On certain aspects of Krasinski's life we are unable
to speak with full certainty, as the voluminous cor-
respondence with his father and Delphina Potocka
remains at present unpublished in the family archives.
to speak with full certainty, as the voluminous cor-
respondence with his father and Delphina Potocka
remains at present unpublished in the family archives.
Poland - 1919 - Krasinski - Anonymous Poet of Poland
The anonymous poet of Poland, Zygmunt Krasinski, by Monica M.
Gardner . . .
Gardner, Monica Mary, d. 1941. Cambridge, University Press, 1919.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045
Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
This work is deemed to be in the public domain in the United States of America. It may not be in the public domain in other countries. Copies are provided as a preservation service. Particularly outside of the United States, persons receiving copies should make appropriate efforts to determine the copyright status of the work in their country and use the work accordingly. It is possible that heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address. The digital images and OCR of this work were produced by Google, Inc. (indicated by a watermark on each page in the PageTurner). Google requests that the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributed or used commercially.
The images are provided for educational, scholarly, non-commercial purposes.
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? The anonymous poet of Poland, Zygmunt KrasinskiMonica Mary Gardner
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? Xibrars
of tbe
TflnivereU^ of Misconsin
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? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? THE ANONYMOUS POET
OF POLAND
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, Manager
LONDON : FETTER LANE, E. C-4
NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
BOMBAY
CALCUTTA MACMILLANANDCO. Ltd.
MADRAS J
TORONTO : J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd.
TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ZYGMUNT KRASINSKI
(after Ary Scheffer)
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? IE ANONYMOUS POET
'OF POLAND
ZYGMUNT KRASINSKI
BY
MONICA M. GARDNER
? i
AUTHOR OF
ADAM MICKIEWICZ: THE NATIONAL POET OF POLAND;
POLAND: A STUDY IN NATIONAL IDEALISM;
ETC.
"He who speaks truth to an unhappy nation is her
noblest son, for he brings her life. "
Letters of Zygmunt Krasinski.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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? TO THE MEMORY OF
EDMUND S. NAGANOWSKI
"Serca podnios? e pe? k? y. I mys? l wszelka,
Byleby tylko wolna-- silna-- wielka--
Z? egna sie? z nami. ''
Zygmunt Krasin? ski, Fryburg.
JMl? JTliO 'N QREAT >>RI7AIN
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? m 26 1942
YGn
PREFACE
In the following study on the Anonymous Poet of
Poland I have attempted to give the English reader
some idea of Zygmunt Krasinski as the poet, the
patriot, the mystic, who endowed his nation with much
of her greatest poetry and noblest thought, and finally
as the man of tortured and complex character. I would
ask my Polish readers to overlook the many omissions
that of necessity I have been compelled to make in a
subject too vast for one volume. I have restricted
myself to those details that seemed to me calculated to
further the object for which this book is written, that
is, to draw English attention to a poetry and a line of
thought that are, on one side, not only of a national but
of a world-wide appeal, and, on the other, of high
spiritual significance to the individual.
I have tried to let the poet speak mainly for him-
self both in his work and letters. For this purpose,
and because the very name of Krasinski is unknown
in this country, I have given extensive translations of
his writings.
On certain aspects of Krasinski's life we are unable
to speak with full certainty, as the voluminous cor-
respondence with his father and Delphina Potocka
remains at present unpublished in the family archives.
To Dr J6zef Kallenbach, who has had access to the
letters between father and son, and who has freely used
them in his monograph on Krasinski's youth, students
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? vi
Preface
of Krasinski owe their knowledge of much that would
otherwise be obscure: but unfortunately Dr Kallen-
bach's work ends with the year 1838, and he has not
as yet given us the completed biography. As it is,
Krasinski's published correspondence comprises several
volumes. Although I have drawn largely upon them,
yet I have reluctantly been obliged, through want of
space, to pass over much in these magnificent letters
that can ill be spared either from the artistic or psycho-
logical point of view. It is however my intention to
publish some of their most striking passages in a
separate form.
