanislav Kozlovsky, Jan Gadomsky are valued by readers, but their dramas are rarely staged. stage. The public prefers drama on contemporary themes, the main representatives of which are Alexander Świętochowski, Wacław Karczewski and Władysław Rabski. In the field of the newest Polish novel and story, the character of the era is expressed much more clearly, comprehensively and deeply than in lyric poetry, comedy and drama. The technology in this area has improved significantly; the variety of plots, characters, trends, and shades is very great. Henryk Sienkiewicz, Boleslaw Prus and Eliza Orzeszko are well known far beyond the borders of Poland and especially in Russia. Among the literary debutants of recent years, Vladislav Reymont and Vaclav Seroshevsky-Sirko and others stand out. High in sincerity and feeling is Clemens Younosha-Shanyavsky (died in 1898), who excellently portrayed peasants, Jews and small landed gentry; his language is unusually flexible, his presentation is full of humor. Julian Wieniawski (Jordan) and Jan Lam († 1866) have a more developed comic-satirical element. Mikhail Balutsky very aptly and wittily condemns various shortcomings of Polish society, especially the gentry and aristocracy. Ignatius Maleevsky (North) is especially famous for his stories from peasant life. An excellent novel from this area was written by Vaclav Karczewski (Yasenchik), under the title: “To Welgem” (St. Petersburg, 1898). Adam Dygasinsky is also a good connoisseur of rural life and an excellent painter of the animal world. Other modern novelists adhere for the most part to the idealistic-realistic manner that has dominated the Polish novel since the time of Kraszewski. There were, however, attempts to create a novel in the style of French naturalism. The latest Western European trends in the field of poetry were also reflected in the work of Polish poets of the younger generation: decadence, symbolism, mixed, however, with a protest against the dominance of material interests, found in them ardent admirers. In 1897, a special literary organ “Życie” was founded by Ludwik Szczepanski, which printed in its columns the fruits of the inspiration of “Young Poland”. The magazine proves that there is now a turn towards individualism, especially in literature: the place of public understanding of literature should be taken by the literature of individualists (samotnikòw) and “moods” (nastrojowcòw), which has its source in the state of mind of the younger generation. The most prominent representative of this trend is Stanislav Przhibyshevsky, who also writes in German. The most important textbook on the history of literature in Russian belongs to V. D. Spasovich (“History of Slavic Literatures” by Pypin and Spasovich, St. Petersburg, 1879). The main manuals in Polish: Mikhail Wisniewski, “Historja literatury polskiej” (Krakow, 1840-1857); Waclaw Maciejewski, “Piśmienictwo polskie” (Warsaw, 1851-52); Zdanovich and Sowinski, “Rys dziejów literatury polskiej” (Vilno, 1874-1878); Kondratovich, “Dzieje literatury w Polsce” (Vilno, 1851-1854 and Warsaw, 1874; Russian translation by Kuzminsky was published in Moscow in 1862); Bartoshevich, “Historja literatury polskiej” (Krakow, 1877); Kulichkovsky (Lvov, 1873); Dubetsky (Warsaw, 1889); Bigeleisen, with illustrations (Vienna, 1898); see also Nitschmann, “Geschichte der polnischen Litteratur” (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1889). There are many monographs; the most important ones are listed above by period and in articles about individual writers. The history of literature of recent times includes the works of Khmelevsky: “Zarys najnowszej literatury polskiej” (1364-1897; St. Petersburg, 1898); “Współcześni poeci polscy” (St. Petersburg, 1895); “Nasi powieściopisarze” (Krakow, 1887-1895); “Nasza literatura dramatyczna” (St. Petersburg, 1898). In Russian, an outline of the new moods of Polish literature is given in the article “The Mental Turn in Polish Literature” by S. Vengerov (“Foundations”, 1882) and in the “Polish Library” by R. I. Sementkovsky. Bibliographical aids: Estreicher, “Bibliografja polska” (so far 15 volumes, Krakow, Academy edition, 1870-1898), and prof. P. Verzhbovsky, “Bibliographia Polonica XV ac XVI Sc. "(Warsaw, 1889).

XIX
POLISH LITERATURE 1880-1910s

Poland at the end of the 19th century. — Overcoming naturalism in Polish literature. Zine magazine and the Young Poland movement. — Poetry by Konopnitskaya, Kasprovin, Tetmyer, Boy-Zhelensky, Lesmyan, Staff. — Dramaturgy of Zapolskaya, Rosvorovsky. Works of Wyspianski: fairy tale-pamphlet “Wedding”. Plays by Mitsinsky, Izhikovsky. — The originality of Polish prose at the turn of the century. The works of Dygasinsky, Sienkiewicz, Prus, Reymont. Żeromski's novels. Creativity of Przybyszewski. Prose by Strug, Berent, Brzozowski, Jaworski.

Polish literature at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries. developed in three relatively separated territories, annexed by Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary for more than a hundred years. After the uprising of 1863, the remnants of the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland were eliminated; In the Privislinsky region annexed to Russia, a policy of consistent Russification was pursued. The Grand Duchy of Poznan, Silesia and Baltic Pomerania were no less consistently Germanized. Only the deeply provincial Austro-Hungarian Galicia was distinguished by some political and cultural independence. Historical boundaries of the new period: widespread shock capitalization of the 1870s - 1880s; The First World War and the formation in 1918 of a reunited, independent Polish state.

In the 1860s and 1870s of the 19th century. fiery mystical romanticism was supplanted from the self-consciousness of the nation by a pragmatic attitude. The heroic extravagance of the rebels was replaced by conservative loyalism, sober calculation, and the search for acceptable compromises. The “organic school” reigned in literature: prose was saturated with journalism, drama with everyday life, poetry almost disappeared. In the 1880s and 1890s, after two decades of naive faith in progress and creative “work from the ground up,” there was a return to romantic rebellion. Dreams of independence were revived, and faith in Polish messianism was revived. The time has come for another literary upsurge, turning point and rebellion - this time marked by a neo-romantic aspiration from positivism and naturalism to symbolism and expressionism.

The ground for new literary explorations was largely prepared by the Warsaw magazine Wędrowiec, where in 1884-1887. The outstanding artist and critic Stanislaw Witkiewicz (1851 - 1915) actively published. In the book “Art and Criticism with Us” (Sztuka i krytyka u nas, 1891), Witkiewicz substantiated the principles of synthesizing aesthetics, based on the criteria of form, but at the same time especially emphasizing the aspect of the social significance of the work and fidelity to the truth. In the book of essays “At the Pass” (Na przełęczy, 1891) he appeared as an apostle of the “Zakopane style”, glorifying the folk culture of the Tatra highlanders. In addition to asserting the autonomy of art, Witkiewicz's activities contributed to the strengthening of the most important Polish ethnic-regional myth of the turn of the century.

The guidelines for modern literature were outlined by the Warsaw magazine Žycie, in 1887-1890. published under the editorship of one of the initiators of the “new art,” poet and critic Zenon Przesmycki (1861 - 1944). His series of articles “Harmonies and Dissonances” (Harmonie i dysonanse, 1891) in the Krakow magazine “Świat” (Świat, 1888-1895) - the first manifesto of Polish neo-romanticism - aimed art at the knowledge of timeless beauty, “horizons beyond the reach of reason.” The Warsaw Chimera (Chimera, 1901 - 1907), edited by Przesmycki, consistently adhered to the same orientation.

In the Krakow magazine “Zycie” (Žycie, 1897-1900), in 1898 - 1900. published under the editorship of S. Przybyszewski (more about him below), similar aesthetic principles were formulated. The motto of the writers who rallied around the magazine was the radical elitism of art, as well as the search for metaphysical values. Conservatives demanded in response the “disinfection” of literature and the introduction of a “moral quarantine” against Europeanism, which, of course, only contributed to the consolidation of a new literary generation. The Krakow magazine Kritika (Krytyka, 1896-1914), which sought to achieve nationwide integration of literature of all directions, constructively objected to the extremes. An appeal to classical traditions was proclaimed and encouraged by another Krakow magazine, Museion (1911 - 1913).

Criticism during this period moved away from the ideal of objectivity to metaphorical-emotional subjectivism: the didactic-evaluative function gave way to “feeling”, self-identification with the writer. The programmatic and analytical essay became the dominant genre, which corresponded to the increasingly significant formative role of criticism in literary development. The conventional name of the border literary era - “Young Poland” (Młoda Polska) goes back to the title of a series of articles on modern literature, published in 1898 in “Zhicz” by the critic A. Górski (Artur Gorski, 1870-1950). Welcoming “young” literature, Gursky had in mind primarily the interests of the spiritual transformation of the nation. Meanwhile, “Young Poland” is a contradictory polyphony, a combination of very different trends. Opposites are combined here: positivist prudence and spontaneous “decadentism”, elitist protest and civil rebellion, aggressive hedonism and appeal to conscience, reportage detail and anarchic subjectivity of vision.

