Romantyczna powieść historyczna Michała Czajkowskiego: poetyka, myśl polityczna i kontekst historycznoliteracki
Michał Czajkowski’s Romantic Historical Novel: Poetics, Political Thought, and the Historical and Literary Contexts

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the fictional works of Michał Czajkowski (1804–1886) from the 1830s and 1840s. The Polish novel grew out of Enlightenment verse epic and aristocratic storytelling, as well as from historical scholarship. During several decades, it underwent an evolution, moving towards the modern novel dealing with national history. In his novels, Czajkowski adapted European literary patterns and world models from Walter Scott, Alfred de Vigny, and Victor Hugo. M. Czajkowski’s prose from the 1830s and 1840s fulfils the vision of a national historical novel: one dedicated to pivotal events in the nation’s history, yet at the same time compelling in its narrative and capturing the local colour. Czajkowski depicts the complex social, national and political relations in the eastern regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th and 18th centuries. The main characters in his novels are hybrid, mysterious, and heroic figures. The language of the characters and the narrative reflects the complex socio-political situation on the eastern frontiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Czajkowski’s prose from the 1930s and 1940s is characterised by a rich local colour, a web of sensational events and plot twists, but also by didacticism. In his novels, he presents decolonial and utopian concepts for the restoration of Poland through ethnic, social, political and geopolitical transfers. Polish Romantic works, including Czajkowski’s novels, became a source of inspiration for T. Shevchenko’s poem The Haidamaks (1841), as well as P. Kulish’s first Ukrainian historical novel The Black Council (1857) and other Slavic works on historical themes (J. Kalinčiak).

• Details
• Contents