Kraszewski i wiek XIX. Studia

Abstract

The present book is part of the planned two-volume publication, which is the outcome of the scholarly project commemorating the bicentennial of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s birthday. Kraszewski (1812–1887), who wrote two hundred and fortytwo novels and whose collected oeuvre comprises about six hundred volumes, is one of the most prolific writers ever. In Poland he is considered the founder of the modern novel, all possible types of which he practised (the novel of manners, the historical novel, the Künstlerroman etc.). The commemorative international conference „Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1812–1887): the Writer, the Thinker, the Authority,” 14-16 November 2012, organized by the Research Unit in Interdisciplinary and Comparative Studies „East-West” (later renamed into the Research Unit in Philological Studies „East-West”), took place in three different venues: the Branicki Palace in Białystok (the first day), the National Museum in Warsaw (the second day), and the Kraszewski Museum in Romanów (the third day). The conference sessions were the central event of the Year of J. I. Kraszewski declared by the Polish Parliament in 2012. Among the coorganizers there were: the National Centre of Culture in Warsaw, the Institute of Literary Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Jan Długosz Academy in Częstochowa, Książnica Podlaska Library in Białystok, and the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society in Warsaw. The Faculty of Philology at the University of Białystok was the conference main organizer. The conference committee included: Professor Jarosław Ławski (the Research Unit in Philological Studies „East-West”); Professor Agnieszka Czajkowska (the Jan Długosz Academy in Częstochowa); Paweł Kuciński, PhD, (the Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw); and Professor Grażyna Borkowska (the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society in Warsaw). The honorary conference committee was headed by Professor Józef Bachórz (the University of Gdańsk). Among the conference participants there were scholars from Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Bulgaria. About one hundred and ten papers were delivered during three days of the conference – most of them are published in the present volume and the planned one. Volume I brings an outline of the scholarly project, the President of Poland’ letter to the conference participants, and the research papers divided into five thematic sections. Chapter I (The Writer’s Preoccupations with Modernity) shows Kraszewski as a nineteenth-century classic, a national authority in the problems of the nineteenth century, who does his best to locate himself within the constellation of other established writers at the time. The authors of the papers emphasize the rapid development of studies on Kraszewski’s oeuvre at the turn of the twentieth century (J. Bachórz) and his doubtful status in the nineteenth century (B. Mazan, T. Budrewicz). The absence of Kraszewski’s texts on reading lists in Polish schools is remarked and analysed twice (M. Lul, M. Białobrzeska). The remaining articles consider the writer’s attitude to literary tradition (A. Ziołowicz) and to manifestations of modernity (W. Tomasik, M. Litwinowicz-Droździel). Chapter II (East-European Personality) collects ten articles dedicated to Kraszewski’s preoccupation with the nations and cultures of Central and Eastern Europe: Ukraine (R. Radyszewski), Lithuania and Latvia (I. Szulska, T. Budrewicz), Germany (G. Ritz), Kashubian’s culture (D. Kalinowski) and Masurians of East Prussia (Z. Chojnowski). In addition, the authors present various misreadings of Kraszewski’s books in Bulgaria (M. Grigorowa), Kraszewski’s interest in Italian culture (Andrea de Carlo analyses a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy) and the issues connected with Polish-Ukrainian borderlands in his „folk novels” (A. Woldan). Chapter II (The Borderline between Form and Beauty) focuses on the problems of form, aesthetics and genealogy of Kraszewski’s works. The authors of the papers analyse types of the novels’ titles (M. Skucha), the writer’s interest in diaries (J. Sztachelska), the role of the critic of female literature (M. Berkan-Jabłońska), irony in Kraszewski’s novellas (E. Owczarz), his „epic incipits” (J. Paszek), his epistolography (M. Obrusznik-Partyka), the writer’s attitude to the „nineteenth century” as a descriptive category (J. Lyszczyna) and his poetry that is permeated by the despair over the transience of things (P. Wojciechowski). Chapter IV (A Slavic Kraszewski) reveals a new path in contemporary research into Kraszewski’s oeuvre: his preoccupation with Slavic myths, Slavic symbolism, Slavic past and presence. The authors of this part of the volume discuss Kraszewski’s studies on Slavic cosmological myths (Z. Kaźmierczyk), ancient Slavic beliefs (T. Linkner) and Slavic representations of the past (M. Ruszczyńska), literary transformations of the Ludgard legend (M. Gołuński), intertextuality of the novel Masław (T. Sienkiewicz), the writer’s interest in Belarus (M. Chmialnicki) and his interest in the lives of Ukrainian peasants (M. Bracka). Chapter V (Existence, Custom, Otherness) demonstrates Kraszewski’s interest in modern phenomena, which can be considered in terms of contemporary anthropology (M. Piotrowska) or through the category of ‘otherness’ (W. Szturc, J. Cyganik). The authors analyse alchemic motifs in Kraszewski’s novels (M. Szargot), his representation of women form the times of early Christianity (A. Wietecha), the phenomenon of existential trauma in The Diaries of a Stranger and Kraszewski’s and Wacław Gąsiorowski’s attitudes to nihilism (A. Janiszewski). Volume I of the collected articles shows a change in the perception of Kraszewski at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Kraszewski has been moving from the status of a national writer-authority to the status of an elite writer, frequently analysed by literary critics, sociologists and historians. Kraszewski wrote on the problems of almost every European nation and on small regions such as Silesia, East Prussia and Kashubia. Therefore it is no wonder that he has become an ‘attractive’ object of study for scholars from Eastern Europe, researchers in regionalisms and post-colonial studies. In the past he was considered a writer for ‘common folk’ – these days he is being discovered as an ironist and intellectual who was fully aware of his craftsmanship, and who coped with main issues of the nineteenth-century history and existence (see his emotional entries in the diary Sleepless Nights). Although rarely published, his works are available as audiobooks. Both volumes have been edited by Professor Jarosław Ławski (the Research Unit in Philological Studies „East-West”); Krzysztof Czajkowski, PhD, (the Faculty of Philology and History at the Jan Długosz Academy in Częstochowa); Anna Janicka, PhD, (the Research Unit in Polish Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Białystok); and Paweł Kuciński, PhD, (the Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw). The publication has been supported by Książnica Podlaska Library headed by Jan Leończuk. The second volume of conference proceedings will be published as Józef Ignacy Kraszewski and Modernity. Studies (Białystok 2014–2015).