In other words, the literary consciousness was dominated by a feeling of discord, crisis, “bankruptcy of ideas,” and a premonition of upheaval. The threat of social unification gave rise to a thirst for flashy originality, a desire to present oneself as something more. Literature, assembling fragmentary impressions, opened up to the myth of the super-artist cognizing the absolute. The creators defended the right to be incomprehensible - a new manner of communication with the reader and a new poetics were born, which finally abolished normativity.

Perhaps the center of Polish literature at the turn of the century was poetry. The variants of “new poetry” are varied, but there are essentially few strong poets. The majority hopelessly sought nirvana, oblivion of suffering in self-deepening, contemplation of the comforter - nature. However, there was also poetry of energetic philosophical thought and social reflection. What was common was a departure from narrative and descriptiveness, from the sober logic of naming and persuasion to the expression of the inexpressible, symbolic suggestion, associative transfers, and fantastic hyperbolization. There has been an intensification of expressive means, which is characterized by the alternation of figurative plans, the merging of the abstract with the concrete - either through harsh contrast, oxymoronicity, or through emphasized smoothness, neutralization of oppositions.

It was intended to evoke in the reader not so much understanding as a willingness to succumb to the suggestive influence of the image. The relatively strict verification rules of Polish syllabic and syllabonic verse were noticeably supplanted by free verse.

The event was the posthumous discovery of the “fourth prophet” of Polish poetry (after Mickiewicz, Słowacki and Krasinski) - Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821 - 1883), whose work, not understood by his contemporaries, powerfully influenced the development of modern literature. Przesmycki published unknown and forgotten works of Norwid in “Chimera”, then published several volumes (1911 - 1913) of the works of the author of “Vademecum”, whose newfound bitter lines seemed to foreshadow the tragedies of the 20th century:

Oh so, wszystko, with jest za... nad-
-to — ignis sanat
Ferrum sanat.
Oh tak — i na krwi оbłоku
W czerwonym gołąb szlafroku
Lśni jak granat.
Ferrum sanat.
Ignis sanat.

Oh yes, everything that is too... over -
Ignis sanat,
Ferrum sanat 1.
Oh yes - and on a cloud of blood
Pigeon covered in red -
Lightning of all fans:
Ferrum sanat.
Ignis sanat.
(translated by A. Bazilevsky)

Since the mid-1870s, the presence of Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910) - a subtle poet, author of philosophical lyrics, songs and ballads, translator of G. Hauptmann, E. Verhaeren, A. C. Swinburne - has been noticeable. A passionate prose writer and naturalist, in fictionalized reports and short stories, as well as in the novel in verse “Pan Balcer in Brazil” (Pan Balcer w Brazylii, 1892-1906), Konopnitskaya gave evidence of the sad fate of the people. Her lyro-epic “pictures”, songs-moans, songs-tears, written on a folk note, are about the same thing. Here is a poignant lullaby from “Songs without Echoes” (Pieśni bez echa, 1886):

Oj uśnij, zlotko moje,
Oj łzami cię napoję,
Oj łzami cię obmyję,
Bo ty niczyje!
Nie będę lnu siewala,
Nie będę go i rwała,
W szmateczki cię powiję,
Bo ty niczyje!
Oj chodzi wiatr po polu,
Oj nasiał tam kąkolu;
Oj kąkol rosę pije,
A ty niczyje!
Oj chodzi wiatr po niebie,
Oj chmurki there kolebie;
Jaskо́łka gniazdko wije,
A ty niczyje!

Oh, child, bye-bye!
Oh, I'll water you with tears,
I will sprinkle your face
Because you are nobody's business.
Oh, I won’t sow flax,
Oh, I won’t weave swaddling clothes,
I'll wrap you in rags
Because you are nobody's business.
The wind flies across the field,
The wind whistles across the steppe,
Sows bitter reality...
Sleep, child, because you are no one's.
A cloud is walking in the sky,
Birds sing in the forests,
The bird builds its nest...
Sleep, child, because you are no one's,
(translated by D. Samoilov)

The sincere, prolific and skillful versifier Jan Kasprowicz (1860-1926) began with romantic poems and narrative-descriptive poems about the people's troubles.

After the symbolist collection “The Wild Rose Bush” (Krzak dzikiej rozy, 1898) in the books of catastrophic hymns “To the Perishing World” (Gin^cemu światu, 1901) and “Salve Regina” (1902), he gave the first Polish examples of expressionism, angrily protesting against the tragedy of the human being. Subsequently, in search of ways of moral transformation, in “The Book of the Poor” (Księga ubogich, 1916) and the tragicomedy “Marchołt gruby a sprośny” (1920) he turned to Franciscan primitivism. He left a gigantic legacy as a translator of poetry, primarily English (Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Keith, Wilde). He also translated Ibsen's plays.

The melodic and graceful poems of the sophisticated impressionist lyricist Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer (Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, 1865-1940), collected in eight “series” of the collection “Poetry” (Poezje, 1891-1924), are the most characteristic texts of the “Young Poland” era, popular a huge success with the public. This poetry, imbued with melancholy and sensuality, is masterfully intonated, but there is often a sense of predictability in it. Tetmyer is also the author of campy, decadent novels about tragic passions and unrecognized geniuses. The most valuable thing he wrote is a cycle of tales in the Gural dialect “On the Rocky Podhale” (Na skalnem Podhalu, 1903-1910) about the passing world of robbers, hunters and shepherds from the protected Polish Tatras.

An ironic opposition to the sentimental-hysterical spiritualism of “modernity” was the demonstrative ordinariness of the poetry of Tadeusz Boy-Želeński (1874–1941), one of the founders of the Krakow literary cabaret “Green Balloon” (Zielony balonik, 1905–1912). He was the author of famous satirical poems and couplets collected in the book “Words” (Słо́wka, 1911), directed both against social pharisaism and against the mythology of art as a sacred rite. A funny game and aphoristic formulations were also a characteristic of the style of Boy-Zhelensky - a critic and publicist. He was also a tireless translator of French classics (the 100-volume “Boy Library” - from F. Villon to A. Jarry).

The most original lyricist Bolesław Leśmian (Bolesław Leśmian, 1877-1937) in the books “Garden at the Crossroads” (Sad rozstajny, 1912) and “Meadow” (Ląka, 1920) with the help of flexible morphology, fastened with folk intonations, metaphorically expressed a tragic view of the ever-elusive from the knowledge of the world, to the hard work of existence. An expert in Slavic, Celtic, and Eastern mythology, he built his whimsical, sarcastic and serious poetry as a ballad about the everyday suffering of the universe turning into pleasure, about endless ontological transformations and catastrophes. Lesmyan’s lyrical hero seeks God in the cycle of nature, but finds Him in a nearby metaphysical “dungeon”:

Bože, pelen w niebie chwały,
A na krzyzu - pomamiały -
Gdzieś się skrywał i gdzieś bywał,
Žem Cię nigdy nie widywał?
Wiem, že w moich klęsk czeluści
My mnie Twoja nie opuści!
Czyli razem trwamy dzielnie,
Czy tež každy z nas oddzielnie.
Mоw, с czynisz w tej godzinie,
Kiedy dusza moja ginie?
Czy lzę ronisz potajemną,
Czy tež giniesz razem ze mną?

God, the sky is full of power,
You hang wingless on the cross -
Where were you, where were you hiding,
Why didn't you see me?
I know: in troubles and grief in the abyss
Your will will not disappear!
We both know no fear
Or is everyone a handful of dust?
No, my soul will not perish.
Just tell me where you are now -
You shed a tear over me
Or do you disappear too?
(translated by A. Bazilevsky)

Lesmyan also wrote several cycles of Russian poems, as well as a number of conceptual symbolic dramas, including an extensive libretto for the pantomime “The Furious Fiddler” (Skrzypek Opętany, 1911) - the rarest example of this genre in world literature. In addition, Lesmyan is the author of adaptations of folk tales and legends “Tales from Sesame” (Klechdy sezamowe, 1913), “The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor” (Przygody Syndbada Žeglarza, 1913), “Polish Tales” (Klechdy polskie, 1914), translator of the collection short stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

Leopold Staff (1878-1957) called himself a “Jolly Pilgrim.” In the first collections - “Dreams of Power” (Sny o potędze, 1901), “Day of the Soul” (Dzień duszy, 1903), “Birds of the Sky” (Ptakom niebieskim, 1905) - he appeared as a symbolist, then went through a complex evolution. The highest value in Staffa's poetry appears to be the joy of search, being itself, the charm of which lies in its paradoxical ambiguity. In the darkest years, the poet is faithful to the Dionysian-optimistic image of the world, affirms the heroic concept of a human creator who conquers adversity with his will. An Epicurean and a Stoic, a translator of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, F. Nietzsche and Eastern poetry, Staff is unshakable in his Olympian calm and adherence to classical models. Based on the premise that dreams are higher than life, emphasizing the impermanence of existence and the unattainability of harmony, he seems to be keeping himself from contact with reality, balancing on the brink of abstraction, but looking for beauty everywhere.

