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In Search of the New Man Changing Masculinities in Late Nineteenth-Century Polish Novels Author(s): Renata Ingbrant Source: The Polish Review, Vol. 59, No. 1 (2014), pp. 35-52 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/polishreview.59.1.0035 Accessed: 05-06-2015 15:01 UTC

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Renata Ingbrant

In Search of the New Man Changing Masculinities in Late Nineteenth-Century Polish Novels

This article is a part of an ongoing study, the purpose of which is to map masculinities under transformation in late nineteenth-century Polish prose, and particularly in the works of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Bolesław Prus, Stefan Żeromski, and Wacław Berent. Drawing on developments taking place in society at that time, the article explores the new types of literary heroes that appear in Polish literature toward the end of the nineteenth century: the decadent antihero, the aristocrat Leon Płoszowski as well as “newcomers” to the capitalist society, the “New Men,” Stanisław Wokulski, Tomasz Judym, and Kazimierz Zaliwski. The article argues that, even though the new models of masculinity that the protagonists represent pose a certain challenge to the prevailing romantic models, the characters remain entrapped in literary conventions that inscribe specific gender roles on literary heroes.

Literature has always occupied a unique position in Poland and often played an important role in upholding its national heritage, Christian values, and patriotic feelings. During the period 1795–1918, when Poland was erased from the map of Europe, the role of literature was to preserve and strengthen Polish identity. In fact, Polish language and literature were of immense importance to nation building in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Polish-speaking lands. They were those exclusive spaces within which Poles could express, cultivate, and practice their ethnicity.1 Since literature fulfilled such an important identity- and nation- building function, it may be relevant to explore what role models it provided

1. Another important site for cultivating Polishness when there was no Polish state was, of course, the Catholic Church. Some scholars claim that even village life and the commercial world were sustained through a strong sense of Polishness. See Brian Porter-Szucs, Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 7–8.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 36 The Polish Review for Poles and in what ways these literary role models might have challenged the prevalent gender pattern. In this article, I shall touch upon certain issues that I examine in my current research project, which is devoted to the study of changing fictions of masculinity/ masculinities in Polish prose of the late nineteenth century. Drawing on developments taking place in culture and society at that time, I examine images of masculinity in the following novels: Bolesław Prus’s (1847–1912) Lalka (The doll, 1890); Henryk Sienkiewicz’s (1846–1916) Bez dogmatu (Without dogma,1891); Wacław Berent’s (1873–1930) Fachowiec (A professional, 1895); and Stefan Żeromski’s (1864– 1925) Ludzie bezdomni (Homeless people, 1899). All the novels were written during the last decade of the nineteenth century in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland). Despite the censorship, they all reflect in their own way the condition of Polish society, as well as the condition of Polish literature, in the aftermath of the 1863 uprising against Russia. The overall idea is to examine what Polish classics can tell us about Polish masculinities of that time, and whether it is at all possible to speculate on the possibility of creating new images of masculinity by identifying what literature has to say about changing social roles. Many scholars have noted the significant shift in the gender paradigm taking place with the advance of capitalism and modernization, on the one hand, and modernism in literature, on the other. They have recognized the signs of a “gender confusion” or “gender anxiety” in European decadence where a new elite male gender was being constructed through aesthetics, theory, and philosophy, resulting in the exclusion and rejection (or sublimation) of femininity and corporeality.2 The “spirit” of the fin de siècle involved a general sense of cultural crisis, a disintegration of all wholeness—even of reality itself, or at least people’s ability to confront and comprehend it. Women’s emancipation, the industrial revolution, technological development, economic transformation, and the growth of the middle class all placed various pressures on male and female stereotypes in order to accommodate change. Gender patterns as a whole became evidently unstable and, consequently, the male subject had to reposition itself/himself. The supposed “fin-de-siècle crisis in masculinity” has often been understood as an effect of the general crisis in culture and described as a searching for new models, the evidence of which is to be found in literature. According to Raewyn Connell (the originator of the term “hegemonic masculinity,” which has proved very productive in masculinities studies), when talking about a possible “crisis of masculinity,” literary discourses become a privileged site for registering patriarchy’s

2. See: Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Dekoven Marianne,”Modernism and Gender,” in The Cambridge Companion to Mod- ernism, ed. Michael Levenson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 174–93; Ebba Witt-Brattström, Dekadensens kön (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2007); Talia Schaffer,Literature and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (New York: Pearson Longman, 2007).