My grateful thanks are due to Dr Kallenbach of
the Lw6w University for his gifts of his writings on
Krasinski, and for the interest he showed in my work
before the war put an end to my correspondence with
Poles in Poland; to Prof. Zdziechowski; to Mr Ladislas
Mickiewicz, who kindly lent me a volume of the Kra-
sinski letters that in these difficult days I could obtain
in no other way. But above all I wish to express here
my indebtedness to my friend, the late Mr Edmund
Naganowski. He was my first and constant guide in
my Krasinski readings. From the hour that I began
my Polish studies under his direction, twenty years ago,
until the outbreak of the war cut off all possibility of
communication between us, his help, his advice, his
unfailing sympathy, were ceaseless. He died in Poland
while the war was ravaging his country. It is to him
that as a small tribute of affection and gratitude for a
long and most precious friendship I dedicate this book.
May, 1919.
M. M. G.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface v
Note on the Pronunciation of Polish names . viii
CHAP.
I. The Initiation (1812-1829) . . . . I
II. The First Exile (1829-1830) . . .
On certain aspects of Krasinski's life we are unable
to speak with full certainty, as the voluminous cor-
respondence with his father and Delphina Potocka
remains at present unpublished in the family archives.
To Dr J6zef Kallenbach, who has had access to the
letters between father and son, and who has freely used
them in his monograph on Krasinski's youth, students
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? vi
Preface
of Krasinski owe their knowledge of much that would
otherwise be obscure: but unfortunately Dr Kallen-
bach's work ends with the year 1838, and he has not
as yet given us the completed biography. As it is,
Krasinski's published correspondence comprises several
volumes. Although I have drawn largely upon them,
yet I have reluctantly been obliged, through want of
space, to pass over much in these magnificent letters
that can ill be spared either from the artistic or psycho-
logical point of view. It is however my intention to
publish some of their most striking passages in a
separate form.
My grateful thanks are due to Dr Kallenbach of
the Lw6w University for his gifts of his writings on
Krasinski, and for the interest he showed in my work
before the war put an end to my correspondence with
Poles in Poland; to Prof. Zdziechowski; to Mr Ladislas
Mickiewicz, who kindly lent me a volume of the Kra-
sinski letters that in these difficult days I could obtain
in no other way. But above all I wish to express here
my indebtedness to my friend, the late Mr Edmund
Naganowski. He was my first and constant guide in
my Krasinski readings. From the hour that I began
my Polish studies under his direction, twenty years ago,
until the outbreak of the war cut off all possibility of
communication between us, his help, his advice, his
unfailing sympathy, were ceaseless. He died in Poland
while the war was ravaging his country. It is to him
that as a small tribute of affection and gratitude for a
long and most precious friendship I dedicate this book.
May, 1919.
M. M. G.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface v
Note on the Pronunciation of Polish names . viii
CHAP.
I. The Initiation (1812-1829) . . . . I
II. The First Exile (1829-1830) . . . . 19
III. The Sacrifice (1830-1831) . . . . 38
IV. The Sowing of the Seed (1831-1834) . . 67
V. The Undivine Comedy: the domestic drama . 92
VI. The Undivine Comedy: the social drama . . 115
VII. Iridion 135
VIII. The Deviation: A Summer Night and The
Temptation (1836-1838) 169
IX. Before the Dawn: The Three Thoughts and The
Treatise of the Trinity (1839-1842) . . . 192
X. Dawn (1843) 219
XI. The Psalms of the Future: the Psalms of Faith,
of Hope, and of Love (1843-1847) ? ? ? 247
XII. To-Day, The Last, and the last Psalms of the
Future (1847-1848) 270
XIII. The Unfinished Poem 286
XIV. Resurrecturis: the Last Words of the Anony-
mous Poet (1851-1859) 304
Bibliographical Note 315
Index 317
Zygmunt Krasinski (after Ary Scheffer) Frontispiece
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? NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF
POLISH NAMES
C= English is.
Ch = the Scotch strongly aspirated ch.
Ci, 6= a very softly hissed sound between is
and the ordinary English ch in charm.
Cz = ch in charm.
Dz = j in jam.