The Catholic liturgy includes several Staffian transcriptions of psalms and Latin hymns. He himself was the author of heartfelt spiritual poems:

Kto szuka Cię, juž znalazł Ciebie;
Ten Cię ma, komu Ciebie trzeba;
Kto tęskni w niebo Twe,
jest w niebie;
Kto głodny go, je z Twego chleba.
Nie widzą Ciebie moje oczy,
Never mind. Ciebie moje uszy:
A jesteś światłem w mej pomroczy,
A jesteś śspiewem w mojej duszy!

He who seeks has found You,
And in the sky the one who wants the sky
And he who was hungry and filled with love,
A corner of divine bread.
I can't hear you in silence,
My eyes don't see you,
But You are the song of my soul,
You are the light of an impenetrable night!
(translated by M. Khoromansky)

In the following decades, Staff's poetry - in parallel with the general trend - will reveal a different side. Freeing himself from the excess of words, moving from allegories and symbols to direct conceptual expression, he will turn to free verse, a language “without a mask.” This poetry will be marked by lofty simplicity and stern restraint, behind which, according to Ruzhevich, “silence creeps in.”

The drama of the turn of the century, increasingly saturated with metaphorical fantasy, evolved towards “non-stage”, poetic forms of internal theater. Symbolic-expressive drama with elements of the grotesque, dedicated to historical, psychological and philosophical problems, is the main development of the stage of that time. The contribution of naturalistic social drama, which, by the way, is quantitatively the most representative, is also valuable.

Among the numerous family comedies by Gabriela Zapolska (1857-1921), the best is “Moralność pani Dulskiej” (1906). By exposing petty-bourgeois hypocrisy and inhumanity in her “tragedies of fools,” the writer depicted in all its ugliness the hypocritical morals of a capitalizing Poland. In the harsh naturalistic stories of the collection “The Human Menagerie” (Menažeria ludzka, 1893), the stories “Kaska-Kariatyda” (Kaska-Kariatyda, 1887), “A Piece of Life” (Kawał žycia, 1891), “The Threshold of Hell” (Przedpiekle, 1895) Zapolskaya, depicting crippled human destinies, sought to give the “naked truth of life.” However, in both prose and drama, her satire is seasoned with edification, sentimental rhetoric and melodrama.

In the poetic dramas of Karol Hubert Rostworowski (1878-1938), timeless problems and eternal images are given new psychological interpretations. The tragedy “Judas Iscariot” (Judasz z Kariothu, 1912) demonstrates the inevitable collapse of pragmatic calculation, leading to crime and the disintegration of personality. In the drama “Caesar Gaius Caligula” (Kajus Cezar Kaligula, 1917), the Roman emperor is depicted as an experimenter, using intimidation and bribery to provoke his courtiers to meanness. The subtle semantic instrumentation of the dialogues gives Rosvorovsky’s moralistic historiosophical plays ideological polyphony.

Stanislaw Wyspiański (1869-1907) is a recognized leader of Young Poland, an artist and playwright who ushered in the era of large-scale, picturesque poetic spectacles in the Polish theater. In his poetic dramas and historical “rhapsodes” he is busy with monumental generalizations and symbolic development of problems of national and social liberation.

Wyspiański's stage scores use the technique of figurative suggestion in combination with open composition and specificity of details, which avoids forced allegorism. Wyspianski outlined his concept of a “huge theater” in his treatise on Hamlet (1905); Analyzing Shakespeare's tragedy, he formulated a number of innovative principles of directing, scenography and acting.

In the cycles of “Greek” and Slavic-pagan dramas by Wyspianski, epic antiquity is glorified, history is reworked into a skeptical legend: the defeat and death of the heroes are predetermined by their psyche; the tragic “curse” lies on a person whose duty is to withstand the blow of fate. Modern tragedies: “The Curse” (Klątwa, 1899) - about the ritual murder of a priest’s mistress by peasants from a remote village (the sinner is sacrificed to make it rain) and “The Judge” (Sędziowie, 1907) - about the retribution of fate for the murder of a seduced woman and her child - built according to ancient models and imbued with biblical pathos.

The tale-pamphlet “The Wedding” (Wesele, 1901) is a ruthless cross-section of a society stricken by apathy and idiocy. In the somnambulistic whirling of the wedding guests and their visions, patriotic impulses and dreams dissipate without a trace, giving way to deep hibernation: the knight’s “hat with feathers” and the “golden horn” of happiness are once again lost. The tragedy “Liberation” (Wyzwolenie, 1902) presents the struggle of different classes with the statue-spirit of the national Genius: the author polemicizes with the romantic myth of the revival of the homeland through sacrificial atonement.

There are few lyrics in Wyspiański’s legacy, but almost all of them are masterpieces, like this poem from 1903:

Niech nikt nad grobem
mi nie place
krom jednej mojej žony,
za nic mi wasze łzy sobacze
i žal ten wasz zmyśslony.
Niecz dzwon nad trumną.
mi nie Krakze
ni śpiewy wrzeszczą czyje;
niech deszcz na pogrzeb mój
zaplacze
i wicher niech zawyje.
Niech, who chce, grudę
ziemi ciśnie,
až kopiec mnie przywali.
Nad kurhan słońce niechaj błyśnie
i zeschlą glinę pali.
A kiedyś može, kiedyś jeszcze,
gdy mi się sprzykrzy ležec,
rozburzę dom ten, gdzie
się mieszczę,
i w słońce pocznę biežec.
Gdy mnie ujrzycie, takim lotem
že postac mam juž jasną
to zawołajcie mnie z powrotem
tą mową moją wlasną.
Bym ja posłyszał tam do góry
gdy gwiazdę będę mijał —
podejmę može raz po wtо́ry
ten trud, with mnie zabijał.

Let none of you cry
above the fob - only my wife.
I'm not waiting for your dog tears,
I don't need your pity.
Let the funeral choir
doesn't shout
church bells don't croak,
and the rain will drum out mass
and speech will replace the moan of the wind.
And a handful of earth is someone else's hand
will throw it on my coffin, and then
let the sun dry, shining,
My mound, my clay house.
But maybe, bored with the darkness,
at some hour, at some year
I will dig up the earth from the inside
and I will direct my flight towards the sun.
And you, recognizing my spirit at its zenith
already in the guise of another,
then call me to the ground
me with my own tongue.
And suddenly hearing your word
in your boyfriend between the stars,
I'll do it again maybe
the work that killed me here.
(translated by V. Levik)

Tadeusz Micinski (1873-1918) - an unorthodox thinker, a harbinger of new paths in literature.

His numerous mystery dramas, written in sublimely ecstatic language, and partly in verse, transfer empirical events into the timeless context of the “theater of the soul.” In the drama “Prince Potemkin” (Kniaž Patiomkin, 1906), the tragedy from Byzantine times “In the darkness of the golden palace, or Basilissa Teofanu” (W mrokach złotego pałacu, czyli Bazylissa Teofanu, 1909), other plays, social experience is summarized in mythological matrices reflecting sacred-demonic duality of existence. The pathos of the monologues is intertwined with the prosaic triviality of events. The chaotic richness of the text is reflected in mannerist extravagance, intricacies of stylization, emotional verbosity, and a paradoxical combination of uncertainty with an excess of details.

Mitsinsky’s novels “Netota. The Secret Book of the Tatras" (Nietota. Księga tajemna Tatr, 1910) and "Prince Faust" (Ksiądz Faust, 1913). Mitsinsky's visionary prose, permeated with dramatic and poetic inserts, sometimes turning into a treatise, combines intense spiritualism, esoteric allegories and an adventure plot based on the motives of a real story and unfolded in a series of loosely connected episodes. Mitsinsky’s only book of poems, “In the Darkness of the Stars” (W mroku gwiazd, 1902), like his numerous prose poems, expresses metaphysical horror of the cosmos, tells of the spiritual vicissitudes of the “prisoner of existence,” who, in alienation from the absurd world, tries to return yourself divine dignity.

Shockingly unusual for its time was the “merry tragedy” of Karol Irzykowski (1873-1944) “The Benefactor of Villains” (Dobrodziej złodziei, 1907). In the grotesque story of a philanthropist businessman’s unsuccessful attempt to make humanity happy, the author’s desire to remove the “Young Poland” tragic-pathetic emphasis is obvious, presenting the world in a distorting mirror of the absurd. In the caustic novel-essay “The Scary Man” (Pałuba, 1903), Izhikowski brought to light the “wardrobe of the soul” of the characters: the endless rethinking of everyday facts takes on the meaning of “psychic contraband” against the backdrop of biographical details hidden by the characters even from themselves. Parodying cliches of modernism, the novel marked the beginning of the newest tradition of Polish skeptical prose. A rationalist, an opponent of aesthetic “depths”, but also of superficial social “heroism,” Izhikovsky summarized the experience of modern literature in a book of essays “Deed and Word” (Czyn i slowo, 1912), speaking as a champion of the “principle of complexity.”

