Potop i Dzwonnik. Zaścianek laudański Sienkiewicza

Abstract

In atleast two works (listed in the title of the article), Henryk Sienkiewicz describes and idealizes the gentry backwater. This specific environment was probably close to him also due to family genealogy, but more importantly, Sienkiewicz points to the important role of parochial nobility in maintaining patriotic attitudes and defending the noble ethos. Petty nobles oppose the magnates and other contemporary elites, among whom in the 17th century it was common to put personal benefits over the good of the country and the whole of society. In Potop, the author describes backwaters located in Lauda, the border region of Samogitia, i.e. within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Sienkiewicz drew knowledge about this region from the accounts of other people and written sources. There is no evidence of the writers personal ехрегіепсе in this regard. In the novel, Dzwonnik Sienkiewicz draws attention to the process of a kind of lithuanization or finding of Lithuanian identity by the petty nobility and, above all, the peasant layer of Lithuania. This process intensifiedat the end of the І9th century. Sienkiewicz, who was then close to National Democracy, noticed elements of anti-Polonism in Lithuanian pursuits