J=y.
h, a letter peculiar to the Polish alphabet,
with a sound between an English u and w.
0 = oo as in mood.
Rz = French j as in je.
5, si = a very soft hissing j^.
5^ = j&
W=ff.
Z, zi = French j.
The stress in Polish is almost invariably on
the penultimate.
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? CHAPTER I
THE INITIATION
(1812-1829)
A biography of the great Polish poet, Zygmunt Kra-
sinski, is one that offers to its,writer no easy task. It
can concern itself but little with outward events; for of
such there are very few in Krasinski's life. The son of
a soldier, with the blood in his veins of men who had
helped to make the history of Poland, he was compelled
by the tragedy of circumstance to stand aside from what
is commonly, and perhaps erroneously, termed action.
Nor can a study on Krasinski be merely a piece of
literary criticism. With scarcely an exception Kra-
sinski's work, for all its high literary beauty, is the
organ of a great idea to which he regarded art as sub-
servient. The history of the poet, who during his life-
time was known only as the Anonymous Poet, and after
death had revealed his secret was, and is still, honoured
under the same title, is that of an overmastering thought
and of its development through a soul's travail. The
poet who began his career by being unable to write
verse ended it, by force of devotion to a cause, as one
of the three supreme singers in the magnificent literature
of Poland. The Pole who was driven to the brink of
despair by grief for his country, who spoke in his early
youth the language of pessimism, became the most
sublime teacher of his nation, the herald of hope, the
prophet of resurrection. The life of Krasinski, there-
G.
1
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 2 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
fore, resolves itself into the record of a moral conflict
and of the message that it wrung forth, which, primarily-
intended for the poet's own nation, yet appeals most
powerfully to all humanity and to the spiritual necessity
of every human soul.
It was in Paris on the nineteenth of February, 1812,
that Zygmunt Krasinski was born to a noble and wealthy
house; the greatly desired son of a marriage that, save
for an infant daughter who did not survive her birth,
had been childless for nine years. His family was re-
lated to the Royal House of Savoy. His mother was
a Radziwift, one of the oldest names in Lithuania,
written on nearly every page of Polish history. Behind
him stretched a distinguished line of ancestors; soldiers
who in the splendid, brilliantly coloured annals of Poland
had led their armies of retainers into the battle-fields
against Tartars, Turks, Russians; statesmen who had
rendered conspicuous service to their country.
The father of the poet, Wincenty Krasijjsjd^ like
so many Poles of his epoch, fought under Napoleon's
flag. Among the Polish legions, devoted by a chivalrous
and passionate attachment to Napoleon upon whom
they looked as the future saviour of their nation, Win-
centy Krasinski gained considerable distinction. He
was above all things a soldier, with a soldier's physical
courage and lightheartedness; vain, ambitious, and fond
of show. With his character and temperament those of
his only son were at life-long odds: and yet the con-
fidence and affection, proof against the bitterest of tests,
that united a wholly dissimilar father and son went so
deep as to be exceptional. Zygmunt's mother gave
him her plain face, her keen intelligence, her profound
religious sense, and the fatal inheritance of melan-
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? The Initiation
3
choly and disordered nerves that tormented him all his
life.
The conditions of Krasinski's infancy were strangely
inconsistent with those of the shadowed life that fol-
lowed. He entered the world amidst the clash of arms:
he was the little son of a regiment, the plaything of the
soldiers under Wincenty Krasinski's command. More-
over, he was born into that spring of high hope for the
Polish nation, of which Adam Mickiewicz sang as the
one year of gladness that he as a Pole had ever known.
Those were the days of Napoleon's march upon Russia
when all Poland enthusiastically hailed him as her de-
liverer. Wincenty Krasinski shared to its utmost the
devotion to Napoleon that even the betrayal of their
cause could never shake in the hearts of the Poles.
Zygmunt was brought up in the Napoleonic tradition.
Napoleon was the first of the five names which his
parents gave him, among which the Zygmunt that re-
mained by him came last; and in his childhood he was
called by a pet Polish diminutive, equivalent to "Little
Napoleon. " The Napoleon cult played a very large part
in the influences that shaped his views: and his final
solution of his national and spiritual enigmas was in
part based upon his theories of the Napoleonic con-
quests.