A characteristic feature of the period is the flourishing of traditional narrative prose, primarily historical, and moral-descriptive-psychological short stories and novels. Outstanding prose writers of the older generations continued to create, adhering to epic plot forms. At the same time, prose at the turn of the century developed towards lyrical stylization, compositional discreteness, and blurring the boundaries of genres. The imitation of confession and objective narration gave way to a contrasting form, a montage of episodes expressing the rapid change of the author’s mental states. There was an expansion of hypertrophied poetic utterance, saturated with alliterations, inversions, and even purely poetic episodes. The tendency towards intellectualization was reflected in the penetration of rhetorically parascientific discourse and documents into prose. The dramatization of prose was facilitated by the active introduction of dialogues and internal monologues in the absence (or emphasized aggressiveness) of a narrator-reasoner.

The patron of Polish naturalism and the largest animal painter, Adolf Dygasiński (1839-1902), who made his debut in 1883, masterfully painted nature and peasant life, telling with gloomy doom the tragic fate of people and animals, the weakness of nobility, the triumph of base self-interest and barbarism social relations. In his numerous short stories with everyday plots, the novels “New Mysteries of Warsaw” (Nowe tajemnice Warszawy, 1887), “Vodka” (Gorzałka, 1894), the stories “Breaking Headlong” (Na zlamanie karku, 1891) and “Lubondz Dramas” (Dramaty) lubądzkie, 1896) people are likened to a special biological species, increasingly brutalized under the influence of possessive instincts.

In his fictionalized treatise “Korolek, or the Celebration of Life” (Mysikrólik, czyli Gody žycia, 1902), Dygasinsky outlined his pagan-Christian mythology of the universe. Eliza Orzeszko (1841 - 1910) in the 1880s moved from edifying and sentimental everyday novels to full-blooded realistic paintings exposing a bleak social reality. In the “boors” of the people she found treasures of the soul that the “enlightened” and soulless “Argonauts”-bourgeois never dreamed of.

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), in addition to many now classic short stories, created his main novels during this period. This is a historical trilogy: “With Fire and Sword” (Ogniem i mieczem, 1884), “Flood” (Potop, 1886), “Pan Wolodyjowski” (Pan Wolodyjowski, 1888), glorifying courage and honor, gave powerful support to the patriotic hopes of compatriots; “Without Dogma” (Bez dogmatu, 1891) is a novel in the form of a diary of a weak-willed decadent, in which Sienkiewicz showed himself as a skilled analytical psychologist; “Quo vadis”, (1896) is a plastic image of the struggle of early Christianity against late Roman despotism, the victory of the rising popular culture over the fading culture of the patricians.

In the epic about the defeat of the Teutonic dog knights “The Crusaders” (Krzyžacy, 1900), a multifaceted panorama of a distant era is given through the everyday perception of a medieval warrior. Glorifying the noble honor and valor, Sienkiewicz resurrects faith in the ultimate triumph of justice, demonstrating the historical doom of a system based on suppression and treachery. “The Crusaders,” a work that greatly contributed to strengthening the spirit of the nation, is the crown of the literary work of Sienkiewicz, who became a Nobel laureate in 1905.

Boleslaw Prus (Boleslaw Prus, 1847-1912) began publishing as a short story writer in the 1880s. A reasoner and preacher, not without a sense of humor, however, and a supporter of the ideas of social evolution, Prus advocated joint peaceful work without distinction of classes, for “small deeds” in the name of the gradually acquired “common benefit.” Calling for altruism and reconciliation, he understood the illusory nature of hopes for “class harmony” and for those in power to renounce their personal good. His “Outpost” (Placowka, 1885) is recognized as the first naturalistic story in Polish literature - a heroic story about the struggle for their land of peasants displaced by Germanic strangers. “The Doll” (Lalka, 1889) is a psychologically accurate slice of life in an anachronistic urban society, the story of the death of a non-viable hybrid - a “cultural” idealistic businessman (who made his fortune on military contracts).

Prus's last major work - his only historical novel "Pharaoh" (Faraon, 1896) - leads to the idea that the self-sacrifice of a reformer ruler, acting with reckless ardor in the interests of the people, despite the appearance of defeat, is capable of breaking the power of the caste of priests and palace intriguers.

Short story writer and novelist Władysław Reymont (1868-1925), a future Nobel laureate (1924), painted hopeless pictures of stultifying work and social decline: corruption, unemployment, homelessness, ruin, hunger. In the novel “The Promised Land” (Ziemia obiecana, 1895-1899), Reymont created a nightmarish image of a capitalist city, the “pathology of millionaires,” but also... he painted a portrait of a “recovered” factory owner. However, in the tetralogy “Men” (Chłopi, 1899-1908), full of sorrow for the dispossessed people, he epically told how a rebellion was brewing in the peasant community. A colorful novel, kept in the rhythm of the changing seasons and calendar rituals, written using folk dialects. The short story “The Dreamer” (Marzyciel, 1908) is a requiem for a “little” man: a lonely, defenseless sufferer, consumed by melancholy, commits suicide.

Stefan Žeromski (1864-1923) was the largest prose writer of the period, the author of short stories, prose poems, and large problem novels. Żeromski’s work is permeated with sympathy for a disadvantaged individual, longing for an idea that will save his country and humanity. He perceived individual existence as a chain of deprivations, social life as a “desert of lawlessness.”

In Żeromski’s intensely emotional, expressive prose, reality is untenable and requires fundamental changes, but dreams, when realized, also fail. There is nothing fair “once and for all,” guaranteed to be free from lies: the worst tyranny of unfreedom is in the soul of man himself. The novel “Homeless” (Ludzie bezdomni, 1899) is a dispute between the life positions of asceticism and selfishness: the idealistically thinking hero, a doctor, refuses happy love in the name of fighting for the benefit of the disadvantaged. The historical trilogy “Ashes” (Popioły, 1904), a panorama of national life during the partitions of Poland and the Napoleonic wars, tells the story of legionnaires returning to their homeland with “ashes” in their hearts, but with faith in the coming triumph of justice. The novel “The History of Sin” (Dzieje grzechu, 1908) is evidence of the triumph of evil, the fall of the individual under the influence of uncontrollable passions. The theme of the trilogy “The Fight against Satan” (Walka z szatanem, 1916-1919) is the futility of philanthropic thoughts, the crime of war, the brotherhood of perishing peoples.

The ideas of liberation and justice fostered by Żeromski collide with the spiritual weakness of the characters - faith turns to “ashes”, dreams turn into a “story of sin”.

Almost all plots have an unthinkable, almost parodic, utopian twist. The heroes are both noble and vile, honest and cynical, the high and the low collide in them, their virtues are not compatible with life. An ideal-dogma, a duty-despot gravitate over them. For “good” they are ready to walk over corpses, sacrificing concrete humanity for the sake of “humane” schemes. The moral decline of the enlightened class is correlated by Żeromski with the measure of social degradation as a whole.

At the same time, his characters are haunted by a feeling of guilt, a feeling that their existence is secondary, inauthentic, as well as longing for a different, “real” life. Its grains are inside each of them, but unlike the narrator, the characters, as a rule, are not aware of this. However, Żeromski argues, the life of the world with all its absurdities, chaos, and unrealistic hopes is no less important than the life of the soul. Only in a collision with reality can one cognize, that is, create oneself. Breaking the original nature - the path to oneself - can become an ascent, although more often it ends in failure. The behavior of Żeromski's characters is sometimes illogical: they are driven by an unconscious impulse.

Żeromski introduced free, montage composition into the poetics of the Polish novel, created a dialogical fusion of objectivity and lyricism, and abandoned psychological determinism. The spectrum of points of view on what is depicted shows the relativity of judgments, values ​​appear dialectically mobile, they are shaded by ever new contrasts and antitheses. The picture of the world is ambivalent, the polyphonic narratives are open: the ending is a question mark. Sometimes sharp ironic contrasts begin to dominate the technique of dissonance. Zheromski then approaches black humor, tragic grotesque.

Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868 - 1927) - one of the masters of Young Poland. He wrote in German and Polish. The first literary works were the prose poems “Funeral Mass” (Totenmesse, 1893) and “Eves” (Vigilien, 1893), filled with jealousy and longing, the ecstatic naturalism of which is determined by complete trust in unconscious impulses, in the mysticism of the flesh (“in the beginning was lust” ). Przybyszewski was glorified by two exalted, pretentiously wordy novels dedicated to the confrontation of the “superman” with the environment, as well as with himself, with the destructiveness in his own nature.

The novel Homo sapiens (1896) is an analysis of love passion, jealousy and fear. The main character, the artist Falk, is a “reasonable” man, trampling on others, going ahead. In the first part - “At the Crossroads” - he steals his friend’s bride, in the second - “On the Road” - he seduces and corrupts another girl, in the third - “In Maelstrom” - without knowing how to restrain himself, he acquires a new mistress... Falk - a neurotic and a skeptic who has deified his “I”; There are three suicides on his conscience, evil triumphs in his actions, but in his soul there is an endless struggle between moral feelings and selfish drives. The entire novel is an introspective psychosession, a pseudo-dialogue between the hero and an imaginary double (as the plot progresses, the author touches on many socio-political issues). Matching Falk is the demonic and mournful Gordon, the hero of the novel “Children of Satan” (Satans Kinder, 1897), which tells about anarchist revolutionaries, people with a painfully distorted psyche. This is a cynical rebel who does not believe in anything. His destructive energy finds outlet in the absolute nihilism of destruction: a group of terrorists led by Gordon sets the city on fire. The theme of the novel clearly passed to the Polish writer from F. M. Dostoevsky (“Demons”).

