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Polish Positivism was a social, literary and philosophical movement that became dominant in late-19th-century partitioned Poland following Romanticism in Poland and the suppression of the January 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire. The Positivist period lasted until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the modernist Young Poland movement. [1]
In the aftermath of the 1863 Uprising, many thoughtful Poles argued against further attempts to regain independence from the partitioning powers – the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire – by force of arms. In their polemics over forms of resistance, published between 1868 and 1873 in Przegląd tygodniowy (The Weekly Review) and Prawda (Truth), they – often reluctantly and only partially – discarded the literary stylistics of the earlier Polish Romantic period. [1]
While Polish Positivism took the name "Positivism" from the writings of French philosopher Auguste Comte, much of its ideology was actually inspired by British scholars and scientists, including Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and John Stuart Mill.
The Polish Positivists advocated the exercise of reason before emotion. They believed that independence, if it was to be regained, must be won gradually, by "building from the foundations" (by creating a material infrastructure and educating the populace), and through "organic work" that would enable Polish society to function as a fully integrated "social organism" (a concept borrowed from a number of European thinkers, including Herbert Spencer). [2]
A leading Polish philosopher of the period, the journalist, short-story writer, and novelist Bolesław Prus (author of the novels The Outpost , The Doll , The New Woman , and Pharaoh , and of the prescient 1873 study, On Discoveries and Inventions ), advised his compatriots that Poland's place in the world would be determined by her contributions to the world's scientific, technological, economic, and cultural advances. [3]
Societal concerns addressed by the Polish Positivists included the securing of equal rights for all members of society, including peasants and women; the assimilation of Poland's Jewish minority; the elimination of illiteracy resulting from closure of Polish schools by the partitioning powers; and defense of the Polish population in German-ruled Poland against Germany's Kulturkampf and displacing of Poles with German settlers. [1] [4]
The Polish Positivists viewed work, rather than uprisings, as the true path to preserving Polish national identity and affirming a constructive patriotism. Aleksander Świętochowski, editor of Prawda, held that "All the great problems [abiding] in the [bosom] of mankind can be solved by education alone, and this education must be compulsory." [5]
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Esperanto. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama and poetic self-expression than on fiction. The reasons were manifold but mostly rested on the historical circumstances of the nation. Polish writers typically have had a more profound range of choices to motivate them to write, including past cataclysms of extraordinary violence that swept Poland, but also, Poland's collective incongruities demanding an adequate reaction from the writing communities of any given period.
Ignacy Błażej Franciszek Krasicki, from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno, was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet, a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and Greek.
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is one of Poland's "Three Bards" and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard". A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe.
Aleksander Głowacki, better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus, was a Polish novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, as well as a distinctive voice in world literature.
Napoleon Stanisław Adam Feliks Zygmunt Krasiński was a Polish poet traditionally ranked after Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness in the period of Partitions of Poland.
Fables and Parables, by Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801), is a work in a long international tradition of fable-writing that reaches back to antiquity. Krasicki's fables and parables have been described as being, "[l]ike Jean de La Fontaine's [fables],... amongst the best ever written, while in colour they are distinctly original, because Polish." They are, according to Czesław Miłosz, "the most durable among Krasicki's poems."
Pharaoh is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus (1847–1912). Composed over a year's time in 1894–95, serialized in 1895–96, and published in book form in 1897, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had earlier disapproved of historical novels on the ground that they inevitably distort history.
Zygmunt Szweykowski was a historian of Polish literature who specialized in 19th-century Polish prose.
Aleksander Świętochowski was a Polish writer, educator, and philosopher of the Positivist period that followed the January 1863 Uprising.
The Doll is the second of four acclaimed novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed for periodical serialization in 1887–1889 and appeared in book form in 1890.
The Outpost was the first of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. The author, writing in a Poland that had been partitioned a century earlier by Russia, Prussia and Austria, sought to bring attention to the plight of rural Poland, which had to contend with poverty, ignorance, neglect by the country's upper crust, and colonization by German settlers backed by Otto von Bismarck's German government.
The New Woman is the third of four major novels by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. It was composed, and appeared in newspaper serialization, in 1890-93, and dealt with societal questions involving feminism.
The history of philosophy in Poland parallels the evolution of philosophy in Europe in general.
Julian Leopold Ochorowicz was a Polish philosopher, psychologist, inventor, poet, publicist, and leading exponent of Polish Positivism.
"Fading Voices" is an 1883 short story by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus, the leading representative of Realism in 19th-century Polish literature.
Edmund Franciszek Maurycy Chojecki was a Polish journalist, playwright, novelist, poet and translator. Originally hailing from Warsaw, from 1844 he resided in France, where he wrote under the pen name Charles Edmond.
Henryk Rzewuski was a Polish nobleman, Romantic-era journalist and novelist.
Adam Mahrburg was a Polish philosopher—the outstanding philosophical mind of Poland's Positivist period.
The Temple of the Sibyl is a colonnaded round monopteral temple-like structure at Puławy, Poland, built at the turn of the 19th century as a museum by Izabela Czartoryska.
The Lives of the Saints from the Old and New Testaments is a hagiography by Polish Jesuit Piotr Skarga. It became one of the most popular Polish books ever and a classic of Polish literature. It is one of two most famous works by Skarga, the other being Sejm Sermons.
