Polish Literature

Abstract

The Polish nation, a once powerful but eventually weak republican monarchy whose rulers were elected by the Sjem (Polish parliament) and then systematically deprived of authority, was dismembered and divided into Russian, Austrian and Prussian territory in 1795. This date marks the beginning of a series of conspiracies of increasing complexity (Russians were played off against Prussians who were in turn played off against Austrians, and so forth) which did not altogether end even with the restitution of the nation after the First World War. Society remained stratified throughout the nineteenth century, and relatively little industry was developed. This created social and economic problems peculiar to Poland, which became the only European country not to have experienced an industrial revolution. Polish literature, however, is still the most substantial of the Slavonic literatures after Russian: there has been no dearth of good writers since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The great romantic triumvirate consisted of Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Slowacki and Zygmunt Krasinski, all of whom flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is hardly paradoxical that the political destruction of the nation encouraged its writers. The three romantic poets, particularly Mickiewicz, helped to inspire the national mood which led to the unsuccessful uprisings of 1863–4.