In 1899, in the anti-positivist manifestos “Confiteor” and “For “new” art” (O “nową” sztuke), Przybyszewski energetically formulated his radical aesthetic credo of creativity: “Art has no goal, it is a goal in itself, an absolute, for it is a reflection of the absolute—the soul.” The artist, as an “aristocrat of the spirit,” is free from any obligations to the crowd. A representative of “true art” is allowed everything: there are no social or moral prohibitions. The highest value—“art for art’s sake”—consists in the knowledge of the “naked soul” through the analysis of primary instincts and mental anomalies that overcome the dictates of the “infinitely poor consciousness.”

Przybyszewski's obsession is the illusory nature of freedom. All human actions are determined biologically, personality is at the mercy of forces beyond its control, “there is no free will at all, and therefore there is no responsibility”; “Only art is capable of creating value; it is the only absolute accessible to man.” Przybyszewski contrasts eroticism and mysticism with “yesterday’s,” naturalistic art, which, in his opinion, is locked in a “cerebral,” illusory perception of existence. “Art understood this way becomes the highest religion, and its priest is an artist.” He is “Lord among Lords” - both above society and above the law.

In the prose poems “De profundis” (1895), “Androgyne” (Androgyne, 1900), novels and stories “Synagogue of Satan” (Synagoga szatana, 1897), “The Strong Man” (Mocny człowiek, 1912), “Children of Poverty” (Dzieci nędzy, 1913) and other works Przybyszewski subtly criticized the philistines and depicted the “ocean of the subconscious,” the unbridled dance of passions. His plots are usually limited to love affairs. The everyday world is denied in the name of the “truth of the soul” of the individual who has realized his demonic duality: pleasure requires ecstatic self-flagellation and destruction; social foundations are subject to destruction in the name of a mystical secret.

On the Polish and European stage, Przybyszewski's dramas about predetermined violent passions, fatal betrayals and suicides independent of the will of the heroes were a resounding success: “Mother” (Matka, 1903), “Snow” (Śnieg, 1903), “The Eternal Tale” (Odwieczna baśn, 1906), “Betrothal” (Sluby, 1906), etc.

In his programmatic essay “On drama and stage” (On dramacie i scenie, 1905), Przybyszewski formulated the concept of “synthetic drama” (“new drama consists of the individual’s struggle with himself”), but in practice his plays are a recombination of the same psychological images and stereotypical positions. The best thing he wrote in his mature period was the expressionistic novel “The Scream” (Krzyk, 1914), in which the disintegration of personality is linked to the creative weakness of the artist trying to capture in paint the “scream” of the street, its poverty and chaos.

In 1917-1918 Przybyszewski actively collaborated with the Polish expressionist magazine Zdroj (Zdroj, Poznan, 1917 - 1922), actually defining its line with his programmatic articles, in which he emphasized the connection of expressionism with the mystical movement in romanticism.

The innovations proposed by Przybyszewski boiled down to the development of the technique of dream vision, the introduction into prose of extensive dialogues and “silent” (in his words) monologues serving psychological analysis. The word “przybyszewschina” has become a household word in Poland to denote a hallucinatory figurative breakdown, a somewhat mannered development of decadent themes.

Interest in acute moral issues distinguishes Andrzej Strug (Andrzej Strug, 1871 - 1937). In the three-volume cycle of stories “People of the Underground” (Ludzie podziemni, 1908-1909), the stories “Tomorrow...” (Jutro..., 1908), “Portrait” (Portret, 1912) he depicts the revolution “from within”: the heroics of the struggle and sacrifice, moral dramas among radicals. The danger of doctrinaire fanaticism is allegorically shown in the story “The Story of a Bomb” (Dzieje jednego pocisku, 1910), a number of motifs of which echo A. Bely’s “Petersburg”; The “hellish machine” passes from hand to hand, to people who are increasingly selfish, far from the ideals of justice, and in the end disappears without exploding. Strug’s novel “Zakopanoptikon” (1913-1914) is dedicated to the morals of the “Young Poland” bohemia, its morbid aesthetics, on the one hand, and petty-bourgeois conformism, on the other.

The theme of the corrupting magic of wealth is raised in the “novel from someone else’s life” “Money” (Pieniądze, 1914). In the story “Chimera” (Chimera, 1919), Strug focuses on the theme of the struggle for national independence and the disappointments associated with it.

Strug's works are lyrical and pathetic. At the same time, Strug is no stranger to irony, which serves as a means of deforming his lyrical style. Hence the tension of the narrative, which is characterized by a kind of oneiric expressionism. In the aggressive, intricately flowing images into each other, in the impetuous, polyphonic internal monologue, unusual, sometimes pathological states of mind are captured, both hallucinations and bright dreams of the heroes, overwhelmed by a frenzied thirst for a different life, are captured.

Vaclav Berent (Wacław Berent, 1873-1940), a master of expressionistic storytelling, captured in his novel “Rotten” (Prochno, 1903) the drama of decadence: the barren life of a bohemian, discord in the soul and the creative weakness of the artist (a “rotten place” glowing in the darkness). The action of the novel Ozimina (1911) takes place over the course of one night, in the salon of a Warsaw aristocratic stockbroker and at a working demonstration. The author confronts the cynical world of plutocrats, the social inertia of intellectuals and the people waking up from hibernation. “Living Stones” (Žywe kamienie, 1918) is a novel in the form of a medieval ballad: a troupe of traveling comedians brings the spirit of freedom to a well-fed middle-class city. This novel is the quintessence of “Young Poland” prose and at the same time a denial of its pessimistic inertia. Berent brilliantly translated and commented on the works of F. Nietzsche.

The greatest literary achievement of Jerzy Zuławski (1874-1915) is the fantastic trilogy “On the Silver Ball” (Na srebrnym globie, 1903), “The Winner” (Zwycięzca, 1910), “Old Earth” (Stara Ziemia, 1911). The narrative of the turbulent history of the Moon is correlated with the dystopian image of global automation of the future earthly society, powerless in the face of mutual responsibility of selfish power.

The singer of the Gural poor, Władyslaw Orkan (1875-1930), is the author of the collection of short stories “Above the Cliff” (Nad urwiskiem, 1899) and the rhythmically sonorous, compositionally impeccable socio-psychological novels “The Farmhands” (Komorniсу, 1900) and “In the Valleys” (Wroztokach, 1903). Coming from a village, Orkan wrote about his world naturally and passionately, creating unusual, colorful characters. His works are based on folk legends and dreams, revealing the tragic rivalry between the natural world and the human world, foreshadowing the birth of a peasant hero - a rebel and a leader.

Stanisław Brzozowski (Stanisław Brzozowski, 1878-1911) in his intellectual novels from the lives of professional revolutionaries and thinkers (“Flame”, Płomienie, 1908; “Alone Among the People”, Sam wśrod ludzi, 1911) narrated the feat of spiritual ascent and internal search. He developed a “philosophy of action,” according to which the measure of an individual’s independence is its commitment to constantly changing goals, and a “philosophy of work,” an apology for human creative activity and the moral reorganization of society. A leading analyst of the literary events of the era, in literature Brzozowski valued above all else the intensity of experience and the energy of thought. An opponent of any orthodoxy, in the sensational book “The Legend of Young Poland” (Legenda Młodej Polski, 1910) he debunked modernity as a “rebellion of a flower against its roots,” a masquerade based on a loss of will, an alienated “historical” consciousness; at the same time, he categorically opposed the political engagement of art.

A popular writer was the nonconformist teacher Janusz Korczak (Janusz Korczak, 1878-1942), the future legendary author of “King Matt the First” (Krol Maciuś Pierwszy, 1923). His novels, written with lyrical humor, but figuratively tough, “Children of the Street” (Dzieci ulicy, 1901) and “Child of the Salon” (Dziecko salonu, 1906) glorify childhood as a period of fullness of being, in its complexity hidden from adults, whose life is superficial, schematic and deceitful. A defender of the rights of the child, Korczak demands free development for him, devoting his narrative, which is not bound by canons, to this goal, which organically includes a sketch from life, a feuilleton, and a parable.

The pioneer of Polish associative grotesque prose, Roman Jaworski (1883-1944), in his collection of short stories “Stories of Maniacs” (Historie maniakow, 1910), depicted a strange, spatially and chronologically indefinite world, where beauty is fused with ugliness, boredom and impotence with dreams, and eccentricity borders on crime. By taking the conventions of poetics to the point of absurdity, the effect of deliberate mannerism is achieved; the author’s position is elusive, the style is strangely hybrid. Epithets, repetitions, archaisms, symbolic surroundings are piled up, abstract concepts are caricaturedly concretized, standard mental aberrations are ridiculed. Yavorsky’s work is the source and harbinger of a surge in the grotesque, which proved its vitality in subsequent decades.

