Young Poland - Philosophy

Philosophy

The term was coined after a manifesto by Artur Górski, published in 1898 in the Kraków newspaper Życie (Life), and was soon adopted in all of partitioned Poland by analogy to similar terms such as Young Germany, Young Belgium, Young Scandinavia, etc.

Polish literature of the period was based on two main concepts. The earlier was a typically modernist disillusionment with the bourgeoisie, its life style and its culture. Artists following this concept also believed in decadence, an end of all culture, conflict between humans and their civilization, and the concept of art as the highest value (art for art's sake). Authors who followed this concept included Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Stanisław Przybyszewski, Wacław Rolicz-Lieder and Jan Kasprowicz.

A later concept was a continuation of romanticism, and as such is often called neo-romanticism. The group of writers following this idea was less organised and the writers themselves covered a large variety of topics in their writings: from sense of mission of a Pole in Stefan Żeromski's prose, through social inequality described by Władysław Reymont and Gabriela Zapolska to criticism of Polish society and Polish history by Stanisław Wyspiański.

Writers of this period include also: Wacław Berent, Jan Kasprowicz, Jan Augustyn Kisielewski, Antoni Lange, Jan Lemański, Bolesław Leśmian, Tadeusz Miciński, Andrzej Niemojewski, Franciszek Nowicki, Władysław Orkan, Artur Oppman, Włodzimierz Perzyński, Tadeusz Rittner, Wacław Sieroszewski, Leopold Staff, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Maryla Wolska, and Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński.

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