Przepaście, wąwozy, wulkany i skarby kopalnego świata w pismach polskich kaukazczyków

Abstract

In the Polish literature written ‘beyond the Caucasus,’ we see the same Romantic fascination with the underworld that was evident in the writings created in Poland and by Poles in the West. An exile in the Caucasus – an area that is tectonically active and relatively young in terms of its geological age – was conducive to observation of nature, of massive mountains and fathomless precipices between them, and of various manifestations of the Earth’s activity (volcanoes, mud volcanoes, ‘fire mountains,’ etc.). Writings by the Caucasian exiles contain interesting variations on the Romantic theme of underground (abyssal) landscapes thanks to the inimitable nature of the Caucasian and Transcaucasian region and the writers’ unfortunate circumstances (the drama of banishment). In the writings of Polish exiles, the Caucasus, despite the absence of mines, was ascribed the attributes of an underground space, a tsarist infernum (the oppressive reality of exile made them associate this land with Dante’s hell) and – for many exiles – sepulcrum. The Caucasian precipices and ravines, which claimed dozens of victims every year, especially in the winter and spring, were just as terrifying as the hellish whirlwinds of history. The motif of a mountain precipice, which for the Romantics was one of the poles of an infinite universe, appears on the pages of the exile literature extremely often and in many different facets.The subterranean and fossil phenomena of the Caucasus became not only a source of poetic inspiration but also a subject of detailed scientific study by the Caucasian exiles (e.g. Count Juliusz Strutyński).