Romantyzm wileński, warszawski, miejski? Mapa i geneza

Abstract

Romantic regionalism in Poland owes a lot to Maurycy Mochnacki’s essay On Polish Literature in the 19th Century, sketching an image of the national literature as a tree with numerous different regional branches. Following Mochnacki’s article, Polish critics have got used to perceiving various literary schools in terms of geographic factors prominent in the writings of particular authors. Such an interpretative routine failed to acknowledge urban origins and character of Romanticism as a movement initiated by intellectuals, academics, university adepts, members of scientific societies and press editors. In this context, it is worthwhile to compare two circles of Romanticism before the caesura of the year 1830. This paper contends that the Varsovian group of Romantics emerged in response to the repression of the Vilnian one.