The downfall of Napoleon ended Wincenty Kra-
sinski's career in the Polish legions. In 1814 he re-
turned with his wife and child to the family palace in"
Warsaw; and, after the establishment of the autonomous
Kingdom of Poland by the Congress of Vienna in 1815,
he received a high command in the Polish army. The
childhood of Zygmunt Krasinski synchronized there-
fore with the last days in which his nation possessed
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? 4 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
any vestiges of freedom. The Kingdom had been
granted her own administration, her national army and
constitution under the Russian Tsar, crowned king of
Poland; but Krasinski was not out of his boyhood be-
fore the portents of tempest were fast gathering about
his country. Her rights were attacked by Russia on
every side, her liberties outraged. There could be but
one end:--the Rising of 1830.
Although Krasinski was the idol of both his parents
his childhood, even before his mother's death, was no
happy one. He was brought up with as little relaxation
and as few amusements suited to his age as any prince
in a rigidly ceremonious court. The precocious brain
of the frail and highly-strung child was forced at a pace
that to our modern ideas seems frankly appalling. Be-
tween the father's ambition for his son and the peda-
gogic severity of the tutors, the delicate boy, despite
his mother's entreaties, was kept at his lessons for the
greater part of the day. Both head and heart were too
soon developed. At four years old, the pretty, little
ringleted boy, in the low-necked frock and high sash
of the pre-Victorian era, such as we see him in a
charming early portrait, recited to Alexander I at the
latter's request verses of his own choosing: and with
eyes fastened on the Tsar of all the Russias he spouted
Brutus's defence of democracy from Voltaire. A child
of seven, he made courtly repartees to the Dowager
Empress. Clear signs of the acute sensitiveness and
strong affections that were his characteristics through
life already foretold the future. In his childish sick-
nesses his entreaty was that his invalid mother must
not know what he was suffering.
Nor could Zygmunt Krasinski carry away from his
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? The Initiation 5
home the remembrance of a domestic hearth united by
deep family attachment such as we find in the free,
happy, boyish days of Adam Mickiewicz. He was the
chief bond between his parents. Their marriage had not
been a love-match. Although the high moral character
of his mother was unimpeachable, her melancholy, her
forebodings, her nervous petulance, her jealousies--for
which her husband, gay, handsome, younger than her-
self, gave her good reason--made her no easy inmate
of a household. Long before her death she retired from
society, a mental and physical invalid, and occupied
herself with the religious and moral training of her boy.
She died in 1822, when Zygmunt was ten years old, of
the lung disease that he inherited: her parting wish
for her son, recorded in her will, being that he might
grow up a good Christian and a good Pole.
It is said that the grief of the orphaned child was
far more profound than that of his father for his dead
wife. But what between the detestation with which
Wincenty Krasinski has been regarded by many of his
fellow-Poles and the white-washing process by which
others have defended his memory, it is difficult to arrive
at a correct judgment upon a character that was, more-
over, in itself one of contradictions. All agree that to
supply the loss of a mother's love he redoubled his
fondness to the child. Father and son spent hours
together in the General's private room. There Win-
centy taught his son the national history. He spoke
to him at length of the glorious deeds of his ancestors
whose portraits, hanging round the walls of the palace
such as the poet later described in a famous scene of
his Undivine Comedy, impressed upon the boyish mind
the realization of the patriotic inheritance and obliga-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 6 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
tions of his house. Krasinski was, in fact, brought up
in the spirit of devoted attachment to his country. This
close intimacy between the soldier and his son deepened
the latter's enthusiastic hero-worship for a father who
had fought so gallantly himself for Poland1. It stands
out with the most tragic significance when the trial of
Zygmunt Krasinski's life swept down upon him. Be-
yond his father's love all the tenderness that Krasinski
knew as a motherless boy was supplied by a French
governess, to whom in his letters after he had reached
manhood he always alludes with strong affection. His
father's mother, it is true, lived in the palace; but her
presence introduced no motherly or womanly influence
into her young grandson's lonely life. H er rigid severity
was the terror of her servants and all who approached
her, and had early driven her son when a youth from
home.