Polish literature at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries. expanded the range of its problems, deepened the possibilities of social and psychological analysis, developed new principles of poetics. The general practice included the fundamental syncretism of expressive means, genre-style mixing, and lyricization of statements in all kinds. The era of “Young Poland” gave impetus to the development of tragicomic grotesque and literary parody; when innovations became routine, stereotypical techniques shifted to mass literature. Getting rid of the decadence syndrome contributed to the transition of Polish literature to that historical stage when, along with tradition, the concepts of the avant-garde, striving for a revolutionary renewal of the poetic language, began to play an increasingly significant role in it.

Literature

Collection of "Young Poland". - St. Petersburg, 1908.

Witt V. V. Stefan Zheromski. - M., 1961.

Bogomolova N. L., Medvedeva O. R. Polish literature [at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries] // History of the literature of the Western and Southern Slavs. - M, 2001. - T. 3.

Qomnski M. Powieść młodopolska. — Wroclaw, 1969.

Walicki A. S. Brzozowski - drogi myśli. — Warszawa, 1977.

Wyka K. Młoda Polska. - Krakow, 1977. - T. 1 - 2.

KrzyzanowskiJ. Neoromantyzm. — Warszawa, 1980.

Eustachiewicz L. Dramaturgia Młodej Polski. — Warszawa, 1982.

Symbolism in Poland: Collected Essays. — Detroit, 1984.

Terlecka A. M. S. Wyspianski and Symbolism. — Roma, 1985.

Marx J. Lebenspathos und Seelenkunst bei S. Przybyszewski. - Frankfurt a. M., 1990.

Notes

1. Fire will heal, iron will heal (lat.).

Polish literature at the endXIX - earlyXX century

Throughout the 19th century. (from 1795) Poland remained artificially torn into three parts, divided between Prussia, Austria and Tsarist Russia. All these decades the national liberation struggle of the Polish people continued.

Uprising 1863-1864 was brutally suppressed, but left an indelible mark on public life and literature. Therefore, we begin the periodization of modern Polish literature in 1863.

Immediately after the uprising, the tsarist government carried out a peasant reform in Poland (February 1864), which, however, far from resolved the peasant question. The reform and the associated capitalization of the countryside intensified the process of social stratification of the peasantry and the disintegration of the gentry. At the same time, the peasant reform of 1864. created the conditions for the industrial revolution of the 60s and 70s.

In the 70s and 80s, the strike struggle of the Polish working class became widespread. Workers' socialist circles are created and propaganda literature appears. In 1882, the first political organization of the Polish working class, the Proletariat, emerged, associated with the ideas of Marxism. The party had its own illegal press and published leaflets. Soon it was brutally defeated, many of its leaders were executed.

In the summer of 1889, the “Union of Polish Workers” emerged - the first mass organization of the Polish proletariat, which, despite all its shortcomings, played a significant role in the history of the development of the labor movement.

In an atmosphere of aggravation of class contradictions and the growth of the liberation and social movement of the 60-80s, the formation and development of critical realism took place in Polish literature, which produced such masters of words as Eliza Orzeszko, Boleslaw Prus, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Maria Konopnicka. Relying on the great romantic traditions of national literature, the traditions of Mickiewicz and Słowacki, Polish realist writers also turn to the rich creative experience of leading Russian writers - L. Tolstoy, I. Turgenev, N. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Grief over the suffering of the peasantry and urban poor, about the fate of the enslaved homeland becomes the leading motive of their work. The national theme is organically intertwined with the social one.

But in the 60-80s in Poland, the propaganda of reactionary bourgeois ideology intensified. At this time, “Warsaw positivism” became widespread, the basis of which was the preaching of class harmony, condemnation of the revolutionary struggle, and in particular the uprising of 1863, glorification of the activities of capitalist “creators”; reformism was combined with calls for cultural and educational work among the people. At the same time, Polish positivists (A. Świętochowski, J. Ochorowicz) talked a lot about love of people and progress. Positivism had a negative impact on the work of a number of Polish realist writers, including such as Orzeszko, Prus, Sienkiewicz and Konopnicka.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

(1846—1916)

The talented writer Henryk Sienkiewicz, in the first period of his work (in the 70s), created a number of vivid realistic works from folk life, imbued with warm sympathy for the disadvantaged people. This is the story “Yan-ko-musikant” (1880), which tells the sad story of a village boy who had a rare musical talent and was beaten to death with whips. This story is permeated with hopeless sadness and bitter indignation, but also with faith in the creative powers of the people. Polish nobles neglect their people, bowing only to foreign talents, and many unknown, unrecognized forces die as senselessly and cruelly as Janko died.

In the same spirit of love for the people and resentment for their bitter fate, the stories “Sketches with Coal” (1877), “Bartek the Winner” (1882), etc. were written. Sienkiewicz’s story “For Bread” (1882) was inspired by a trip to America. about Polish peasants who go to the United States in search of work and happiness, but die in a foreign country. During this period of creativity, Sienkiewicz shows not only love for the people and rare skill in depicting their suffering, but also expresses bold republican judgments.

Subsequently, Sienkiewicz changed his progressive views. He was attracted by the positivists' arguments about helping the people from the educated gentry, and he fell under the influence of Polish nationalists. In 1882 he headed the conservative newspaper Slovo.

In the 80s, Sienkiewicz created a trilogy consisting of three historical novels: “With Fire and Sword” (1883), “The Flood” (1886) and “Pan Volodyevsky” (1887). The novels attracted attention with a sharp plot and an abundance of historical details, but they are replete with melodramatic situations. There is an extreme idealization of the gentry and Polish feudalism. Reactionary-nationalist circles enthusiastically accepted Sienkiewicz's novels with their adventure themes that were attractive to youth. The farthest from historical truth is the novel “With Fire and Sword,” which depicts the struggle of the gentry against the Ukrainian people. The image of Bohdan Khmelnitsky is falsified, who is presented as an avenger for his personal grievances.

The second novel (“The Flood”), in which truly patriotic tendencies are strong, has certain merits. This novel shows Poland's struggle against the Swedish invaders and differentiates the images of the Polish gentry. Thus, the large magnate Radziwill betrays his homeland and deceives the small nobles, his vassals, into this betrayal. The ideological significance of the novel also brought to life artistic merits that were alien to the superficial, stylized novel “With Fire and Sword.” In “The Flood” the image of the main character, Andrei Kmitsitsa, is presented in development, in the struggle of contradictions, with a certain psychological depth.

In the 90s, Sienkiewicz created two socio-psychological novels from the modern era - “Without Dogma” (1890) and “The Polanecki Family” (1895). In these novels he searches (from a conservative position) for ways of salvation for the gentry dear to his heart. In the first novel, he sees such a path* in the presence of “dogma,” that is, certain principles and traditions. The hero of the novel, Leon Ploshovsky, is an educated and brilliant nobleman, but a man “without dogma.” He despises the demands of morality. All-corroding skepticism becomes his lot. He does not dare to marry his beloved girl Anela, so as not to lose his “freedom,” and when she is married off to someone else, he tries to get it through a monetary transaction with her husband. The hero’s unscrupulousness is contrasted with the firm “dogmas” of other people - primarily Aneli. The novel ends tragically: Anelya dies, and Ploshovsky himself commits suicide, realizing his mistakes too late. The novel is distinguished by its psychological depth and a number of vivid social sketches.

In the novel “The Polanecki Family” Sienkiewicz offers the gentry a new way of salvation - a transition to bourgeois methods of farming. He now dreams of combining bourgeois practicality with noble culture.

In 1896, Sienkiewicz wrote the historical novel “Kamo Gryadeshi” from the era of early Christianity. The novel was again built on the principle of external fascination and the pursuit of exoticism. It was translated into many European languages ​​and became a reference book in bourgeois families. It is impossible to deny the merits of the novel: “Sienkiewicz carefully studied the battled era and created a vivid picture of imperial Rome. With great skill, he draws his heroes from the ranks of the Roman patriciate, first of all, the graceful and noble, but mentally devastated Petronius. The main drawback of the book is the excessive idealization of Christianity, which entailed a series of pale and unconvincing images.

Among Sienkiewicz’s historical novels written in the romantic tradition, the best is the novel “The Crusaders” (1900), dedicated to the heroic struggle of the Polish and Lithuanian people against the German knights-invaders. Patriotism and the study of history suggested to the writer a vital topic that did not lose its relevance in the 20th century, when the German command again hatched delusional plans to seize Slavic lands. Sienkiewicz shows the monstrous cruelty of the crusader knights and creates colorful, charming, sometimes heroic, and sometimes humorous images of Polish soldiers, defenders of the homeland. The novel ends with an epic picture of the famous Battle of Grunwald (1410). Many features of the early Sienkiewicz - his democracy and patriotism - are resurrected in this novel, and the romance of adventure and exploits is combined with a skillful realistic depiction of a long-ago era.

In his theoretical articles, Sienkiewicz invariably defended and defended the principles of realism. Sienkiewicz remains for us a great writer who had a significant influence on the further development of Polish literature.

