Powstanie styczniowe w powieści i cyklu opowiadań. Kilka obserwacji

Abstract

The January Uprising 1863 became an important and vivid theme in Polish prose. The most important genres to exploit the subject are novels and short story cycles. The aim of the article is to look for a relationship between the changing attitudes to 1863 and the choice of the narratives under discussion. The research was done on popular or outstanding texts written just after the Uprising till the 50th anniversary of the event. The research shows that the early post-uprising prose was dominated by novels. They played the role of documents and also as comments on the event. A linear scheme of the narration made it possible to give a detailed account of historical events and comment on the national defeat. The authors of the early January novels (J. I. Kraszewski, M. Bałucki, J. Narzymski) also folIowed fabular and narrative schemes of the interuprising novel. The importance of the 1863 theme did not inspire them to look for new writing technics. Short stories on the Uprising served as illustrations to the history of national fights, whereas similar motives in Artur Grottger's art were the visualisation of experiences and emotions. The painter of Lithuania also became an authority and "organiser" of common imagination concentrating on the 1863. In his choice of themes he used the Romantic approach to a cycle and a fragment. The Modernism prose used Grottger's means of expression such as lyricism, symbol, cyclical scheme or the aesthetics of a fragment. It was meaningful for the coming '63 motives. This tendency reached its climax during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Uprising. The prose by Orzeszkowa, Żeromski, Strug or Wielopolska contained new images of the event. It also created the legend of the 1863. (The exception was Miciński, who treated the legend with reserve). The tendency under discussion was reflected in the changes in the manner of writing (short stories instead of novels). Stories on the '63 heroes, based on repetitions and paralelism, were much approved.