Such was the environment of Krasinski's childhood.
Gardner . . .
Gardner, Monica Mary, d. 1941. Cambridge, University Press, 1919.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045
Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
This work is deemed to be in the public domain in the United States of America. It may not be in the public domain in other countries. Copies are provided as a preservation service. Particularly outside of the United States, persons receiving copies should make appropriate efforts to determine the copyright status of the work in their country and use the work accordingly. It is possible that heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address. The digital images and OCR of this work were produced by Google, Inc. (indicated by a watermark on each page in the PageTurner). Google requests that the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributed or used commercially.
The images are provided for educational, scholarly, non-commercial purposes.
? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? The anonymous poet of Poland, Zygmunt KrasinskiMonica Mary Gardner
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? Xibrars
of tbe
TflnivereU^ of Misconsin
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? THE ANONYMOUS POET
OF POLAND
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, Manager
LONDON : FETTER LANE, E. C-4
NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
BOMBAY
CALCUTTA MACMILLANANDCO. Ltd.
MADRAS J
TORONTO : J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd.
TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? ZYGMUNT KRASINSKI
(after Ary Scheffer)
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? IE ANONYMOUS POET
'OF POLAND
ZYGMUNT KRASINSKI
BY
MONICA M. GARDNER
? i
AUTHOR OF
ADAM MICKIEWICZ: THE NATIONAL POET OF POLAND;
POLAND: A STUDY IN NATIONAL IDEALISM;
ETC.
"He who speaks truth to an unhappy nation is her
noblest son, for he brings her life. "
Letters of Zygmunt Krasinski.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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? TO THE MEMORY OF
EDMUND S. NAGANOWSKI
"Serca podnios? e pe? k? y. I mys? l wszelka,
Byleby tylko wolna-- silna-- wielka--
Z? egna sie? z nami. ''
Zygmunt Krasin? ski, Fryburg.
JMl? JTliO 'N QREAT >>RI7AIN
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? m 26 1942
YGn
PREFACE
In the following study on the Anonymous Poet of
Poland I have attempted to give the English reader
some idea of Zygmunt Krasinski as the poet, the
patriot, the mystic, who endowed his nation with much
of her greatest poetry and noblest thought, and finally
as the man of tortured and complex character. I would
ask my Polish readers to overlook the many omissions
that of necessity I have been compelled to make in a
subject too vast for one volume. I have restricted
myself to those details that seemed to me calculated to
further the object for which this book is written, that
is, to draw English attention to a poetry and a line of
thought that are, on one side, not only of a national but
of a world-wide appeal, and, on the other, of high
spiritual significance to the individual.
I have tried to let the poet speak mainly for him-
self both in his work and letters. For this purpose,
and because the very name of Krasinski is unknown
in this country, I have given extensive translations of
his writings.
On certain aspects of Krasinski's life we are unable
to speak with full certainty, as the voluminous cor-
respondence with his father and Delphina Potocka
remains at present unpublished in the family archives.
To Dr J6zef Kallenbach, who has had access to the
letters between father and son, and who has freely used
them in his monograph on Krasinski's youth, students
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? vi
Preface
of Krasinski owe their knowledge of much that would
otherwise be obscure: but unfortunately Dr Kallen-
bach's work ends with the year 1838, and he has not
as yet given us the completed biography. As it is,
Krasinski's published correspondence comprises several
volumes. Although I have drawn largely upon them,
yet I have reluctantly been obliged, through want of
space, to pass over much in these magnificent letters
that can ill be spared either from the artistic or psycho-
logical point of view. It is however my intention to
publish some of their most striking passages in a
separate form.