Maria Konopnitskaya

(1842-1910)

Maria Konopnitskaya, a poetess of rare originality and talent, wrote in her poems about the people's sorrows, about the need and lack of rights of the people. Even in her early collections (“Pictures” - 1876, “On the Pipe”, “From Meadows and Fields”) she creates a whole gallery of images of simple workers with their bitter lot. She writes about farm laborers who have lost their piece of land and are wandering in search of work among other people's meadows and fields; about soldiers who are forcibly driven to war for interests alien to them; about the little son of a worker dying in a cold basement; about children's graves overflowing cemeteries. The poetess places responsibility for all this suffering on the rich and noble; but her poetry in the early period was not yet of a revolutionary nature. It largely expresses the sentiments of the so-called “repentant nobility”; she asks the people for forgiveness for the inequality that separates them and places hopes on repentance and help from other nobles and intellectuals.

The charm of Maria Konopnitskaya's poetry and its popularity lay largely in her skillful use of the folk song genre with its lyricism and emotionality. At the same time, Maria Konopnitskaya never fell into nationalism or stylization. Even when depicting the distant past, idealized by Polish nationalists, she sees the suffering of the people and class discord even there. The poem “How the King Was Getting Ready for Battle,” written in the 80s, is very typical of her, both in form and content:

As the king prepared for battle,

Loud fighting pipes

The golden ones sounded

So that with victory

I was returning.

And how did Stakh go into battle?

The stream in the village began to rustle,

The ear of corn rustled in the field

About sadness, about captivity.

The poem ends with a touching picture of nature’s grief for the fallen peasant warrior:

And how they dug a hole for Stakha,

The breeze rustled in the oak trees,

And the bells rang

Lilac bells.

In the last period (in the 900s), revolutionary notes sounded in Konopnitska’s work: the influence of the growing labor movement and socialist ideas was felt. For about 20 years she worked on the long poem “Pan Balzer in Brazil.” While traveling in France, the writer met a group of exhausted Polish emigrants returning to their homeland from Brazil, where they had found neither work nor shelter. The poetess was amazed by the heroic endurance of the Polish people and for the first time thought about creating an epic about Polish emigrants. But as the work progressed, the poem sounded more and more optimistic, despite all the horrors and sorrows that the heroes had to endure.

Pie Baltser, a poor worker, and his companions, Polish emigrant peasants, are convinced at the cost of hardships and the death of loved ones that there is no need to seek happiness far from their homeland. Longing for abandoned Poland becomes their main feeling. They come to the decision to return to their homeland and seek happiness, justice, and reconstruction of life. This objectively revolutionary meaning of the poem is deepened by a number of realistic and at the same time symbolic scenes. In the fifth, penultimate part of the poem, the writer depicts a powerful labor movement, a demonstration of workers in a Brazilian port. Local workers support Polish emigrants. And the next, sixth chapter, under the symbolic title “Let’s go!”, seems to continue the picture of the demonstration: instead of scattered and unhappy emigrants who left their homeland in search of personal happiness, a united team returns to Poland, having gone through the crucible of the labor movement and ready to fight for the reconstruction of Poland .

Along with the growth of revolutionary sentiments in Konopnitskaya’s poetry, the patriotic theme also deepens. She is concerned about the idea of ​​pan-Slavic brotherhood, she calls for the creation of a free and happy Poland and for its defense. In one of her last poems, “The Oath” (1910), M. Konopnitskaya writes:

Oh, if you love this region,

And the father's blood, and the rustle of rye,

Guard your dear threshold

And lay down your soul for him!

This poem became the anthem during the liberation of Poland from the Nazis.

Konopnitskaya's popularity among the people was extremely high. In 1902, the Polish people raised funds to purchase a small estate, where the old writer, who was always in great need, was able to live comfortably in her last years. The celebration of her anniversary, despite opposition from the authorities, turned into a national holiday. In the Polish People's Republic, the memory of Maria Konopnicka is sacredly revered.

In the 90-900s, in connection with the transition of capitalism to the imperialist stage in Poland, the class and ideological struggle intensified, which was significantly influenced by the revolutionary struggle in Russia.

Events of the 90-900s

In 1892, the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) arose, which, however, soon split into two wings - the revolutionary, proletarian, and the bourgeois-nationalist. The left wing completely dissociated itself from the PPS and formed in 1893 the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP), headed by Rosa Luxemburg, Julian Marchlewski and, somewhat later, Felix Dzerzhinsky. It was a Marxist social democratic party that defended the interests of the Polish working class and fought for the connection between the Polish and Russian labor movements. In 1906 it joined the RSDLP.

The most serious mistake of the SDKP was underestimating the national question. Taking advantage of this, the teaching staff put forward primarily patriotic slogans and thereby attracted the intelligentsia and some workers to their side. However, these slogans only covered up extreme nationalism and the preaching of class solidarity of all Poles. The revolutionary elements of the PPS moved away from it during the revolution of 1905. The right wing was led by Pilsudski.

The 90-900s were, naturally, years of sharp intensification of the struggle in Polish literature.

The literature of critical realism continues to develop. At this time, she put forward a number of new names - these are Stefan Żeromski, Vladislav Reymont, Vladislav Orkan, etc. Proletarian literature was born (mass workers' songs, journalism by F. Dzerzhinsky, R. Luxemburg, Y. Marchlewski).

Polish decadents

At the same time, in the 90s, the decadent group “Young Poland” was created in Poland. The activity of the decadents especially intensified during the years of reaction that followed the revolution of 1905. Among the modernist writers, which include Z. Przesmycki, K. Tetmaier, S. Wyspiansky and others, Stanislav Przybyszewski (1868-1927) enjoyed sensational success among the bourgeoisie. All his work is permeated with hatred of the revolution. A native of the Prussian part of Poland, he began writing in German in Berlin. This is how his acclaimed novels “Children of Satan” (1897) and “Homo Sapiens” (1898) were written (and only later translated into Polish)

Przybyszewski was greatly influenced by Nietzsche. It is no coincidence that he titled his programmatic novel “Homo sapiens,” as if echoing Nietzsche and his superman.

In the novel “Children of Satan,” filled with all kinds of horrors, murders, and suicides, Przybyszewski slanderously portrayed the revolutionaries as a bunch of anarchist-terrorists. Przybyszewski pretends to be a deep psychologist, but depicts - and, moreover, rather primitively - only a sick, perverted psyche.

In the novel “Homo Sapiens,” the adventures of the newly-minted Don Juan Falk are presented as something philosophically significant and are also richly flavored with all sorts of horrors, especially suicide. The hero considers himself entitled to trample other people's lives, although he is sometimes tormented by fits of remorse.

Przybyszewski's heroes, Nietzscheans, invariably turn out to be criminals, and this sometimes creates the impression of an exposure of Nietzscheanism. But this only reveals the helplessness of decadence, which is forced to rush between the untenable and vicious Nietzschean ideal and narrow philistine morality. It is no coincidence that Przybyszewski ended his life as a believing Catholic and nationalist.

It was not decadence, but critical realism that was the defining literary movement in Poland at the beginning of the 20th century.

Vladislav Reymont

(1867-1925)

A significant phenomenon in Polish realistic literature at the beginning of the 20th century. Vladislav Reymont's novel "Men" appeared. The novel was written in 1905-1909. The revolutionary situation influenced the novel, contributing to its critical, revealing power, and was even reflected in the novel in episodes of peasant unrest. Dedicated to the life of a Polish village, the novel is filled with pictures of nature that highlight the experiences of the characters. It is also rich in folklore traditions, scenes of peasant customs and rituals. Having grown up in the village himself, V. Reymont knows the life of the peasantry and their language very well. Proverbs, sayings, legends, folk songs - all this is organically woven into the fabric of the narrative, enriching the language of the novel. With special attention, Reymont depicts labor processes, showing his peasant heroes, always busy with everyday hard work.

The novel mainly traces the history of one family - the family of the kulak Maciej Boryna. But it is traced against a broad social background. In Boryna's family, enmity is brewing between him and his son Antek. This is a struggle, first of all, for the land, but also for a woman - the old man’s second wife, Yagusya, with whom Antek fell in love.

However, when the peasant community collides with the landowner, this temporarily smoothes out internal contradictions among the peasantry. Old man Boryna is wounded by a guard, his son Antek stands up for him, who at that moment forgets his enmity with his father. He kills the tracker and goes to prison.

Reymont opposes the world of kulaks with their wolfish grip on the poor peasant-farmer part of the village. With special love, he draws the meek and humane farmhand Kuba, who, unlike his masters, is able to think and care about others. This man has golden hands and a golden heart. But he walks around in rags, since in his entire life he has not saved up money for a new zipun, he is subject to ridicule and even in church he must stand somewhere behind the door so as not to offend the appearance of the rich and well-fed. To earn a little extra money, he agrees to shoot game for the village innkeeper in the landowner's forest. Wounded by a forester, he dies of blood poisoning in a dirty barn, abandoned by everyone, without any help. The scenes of his death, presented with a merciless emphasis on terrible details, are interspersed (using the method of contrast) with scenes of a noisy, rich wedding in Boryna’s house. But this wedding is also fraught with a tragic, inhuman meaning: a young beauty is married off to a rich old man.

