Polish Literature - Romanticism in The Wake of The Revolt

Romanticism in The Wake of The Revolt

Due to partitions carried out by the neighboring empires – which ended the existence of the sovereign Polish state in 1795 – Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism elsewhere in Europe, was largely an independence movement against the foreign occupation, that expressed the ideals and the traditional way of life of the Polish people. The period of Romanticism in Poland ended with the Tsarist suppression of the January 1863 Uprising marked by public executions by the Russians, and deportations to Siberia.

The literature of Polish Romanticism falls into two distinct periods both defined by insurgencies: the first around 1820–1832 ending with the November Uprising of 1830, and the second between 1832–1864, giving birth to Polish Positivism. In the first period, Polish Romantics were heavily influenced by other European Romantics. Their art featured emotionalism and imagination, folklore, country life, as well as the propagation of the ideals of independence. The most famous writers of the period were: Adam Mickiewicz, Seweryn Goszczyński, Tomasz Zan and Maurycy Mochnacki. In the second period, after January Uprising many Polish Romantics worked abroad, often banished from the Polish soil by the occupying power. Their work became dominated by the ideals of freedom and the struggle for regaining their country's lost sovereignty. Elements of mysticism became more prominent. Also in that period, developed the idea of the poeta-wieszcz (nation's bard). The wieszcz functioned as spiritual leader to the suppressed people. The most notable poet among the leading bards of Romanticism, so recognized in both periods, was Adam Mickiewicz. Other two national poets were: Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński. Polish writers and poets of the Romantic period include: