Preserving the Past: Niemcewicz as a Historical and Sentimental Traveler in Lithuania in 1819

Abstract

The present study examines a journey through Lithuania made by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (1758–1841) beginning in May, 1819 and continuing throughout the summer months in his capacity of school inspector in the Department of Education. It was published posthumously in 1858, the centenary of his birth, as one of his eleven journeys in Podróże historyczne po ziemiach polskich w latach 1811–1828. Niemcewicz’s Lithuanian travel notes are looked at from three perspectives, viewing Niemcewicz as an historical traveler, a sentimental traveler and an enlightened one, though these perspectives overlap to a significant degree. Niemcewicz can be seen in these notes as an historical traveler in a double sense: through his interest in the Polish and Lithuanian past that goes back a thousand years and through his personal history of recollections dating back to the late 1770s and early 1780s when he visited these same lands in what were more fortuitous times before the devastation of war, the loss of nationhood and the imposition of Russian rule impoverished the lands. Niemcewicz as a sentimental traveler places emphasis on the experiences of the heart, a sensitivity bound up with the types of experience and situations encountered that move him and touch his heart. A strong emotional response is elicited by the immediacy of experience derived from personal encounters and the peculiar sensations derived from them. For Niemcewicz, the viewing of the ruins of these historical lands and the demoralizing changes in the local populace elicits the predominant emotion of sadness (smutek). An important aspect of Niemcewicz as both historical and enlightened traveler was his membership in the Towarzystwo Przyjaciόł Nauk (Society of the Friends of Learning) and his devotion to its mission of keeping alive Polish traditions and identity given the loss of nationhood and the pressures placed on the population to conform to culture values alien to the historical tradition. Among his worst fears were the loss of traditional ways, the lack of interest in the greatness of the past, and the spread of apathy and demoralization in the current status of his countrymen as second-class citizens and Russian subjects. His Historical Journeys along with his Historical Songs (Śpiewy historyczne 1816) are intimately connected in their concern to preserve historical memory. The fate of Niemcewicz as a writer and the fate of his writings are bound up with the vicissitudes of his times. His vision combined with hope was that, through the mutability of fate, his defeated and devastated nation would somehow regain its former standing among nations, even if it would take two hundred years.