Reymont cannot be called a revolutionary; his novel is characterized by certain contradictions. In the last parts of the novel, written during the decline of the revolutionary wave, the social-critical acuity decreases and the image of the intellectual Roch, preaching class peace in the name of common Polish interests, is idealized. In the same parts, the writer emphasizes some new features in the image of Boryn: this is not only the cruelty and greed of the kulak, but also the passionate hard work of the peasant. Of course, Reymont shows here the duality characteristic of peasant psychology, the combination of the traits of an owner and a worker in one person. But in the first parts, kulak features sharply predominated in the image of Boryna, and now he begins to evoke some sympathy from the author.

However, those Polish critics who classified V. Reymont as a naturalist, ideologist of the kulaks, and even nationalists were deeply wrong. Reymont is alien to cold objectivism; his novel is permeated with a passionate attitude towards reality. He hates the kulaks, he hates the power of money and property. The writer does not at all idealize (at the end of the book) Antek, when after the death of his father he becomes a master, a fist. The writer shows the corrupting influence of property on both the former rebel Antek and his once meek and downtrodden wife Ganka. They become the same world-eaters as their predecessor Boryna.

Sympathy for the disadvantaged, a dream of justice, great artistic skill and excellent knowledge of the village distinguish Reymont's novel.

Stefan Żeromski

(1864-1925)

Stefan Żeromski was a major and original writer. He appeared in literature in the 80s. A difficult youth full of hardships, bitter observations (of the life of the Polish people, a fruitful interest in the works of Russian writers, especially Turgenev and Tolstoy - all this contributed to the development of truthful talent and a serious attitude to life. In his first stories, S. Zheromski depicts a post-reform Polish village with its "poverty and lack of rights. He portrays the gentry sharply negatively, the poor peasants - with deep sympathy. A stunning impression is made by the story "Oblivion", in which a rich gentleman and his steward beat the peasant Obalya, who "stole" several boards for his coffin a teenage Syyu who died of starvation.

Already in his early stories, S. Zheromski puts forward his positive ideal, to which he will basically remain faithful to the end. This is the ideal of selfless and selfless service to the people. Its positive heroes are intellectuals who give their knowledge and strength to the people. Such is the village teacher Stanislava, who is dying alone from typhus in a poor village (the story “Inflexible”).

Later, towards the end of the 90s, pessimistic notes intensified in the work of S. Żeromski. The titles of the stories speak about this - “The Grave”, “The Crows Will Peck Us”, etc. Zheromski turns to the theme of the uprising of 1863 and resolves the question of whether it was in vain. At this time, serving the people, characteristic of his heroes, takes on an increasingly tragic, sacrificial character. Żeromski’s close connection with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), in which he believed, which attracted him with its patriotic slogans, but weakened his revolutionary impulses, had an effect.

In the novel “The Homeless” (1900), Żeromski turns to depicting the life of the proletariat, noting not only its suffering, but also its readiness to fight. But the writer’s main and favorite hero remains the intellectual, Dr. Tomasz Judym, who selflessly fights for the health of workers and for improving working conditions in factories and mines. Yudym is sure that a true fighter should not think about personal happiness and create family comfort. He refuses to marry his beloved girl, although she fully shares his beliefs. The tragic loneliness of the hero is symbolized at the end of the novel in the image of a pine tree split by a landslide, although at the same time this image serves as the personification of Poland split into three. Selflessness in Yudym, like many other heroes of Żeromski, develops into useless sacrifice; an erroneous position is put forward about the incompatibility of love and social duty.

S. Zheromski overestimates the strength of the individual, dreams of intellectual heroes, leaders, talented scientists who will make the necessary revolution alone, with the power of their science (the drama “Rose”, the novel “The Beauty of Life”). But Zheromski enthusiastically welcomed the revolution of 1905.

S. Żeromski, like most Polish writers, turns to a historical theme. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. he writes the historical epic novel “Ashes” about the Napoleonic wars and the participation of the Polish legions in them. He planned to write a whole trilogy about Poland’s struggle for national independence in the 19th century. The second novel, “Sparks,” dedicated to the uprising of 1830, was also written in rough form, but the manuscript was confiscated from the writer by the gendarmes.

Soon S. Zheromski had to see the war with his own eyes. Events of 1914-1918 brought the greatest suffering to Poland. Torn apart between warring states, Poland found itself embroiled in a fratricidal war and then became a battleground. Masses of refugees poured from the territory of the so-called Kingdom of Poland into Russia.

S. Zheromski in 1913-1918. writes the trilogy “The Fight against Satan,” in which he depicts the life of several countries, and primarily Poland, during the period of the imperialist war. The “satanic” role is assigned to capitalism in the trilogy. The novels of the trilogy (The Correction of Judas, The Blizzard and The Revelation of Love) show the horrors of the imperialist war, the atrocities of the Austrian-German occupiers, the fraternal solidarity of ordinary people in Russia and Poland, and also stigmatize those who profit from the war or use it for for your purposes.

S. Zheromski did not understand the October Revolution. He remained faithful to the PPS and his reformist-nationalist delusions. He enthusiastically welcomed the formation of independent Poland in 1918, without thinking about the typically bourgeois nature of its social system. However, Żeromski was an honest writer, and he was soon to be disappointed. He saw the pursuit of profit, the prosperity of all kinds of political and commercial adventurers, and the appalling poverty of the people. This was not the Poland he dreamed of. In 1924, he wrote the novel “Pre-Spring,” in which he truthfully spoke about his impressions and doubts. This novel is very controversial, but it indicates a significant change in the worldview of the venerable writer. Apparently, the clear example of bourgeois Poland pushed him away from the PPS much more than the persecution of the tsarist government could have done at one time.

The hero of the novel, the Polish young man Cezary Baryka, who grew up in Russia and sympathizes with the Bolsheviks, ends up in Poland. He was drawn to his homeland by his father, who told him about a new, wonderful life that was supposedly being created in Poland, about some glass houses of extraordinary beauty that talented engineers were building there. All my father’s stories turn out to be just beautiful fiction. Instead of glass houses and a just life, Caesar sees in Poland monstrous poverty and the excitement of bourgeois businessmen. He learns about the police terror reigning in Poland, about the brutal beatings and torture to which the police subject workers suspected of political activity. At the end of the novel, Tsezary Baryka, having joined the communists, goes with them at the head of a workers’ demonstration on gray wall soldier.

This ending throws a bright light on the meaning of the title. “Pre-spring,” the eve of spring, is the eve of the revolution, the dream of the people and the writer about a truly free Poland.

S. Zheromski introduces a unique idyll into the novel, reminiscent of old Poland; Caesar takes part in it when he visits his friend's estate. But it is no coincidence that the idyll ends with a terrible tragedy, the senseless crime of one young girl and the death of another. Here, not only the gravitation towards the pathological coming from modernism was reflected, but also the desire to show that everything is unfavorable and doomed in this dying world of the gentry.

The novel “Pre-spring” caused a series of repressions against Żeromski: shortly before his death, he was summoned to the secret police and forced to write an explanation. us. This strange and spectacular death once again emphasizes the exclusivity of Vokulsky.

Aristocratic and noble circles are depicted by Prus with extreme condemnation and sarcasm. Blatant arrogance and contempt for the people, complete moral emptiness - this is what is characteristic of their representatives. Such is the depraved and selfish adventurer of Aging, such, in essence, is Isabella herself. She is incapable of any deep feeling and only strives to get a better job and sell herself at a higher price. After breaking up with Vokulsky, she is going to marry a decrepit leader of the nobility." In her attitude towards the people, disdain is combined with curiosity about a strange, alien world.

Once, when meeting with people, Panna Isabella felt mortal fear. This happened at a metallurgical plant in France. She vaguely sensed in the organized work of machines, in the powerful figures of the proletarians, a threat to herself and the whole world of well-fed, idle, worthless people.

Pharaoh

Among Prus's later works, the historical novel Pharaoh (1895) stands out. In it, Prus showed a deep knowledge of history and the skill of a historical novelist. He showed ancient Egypt with its false contradictions, the cruel fate of slaves and palace intrigues. And at the same time, while remaining historical, the novel resonates with modern times - when Prus writes about the great uprising that has matured throughout the country or when he shows the disastrous influence of the clergy on the life of the country. The priestly caste not only supports the wildest prejudices, but in its struggle for power does not stop at crimes. It is difficult not to see here a hint of the activities of the Catholic clergy and the Vatican, so characteristic of Poland.

The main character of the novel, the young Pharaoh Ramsee XIII, a brave and progressive figure, dies in the fight against aristocrats and priests, trying to implement useful and reasonable reforms. But in his image, as well as in the image of Vokulsky, B. Prus’s just disbelief in a separate strong personality is manifested. One person, even an outstanding one, cannot change the course of things.

Despite his well-known limitations and his passion for reformist ideas, B. Prus remains a major figure in Polish realistic literature. He achieved exceptional mastery in all three leading genres of Polish literature - the short story, the modern social novel and the historical novel; he put the theme of the peasantry, traditional for Polish writers, in a new way, showing its class stratification; for the first time he showed in all its complexity the life of a capitalist city and the growing role of the proletariat.