Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations: With a Sketch of Their Popular PoetryTalvj
History
Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations: With a Sketch of Their Popular Poetry
Talvj
Folk songs, Slavic; Slavic languages -- History; Slavic literature -- History and criticism
Modern history, we have said, cannot be expected to be written in
Poland. This remark leads us at once to the literature of Polish
Emigrants, as it is generally called, which has sprung up in Paris.
Since the revolution of 1830, this capital has been the principal seat
of Polish literary activity. One of the first works of importance
published there was Maurice Mochnacki's History of the Polish
insurrection; which excited among his own countrymen a new and
passionate feud. Mochnacki's name had been favourably known as the
author of a work on the Polish literature of the nineteenth
century;[81] and as the able editor of several periodicals. His
political misfortunes, however, and especially the circumstance that
he had been compelled to appear alternately as the tool of the grand
duke Constantine, and as the victim of his hatred, made him a subject
of distrust to his countrymen, although he had fought with bravery in
the revolution. He died in France when not yet thirty years old. His
scattered writings were published in 1836 by A. Jelowicki, one of the
patriotic family of that name; who had been deeply implicated in the
revolution, and lived as fugitives in Paris. A printing office,
which they have founded there, serves for the publication of Polish
works.
Another work on the recent events was written by Wratnowski, who
published a history of the insurrection in Volhynia, Paris. 1837. An
animated picture of the time, which appeared three years ago under the
title, "Representation of the national spirit in Poland." by
Ojczyczniak,[82] exhibits strong passions in the author; a glowing and
certainly not unnatural hatred against the great powers; but a still
more violent one against his _democratic_ countrymen, to whom he
imputes the perdition of the good cause. A history of the Polish
insurrection, published by S.B. Gnorowski in the English language.
Lond. 1839, is written in the same violent and prejudiced spirit.
The Slavic press in Paris has been especially productive in
periodicals; all of them replete with passion and hatred against their
oppressors; some of them conducted not without talent. The _Revue
Slave_, the _Mlada Polska_, (young Poland), the _Cronika, Emigracyi
Polskiej_ (Polish Emigrant's Chronicle), and the _Polish Vademecum_
edited by N.U. Hoffmann, may be named here. From the latter we learn,
that, from 1831 to 1837 among the Polish emigrants in France, _nine_
died in duels and _fourteen_ by suicide.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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