My grateful thanks are due to Dr Kallenbach of
the Lw6w University for his gifts of his writings on
Krasinski, and for the interest he showed in my work
before the war put an end to my correspondence with
Poles in Poland; to Prof. Zdziechowski; to Mr Ladislas
Mickiewicz, who kindly lent me a volume of the Kra-
sinski letters that in these difficult days I could obtain
in no other way. But above all I wish to express here
my indebtedness to my friend, the late Mr Edmund
Naganowski. He was my first and constant guide in
my Krasinski readings. From the hour that I began
my Polish studies under his direction, twenty years ago,
until the outbreak of the war cut off all possibility of
communication between us, his help, his advice, his
unfailing sympathy, were ceaseless. He died in Poland
while the war was ravaging his country. It is to him
that as a small tribute of affection and gratitude for a
long and most precious friendship I dedicate this book.
May, 1919.
M. M. G.
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? CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface v
Note on the Pronunciation of Polish names . viii
CHAP.
I. The Initiation (1812-1829) . . . . I
II. The First Exile (1829-1830) . . .
On certain aspects of Krasinski's life we are unable
to speak with full certainty, as the voluminous cor-
respondence with his father and Delphina Potocka
remains at present unpublished in the family archives.
To Dr J6zef Kallenbach, who has had access to the
letters between father and son, and who has freely used
them in his monograph on Krasinski's youth, students
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? vi
Preface
of Krasinski owe their knowledge of much that would
otherwise be obscure: but unfortunately Dr Kallen-
bach's work ends with the year 1838, and he has not
as yet given us the completed biography. As it is,
Krasinski's published correspondence comprises several
volumes. Although I have drawn largely upon them,
yet I have reluctantly been obliged, through want of
space, to pass over much in these magnificent letters
that can ill be spared either from the artistic or psycho-
logical point of view. It is however my intention to
publish some of their most striking passages in a
separate form.
My grateful thanks are due to Dr Kallenbach of
the Lw6w University for his gifts of his writings on
Krasinski, and for the interest he showed in my work
before the war put an end to my correspondence with
Poles in Poland; to Prof. Zdziechowski; to Mr Ladislas
Mickiewicz, who kindly lent me a volume of the Kra-
sinski letters that in these difficult days I could obtain
in no other way. But above all I wish to express here
my indebtedness to my friend, the late Mr Edmund
Naganowski. He was my first and constant guide in
my Krasinski readings. From the hour that I began
my Polish studies under his direction, twenty years ago,
until the outbreak of the war cut off all possibility of
communication between us, his help, his advice, his
unfailing sympathy, were ceaseless. He died in Poland
while the war was ravaging his country. It is to him
that as a small tribute of affection and gratitude for a
long and most precious friendship I dedicate this book.
May, 1919.
M. M. G.
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? CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface v
Note on the Pronunciation of Polish names . viii
CHAP.
I. The Initiation (1812-1829) . . . . I
II. The First Exile (1829-1830) . . . . 19
III. The Sacrifice (1830-1831) . . . . 38
IV. The Sowing of the Seed (1831-1834) . . 67
V. The Undivine Comedy: the domestic drama . 92
VI. The Undivine Comedy: the social drama . . 115
VII. Iridion 135
VIII. The Deviation: A Summer Night and The
Temptation (1836-1838) 169
IX. Before the Dawn: The Three Thoughts and The
Treatise of the Trinity (1839-1842) . . . 192
X. Dawn (1843) 219
XI. The Psalms of the Future: the Psalms of Faith,
of Hope, and of Love (1843-1847) ? ? ? 247
XII. To-Day, The Last, and the last Psalms of the
Future (1847-1848) 270
XIII. The Unfinished Poem 286
XIV. Resurrecturis: the Last Words of the Anony-
mous Poet (1851-1859) 304
Bibliographical Note 315
Index 317
Zygmunt Krasinski (after Ary Scheffer) Frontispiece
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? NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF
POLISH NAMES
C= English is.
Ch = the Scotch strongly aspirated ch.
Ci, 6= a very softly hissed sound between is
and the ordinary English ch in charm.
Cz = ch in charm.
Dz = j in jam.
J=y.
h, a letter peculiar to the Polish alphabet,
with a sound between an English u and w.
0 = oo as in mood.
Rz = French j as in je.
5, si = a very soft hissing j^.
5^ = j&
W=ff.
