Modern history, we have said, cannot be expected to be written in Poland. This remark leads us at once to the literature of Polish Emigrants, as it is generally called, which has sprung up in Paris. Since the revolution of 1830, this capital has been the principal seat of Polish literary activity. One of the first works of importance published there was Maurice Mochnacki's History of the Polish insurrection; which excited among his own countrymen a new and passionate feud. Mochnacki's name had been favourably known as the author of a work on the Polish literature of the nineteenth century;[[297]] and as the able editor of several periodicals. His political misfortunes, however, and especially the circumstance that he had been compelled to appear alternately as the tool of the grand duke Constantine, and as the victim of his hatred, made him a subject of distrust to his countrymen, although he had fought with bravery in the revolution. He died in France when not yet thirty years old. His scattered writings were published in 1836 by A. Jelowicki, one of the patriotic family of that name; who had been deeply implicated in the revolution, and lived as fugitives in Paris. A[pg.292] printing office, which they have founded there, serves for the publication of Polish works.
Another work on the recent events was written by Wratnowski, who published a history of the insurrection in Volhynia, Paris. 1837. An animated picture of the time, which appeared three years ago under the title, "Representation of the national spirit in Poland." by Ojczyczniak,[[298]] exhibits strong passions in the author; a glowing and certainly not unnatural hatred against the great powers; but a still more violent one against his democratic countrymen, to whom he imputes the perdition of the good cause. A history of the Polish insurrection, published by S.B. Gnorowski in the English language. Lond. 1839, is written in the same violent and prejudiced spirit.
The Slavic press in Paris has been especially productive in periodicals; all of them replete with passion and hatred against their oppressors; some of them conducted not without talent. The Revue Slave, the Mlada Polska, (young Poland), the Cronika, Emigracyi Polskiej (Polish Emigrant's Chronicle), and the Polish Vademecum edited by N.U. Hoffmann, may be named here. From the latter we learn, that, from 1831 to 1837 among the Polish emigrants in France, nine died in duels and fourteen by suicide.
Joachim Lelewel, whose literary activity belongs rather to the preceding period, while that now under consideration was partly the result of his political career, lives still at Brussels, where he has recently published (1849) a work on the civil rights of the Polish peasantry. He attempts to demonstrate, that the oppression and the debased condition of this class came upon them along with the introduction of Christianity; and represents the Romish clergy, whose advantage it was to keep up this state of things, as the principal enemies of the peasantry. Lelewel's[pg.293] writings have wielded a more decided influence in Poland than those of any other modern author. The tendency of all his historical investigations, even when apparently without any such design, has been since the very beginning of the Russian dominion to undermine their power; and the great ability with which he contrived to veil hints, to disguise remarks, and to follow out under a harmless mask a certain and fixed purpose, had earned him twenty or thirty years ago the name of the "Jesuit of history."
It remains now to give a general survey of the progress of Polish belles-lettres during the last twenty years; and also of those mixed publications which excite a general interest. Here we must not omit to mention Witwicki's the "Evening Hours of a Pilgrim," [[299]] a book which, in a sprightly style and a peculiarly interesting way, gives a good deal of information as to the literary and mental condition of Poland, and the much-lauded revival of letters during the reign of Stanislaus Poniatowski.
But perhaps the most interesting production of this period is Adam Mickiewicz's course of Lectures on Slavic literature and the condition of the Slavic nations, delivered in French at Paris, where he had found employment as a professor in the College de France.[[300]] The deep enthusiasm which pervades these lectures, the mental excitement by which they would seem to have been dictated from beginning to end, forbid us to consider them in the ordinary light of a mere course of instruction on the subject to which they relate. But there is no other work more full of ideas, or richer in thought; it is the reasoning of a poet, and a poet's way of viewing the world. The one great[pg.294] principle of these lectures again is Panslavism,—Panslavism spiritualized and idealized; and therefore in a shape which can inspire little fear to others in respect to their own nationality, although it can never excite their sympathies. Mickiewicz still idolizes Napoleon, and prophesies a revolution of the world; a new revolution, a torch to illumine the world; he himself is "a spark, fallen from that torch;" his mission is to prophesy to the world the coming events "as a living witness of the new revelation," Although these prophecies are not strictly political, we can see plainly, that in the expectation of the prophet this new revolution will consist in "the union of the force of Slavic genius, with the knowledge of the West" (France); by which of course the intermediate Teutonic principle must be crushed.
In purely poetical creations, this great poet shows his full power. In a beautiful tale, Pan Tadeusz, "Sir Thaddeus," (Paris 1834,) which, though in verse, may be considered as a novel, he very graphically described the civil and domestic life existing in Lithuania immediately before the war of 1812; and gave also further evidence of his genius by several smaller poems. He is, however, not very productive; a striking peculiarity of Slavic poets.
The principal poets of the modern romantic school in Poland, of which Mickiewicz must be considered the founder, are the following:
A.E. Odyniec and Julian Korssak, both chiefly known by happy translations from the English; but also not without creative power of their own. Anton Malczeski is the author of a poetical tale, Maria,[[301]] perhaps the most popular production of the[pg.295] Polish literature. It is a touching family legend, traditional in the noble house of Potocki in Volhynia; but transposed by Malczeski to the Ukraine, and connected in that way with graphic descriptions of this latter country. Malczeski lived a life of wild adventures; and died young, not yet 34 years old, in 1826.
The Ukraine appears to be, on the whole, one of the favourite theatres for the romantic school of Polish poets. Zaleski, Gosczynski, Grabowski, all of them poets of more than ordinary talents, give us pictures of this country, alternately sweet and rough, wild and romantic. There must necessarily be some mixture of attractive and repulsive elements here even for native poets; for the common people are Russians, and hate the Polish nobility as their oppressors. Nevertheless Thomas Padura, another of the young Polish school, chose even the dialect of the Ruthenian peasantry for his songs. Another Polish poet, who has selected the Ukraine for the theatre of most of his tales, is Michael Czaykowski; he too is considered as standing at the head of the novel writers of his country. His legends of the Kozaks[[302]], his tales, Wernyhora[[303]], Kirdzali, the Hetman of the Ukraine[[304]], etc. manifest a more than common talent.