Nieznana kronika poetycka powstania kościuszkowskiego. Wstępne rozpoznania
Unknown Poetic Chronicle of the Kościuszko Uprising. Preliminary Examinations

Summary/Abstract: Archiwum Prowincji Polski Południowej Towarzystwa Jezusowego w Krakowie (The Archive of Southern Poland Province of the Jesuit Society in Cracow) stocks a manuscript of 166 pages with 6264 verses entitled “Poemat o powstaniu Kościuszki, zakończony »Kantem żałobnym Ojczyzny straconej ku niewdzięcznemu Królowi zdrajcy«” (“A Poem on the Kościuszko Uprising That Ends with »A Mornful Cantata of the Lost Motherland to Ungrateful King Traitor«”). The piece to this day has not been subject to academic research, even though it belongs to the most representative text of 1793–1806 occasional literature, and is viewed as a peculiar summary of the motifs, themes, literary and stylistic forms as well as emotional tones found in poems and verses of partitional and after-partitional poetry. The anonymous author composed the work in his normal course, in line with the spread of the Kościuszko Uprising and the international events connected with it. It may be an exceptional source of information about the thoughts of the Poles from January to autumn 1794.The paper attempts at an analysis of a few key vital issues, namely the piece’s authorship, its genetic distinctiveness, ideological potential, and historical-ideological context.

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