Z, zi = French j.
The stress in Polish is almost invariably on
the penultimate.
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? CHAPTER I
THE INITIATION
(1812-1829)
A biography of the great Polish poet, Zygmunt Kra-
sinski, is one that offers to its,writer no easy task. It
can concern itself but little with outward events; for of
such there are very few in Krasinski's life. The son of
a soldier, with the blood in his veins of men who had
helped to make the history of Poland, he was compelled
by the tragedy of circumstance to stand aside from what
is commonly, and perhaps erroneously, termed action.
Nor can a study on Krasinski be merely a piece of
literary criticism. With scarcely an exception Kra-
sinski's work, for all its high literary beauty, is the
organ of a great idea to which he regarded art as sub-
servient. The history of the poet, who during his life-
time was known only as the Anonymous Poet, and after
death had revealed his secret was, and is still, honoured
under the same title, is that of an overmastering thought
and of its development through a soul's travail. The
poet who began his career by being unable to write
verse ended it, by force of devotion to a cause, as one
of the three supreme singers in the magnificent literature
of Poland. The Pole who was driven to the brink of
despair by grief for his country, who spoke in his early
youth the language of pessimism, became the most
sublime teacher of his nation, the herald of hope, the
prophet of resurrection. The life of Krasinski, there-
G.
1
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? 2 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
fore, resolves itself into the record of a moral conflict
and of the message that it wrung forth, which, primarily-
intended for the poet's own nation, yet appeals most
powerfully to all humanity and to the spiritual necessity
of every human soul.
It was in Paris on the nineteenth of February, 1812,
that Zygmunt Krasinski was born to a noble and wealthy
house; the greatly desired son of a marriage that, save
for an infant daughter who did not survive her birth,
had been childless for nine years. His family was re-
lated to the Royal House of Savoy. His mother was
a Radziwift, one of the oldest names in Lithuania,
written on nearly every page of Polish history. Behind
him stretched a distinguished line of ancestors; soldiers
who in the splendid, brilliantly coloured annals of Poland
had led their armies of retainers into the battle-fields
against Tartars, Turks, Russians; statesmen who had
rendered conspicuous service to their country.
The father of the poet, Wincenty Krasijjsjd^ like
so many Poles of his epoch, fought under Napoleon's
flag. Among the Polish legions, devoted by a chivalrous
and passionate attachment to Napoleon upon whom
they looked as the future saviour of their nation, Win-
centy Krasinski gained considerable distinction. He
was above all things a soldier, with a soldier's physical
courage and lightheartedness; vain, ambitious, and fond
of show. With his character and temperament those of
his only son were at life-long odds: and yet the con-
fidence and affection, proof against the bitterest of tests,
that united a wholly dissimilar father and son went so
deep as to be exceptional. Zygmunt's mother gave
him her plain face, her keen intelligence, her profound
religious sense, and the fatal inheritance of melan-
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? The Initiation
3
choly and disordered nerves that tormented him all his
life.
The conditions of Krasinski's infancy were strangely
inconsistent with those of the shadowed life that fol-
lowed. He entered the world amidst the clash of arms:
he was the little son of a regiment, the plaything of the
soldiers under Wincenty Krasinski's command. More-
over, he was born into that spring of high hope for the
Polish nation, of which Adam Mickiewicz sang as the
one year of gladness that he as a Pole had ever known.
Those were the days of Napoleon's march upon Russia
when all Poland enthusiastically hailed him as her de-
liverer. Wincenty Krasinski shared to its utmost the
devotion to Napoleon that even the betrayal of their
cause could never shake in the hearts of the Poles.
Zygmunt was brought up in the Napoleonic tradition.
Napoleon was the first of the five names which his
parents gave him, among which the Zygmunt that re-
mained by him came last; and in his childhood he was
called by a pet Polish diminutive, equivalent to "Little
Napoleon. " The Napoleon cult played a very large part
in the influences that shaped his views: and his final
solution of his national and spiritual enigmas was in
part based upon his theories of the Napoleonic con-
quests.
