POLAND
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POLAND
two — Zaleski and Malczewski — whose talents were
really eminent. For the drama in this period we must
notice Fredro, most of whose excellent comedies were
written between 1820 and 1830, and Joseph Korzen-
niowski's first dramatic attempts. Prose literature
had changed but little as yet, though in one^beautiful
historical novel by Bernatowicz, "Pojata", Scott's in-
fluence is distinctly traceable. History continued to
be represented by Lelewel.
Among the most important consequences of the insurrection of 1831 must be reckoned an emigration unparalleled in history for numbers, which continued until 1863 to be a factor of the highest importance in the destinies of the nation, both political and literary. Men of the highest talent emigrated to countries where literature was free and untrammeled, and where the national sorrows and aspirations might be uttered with impunity. Poetry was the only fitting outlet for the emotions which then stirred the spirit of the nation; poetry, therefore, played a part in the life of the people greater, perhaps, than has ever been the case elsewhere. There were few poems of that time but called to mind Poland's past, present, or impending woes. This patriotic element stamped its character upon the whole period. Poets endeavoured to answer two questions in particular: Why had this doom fallen on the nation? — What was its future to be? — Now essaying to treat the philosophy of history, now endeavouring to raise the veil of the future, how- ever feebly a versifier might write, he was sure to attempt some answer to these questions.
And here writers were influenced by the two con- trary currents of Catholicism and Messianism. The strong revival of religion in France could not but influence the men of the Polish emigration. Until 1831 Poland had been outside of that movement. Most Poles were traditionally Catholic, but not all Polish Catholics possessed deeply grounded convic- tions; some lived in eighteenth-century indifference; some were influenced by the opinion, as common as it is baseless, that Rationalism is the first condition of progress. Under the stress of conflicting tendencies in France, some Polish refugees entirely abandoned religion. Others learned that religiosity and practical religion are not the same thing; that Poland had in latter days, to a great degree, lost touch with the essen- tials of the Catholic Faith, through sheer ignorance, torpor, and thoughtlessness, and that ere its political regeneration could be thought of, the nation must be born again by a return to truly religious life. The men who thought thus — Zalenski, Witwicki, Stanis- laus, John Kozraian, and others — rallied round Mickiewicz, whose idea that a new religious congre- gation, consisting of refugees, was necessary to set them all on the right path, became the germ of the Congregation of Our Lord's Resurrection. This con- gregation was founded by two priests who had been soldiers in the rising of 1831, Kajsiewicz and Seme- nenko. Their example did much for pulpit eloquence in Poland. Excepting Skarga, Father Jerome Kaj- siewicz was the greatest of Polish pulpit orators; he was also a great writer. His inspired utterances, the truth and wisdom of his judgments in matters of learn- ing, proceeded from his love for God, for the Church, and — though he well knew her faults and blamed them with much severity — for his country too. He was one of the greatest figures in the Church and in the literature of Poland.
In France, together with the revival of Catholicism, there were also movements in another direction ; that of Saint-Simon, for example, and that of Lamennais, and these had affected the Poles of the emigration when the Lithuanian, Andrew Towianski, preached to them his new creed of Messianism. Readily explic- able as a result of false conditions of existence, and the contrast between laws of conscience and facts of life, this outbreak wa,s none the less deplorable on
account of those whom it misled. But Messianism
never had much, if any, weight with the emigrants;
unfortunately, Mickiewicz was entrapped by the sect,
and the beauty of his utterances gave its errors some
appearance of truth. The national literature had now
reached its zenith; Mickiewicz now produced his great
national epic, "Pan Tadeusz"; and it was now that
Stowacki and Krasinski, lesser names indeed, yet of
the first rank, wrote all their works. All three were
intensely patriotic, and in some degree mystics.
With them the idea of Poland as God's chosen
nation, the martyr among nations largely, prevails
and is strongly emphasized in the "Dziady" of
Mickiewicz, though earlier poets were not without
some traces of this doctrine. Of course Poles at the
present day repudiate it as an exaggeration; but it was
the first beginning of the error into which Mickiewicz
fell later; and it was the only stain upon the immacu-
late splendour and high-souled patriotism of Polish
poetry.
Mickiewicz, after "Pan Tadeusz" was published, gave up poetry as a vanity. But Stowacki wrote his magnificent "Kordyan", followed by many other poems of a still higher flight, as "Anhelli", "Cjcleo Zadzumionych", "W. Szwajcarij", "Lilla Weneda", "Beniowski"; and his tragedies, though not perfect, are still the best in Polish literature. Zaleski jjroduced his religious idyl, "The Holy Family", and an attempt towards the solution of many a problem in "The Spirit of the Steppe". Gosczzyn.ski, Garczynski, Witwicki, and Siemienski, not to mention a great number of other poets of less renown, surrounded Mickiewicz in his exile. Sigismund Krasinski pub- lished his "Nieboska Komedya" (The Not-Divine Comedy) and "Iridyon", both full of deep philosoph- ical and Christian thought, showing the contradic- tions of European civilization, and the supremacy of God's law over nations as over individuals. His "Przedswit" (The Dawn) told Poland that her present condition was a trial to purify her, which lesson was repeated in his "Psalms of the Future", together with a warning against acts that might call down a yet greater calamity.
In Poland itself, the literary movement, though cramped, still existed. Vincent Pol wrote his pleasing "Songs of Janusz" and the "Songs of Our Land", marked by much originality of feeling and a faithful portraiture of the national character. There were also some poets who exaggerated Romanticism with all its defects; Magnuszewski, for instance, Zeglinski, Nor- wid, Zmorski, and Zielinski. Of another type were Lenartowicz, whose first poems now appeared, and Ujejski, who won fame by his "Lamentations of Jere- mias", so well suited to the actual state of Poland. Prose, particularly prose fiction, now began to flour- ish. As early as 1829 Kraszewski had begun to pour forth the multitudinous and varied stream of worka which was to continue for more than fifty years. Hia first novels were feeble, his best are open to much criticism; but there is a great deal of truth and of merit in his work, taken as a whole, with all its wonder- ful variety. Korzenniowski, a very different kind of talent, a serious artist and a correct writer, less satir- ical in tone and of a merrier turn of wit, was another good novelist; he also wrote some dramas, chiefly with a comic tendency, which were successfully pro- duced at Warsaw during the darkest days of the cen- sure. His novels, fewer than Ivraszewski's, were written with much care. In the historical novel Rzewuski was supreme, with his "Memoirs of Sophca" and "Listopad" (November). Chodzko, however, in his "Lithuanian Pictures", was not very far behind him.
Science and learning progressed, in spite of great difficulties. Of all the universities on Polish soil Cracow alone remained open and taught in Polish. Yet here the struggle for culture was successful. Hia-
