Przebudzenie regionów: nieromantyczny regionalizm dum Tomasza Zana i Jana Czeczota

Abstract

In 1817 there emerged an important sociological phenomenon, justified by the political situation in the former Republic of Poland. In several different cities (Vilnius, Lviv, Krzemieniec and Warsaw) young people formed informal groups of literary and social character. The fact that these groups, centered around universities, schools or editorial boards, were established in a few cities at the same time is an evidence of significant social and ideological transformations. One of the most important of these groups were the Philomaths of Vilnius, who can be seen as the first Polish modern organization of young people aware of their own generational and regional differences. Their generation contributed significantly to the ideological and cultural ferment, which not only gave rise to Polish Romanticism, but also refreshed other “non‑romantic” cultural movements (Classicism and Sentimentalism) and established their regional varieties. This paper examines the Romantic breakthrough and literature written before the November Uprising of 1830 from the perspective of minor writers, Tomasz Zan and Jan Czeczot. Focusing on their Neo‑Sentimental dumas allows us to emphasize the heterogeneity and pluralism of this transition period, thus moving away from perceiving the pre‑1830 literature, especially written in Mickiewicz’s circle (Vilnius–Kaunas), as a steady progression of the dominant Romantic trend while ignoring and devaluing other literary phenomena. This paper argues that an integrating factor for the Philomaths of Vilnius was not so much a quest for Romanticism, but a kind of regionalism, at the time more frequently expressed in its “non‑romantic”, mainly Sentimentalist and Neo‑Sentimentalist, form.