The downfall of Napoleon ended Wincenty Kra-
sinski's career in the Polish legions. In 1814 he re-
turned with his wife and child to the family palace in"
Warsaw; and, after the establishment of the autonomous
Kingdom of Poland by the Congress of Vienna in 1815,
he received a high command in the Polish army. The
childhood of Zygmunt Krasinski synchronized there-
fore with the last days in which his nation possessed
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? 4 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
any vestiges of freedom. The Kingdom had been
granted her own administration, her national army and
constitution under the Russian Tsar, crowned king of
Poland; but Krasinski was not out of his boyhood be-
fore the portents of tempest were fast gathering about
his country. Her rights were attacked by Russia on
every side, her liberties outraged. There could be but
one end:--the Rising of 1830.
Although Krasinski was the idol of both his parents
his childhood, even before his mother's death, was no
happy one. He was brought up with as little relaxation
and as few amusements suited to his age as any prince
in a rigidly ceremonious court. The precocious brain
of the frail and highly-strung child was forced at a pace
that to our modern ideas seems frankly appalling. Be-
tween the father's ambition for his son and the peda-
gogic severity of the tutors, the delicate boy, despite
his mother's entreaties, was kept at his lessons for the
greater part of the day. Both head and heart were too
soon developed. At four years old, the pretty, little
ringleted boy, in the low-necked frock and high sash
of the pre-Victorian era, such as we see him in a
charming early portrait, recited to Alexander I at the
latter's request verses of his own choosing: and with
eyes fastened on the Tsar of all the Russias he spouted
Brutus's defence of democracy from Voltaire. A child
of seven, he made courtly repartees to the Dowager
Empress. Clear signs of the acute sensitiveness and
strong affections that were his characteristics through
life already foretold the future. In his childish sick-
nesses his entreaty was that his invalid mother must
not know what he was suffering.
Nor could Zygmunt Krasinski carry away from his
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? The Initiation 5
home the remembrance of a domestic hearth united by
deep family attachment such as we find in the free,
happy, boyish days of Adam Mickiewicz. He was the
chief bond between his parents. Their marriage had not
been a love-match. Although the high moral character
of his mother was unimpeachable, her melancholy, her
forebodings, her nervous petulance, her jealousies--for
which her husband, gay, handsome, younger than her-
self, gave her good reason--made her no easy inmate
of a household. Long before her death she retired from
society, a mental and physical invalid, and occupied
herself with the religious and moral training of her boy.
She died in 1822, when Zygmunt was ten years old, of
the lung disease that he inherited: her parting wish
for her son, recorded in her will, being that he might
grow up a good Christian and a good Pole.
It is said that the grief of the orphaned child was
far more profound than that of his father for his dead
wife. But what between the detestation with which
Wincenty Krasinski has been regarded by many of his
fellow-Poles and the white-washing process by which
others have defended his memory, it is difficult to arrive
at a correct judgment upon a character that was, more-
over, in itself one of contradictions. All agree that to
supply the loss of a mother's love he redoubled his
fondness to the child. Father and son spent hours
together in the General's private room. There Win-
centy taught his son the national history. He spoke
to him at length of the glorious deeds of his ancestors
whose portraits, hanging round the walls of the palace
such as the poet later described in a famous scene of
his Undivine Comedy, impressed upon the boyish mind
the realization of the patriotic inheritance and obliga-
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? 6 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
tions of his house. Krasinski was, in fact, brought up
in the spirit of devoted attachment to his country. This
close intimacy between the soldier and his son deepened
the latter's enthusiastic hero-worship for a father who
had fought so gallantly himself for Poland1. It stands
out with the most tragic significance when the trial of
Zygmunt Krasinski's life swept down upon him. Be-
yond his father's love all the tenderness that Krasinski
knew as a motherless boy was supplied by a French
governess, to whom in his letters after he had reached
manhood he always alludes with strong affection. His
father's mother, it is true, lived in the palace; but her
presence introduced no motherly or womanly influence
into her young grandson's lonely life. H er rigid severity
was the terror of her servants and all who approached
her, and had early driven her son when a youth from
home.
Such was the environment of Krasinski's childhood.