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“loss of legitimacy” and how “different groups of men are now negotiating this loss in very different ways.”3 At the same time, cultural historians, in particular, emphasize a multiplicity of crises in the formation of masculinity in different cultures and in different periods.4 Some historical eras evince several crises, while in other eras people seem to possess a stable certainty in both attitudes and behaviors. In Polish culture, too, signs of a similar development can be observed. Against the background of cultural transformation taking place all over Europe at the time, certain models of the literary hero find their counterparts in European literature (e.g., Prus’s hero, Stanisław Wokulski, could be compared to the figure of the “gentleman of modern times” that appears in Victorian literature).5 At the same time, “Polish masculinities” in the late nineteenth century face quite different challenges from forces in society and culture from, let us say, English or German masculinities.6 Other scholars, such as Mark Breitenberg, claim instead that “masculinity is inherently anxious,” and that masculine anxiety is not “simply an unpleasant aberration from what we might hypothetically understand as normative,” rather it is “a necessary and inevitable condition” that “reveals the fissures and contradictions of the patriarchal system and, at the same time, it paradoxically enables and drives patriarchy’s reproduction and continuation of itself.”7 In relation to Polish masculinities one cannot ignore the effect that the Romantic ideals, national myths, the ethos of chivalry, and rebellion have had on this genera- tion of Poles. The “Romantic templates” have taken on various forms during different periods,8 and still activate themselves at moments when Polish identity has been threatened. (The last time the cultural imagery of the Polish nation was reinvigorated in a most vivid way was in the 1980s during the period of Solidarity’s resistance to communist rule.)9 In fact, the Romantic, Catholic, and nationalist discourses have equally shaped the Polish notions of what is male and female.10 However, due

3. R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1996), 202. 4. See, for example, Michael S. Kimmel, ”The ’Crisis”of Masculinity in Seventeenth-Century England,” in Constructions of Masculinity in British Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Stefan Horlacher (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 89–108. 5. See Ewa Paczoska, Lalka czyli rozpad świata [The doll or the disintegration of the world] (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Akademickie i Profesjonalne, 2008), 178–81. 6. Herbert Sussman, ”The Study of Victorian Masculinities,”Victorian Literature and Culture 20 (1992): 366–77; Michael Kane, Modern Men: Mapping Masculinity in English and German Literature, 1880–1930 (London and New York: Cassell, 1999). 7. Mark Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1996), 2. 8. See Maria Janion, ”Farewell to Poland? The Uprising of a Nation,” Baltic Worlds 4, no. 4 (2011): 4–13. 9. Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, The Wheel of Polish Fortune: Myths in Polish Collective Con- sciousness During the First Years of Solidarity (Lund: Lund University, 1992). 10. In fact, the notion of gendered characteristics, that is, what is “manlike” and “wom- anlike,” is central to cultural and national ideologies. See D. L. Best and J. E. Williams,

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 38 The Polish Review to historical and political circumstances, it is male identity in particular that has been most strongly tied to the idea of nationhood (Polishness), Catholicism, and heterosexuality.11 Since the partitions of Poland, throughout the Romantic period, and into the twentieth century, the main trait of Polish masculinities has been their “confinement,” or (literal and metaphorical) “imprisonment.” “Constricted” masculinity was the outcome of the symbolic bondage that has repeatedly forced Polish men to adapt to a set of given roles—brave soldiers, protectors of their moth- erland/fatherland, persistent insurgents, hard-bitten political prisoners, deportees or exiles, and so on. In fact, the whole Polish national myth rests on the shoulders of the “brave Polish men,” raised and nurtured in the patriotic spirit by their Matki Polki (Polish Mothers).12 Polish masculinities have had to constantly be redefined in order to meet the new social and, above all, historical challenges, though within certain limits. It seems that alternative ways for manly activities have been blocked. Among the models of masculinity that Polish culture has generated, one can hardly find any other than these traumatized ones. Traditionally, Polish men have been regarded as destined for greater purposes and for one exclusive mission—the defense of and/or the fight for Polish sovereignty, never really belonging to the familial community. They belonged to different fel- lowships or, as Maria Janion observes—“brotherhoods”:

beginning with “szlachta fellow brothers,” through orders of knights, student associations Philomaths and Philareths, nineteenth-century conspirators, Piłsudski’s legionnaires, to the football teams of today. All these groups, including the admi- rable brotherhood of uhlans, constitute the male national myth.13

“Masculinity and Femininity in the Self and Ideal Descriptions of University Students in 14 Countries,” in Masculinity and Femininity: The Taboo Dimensions of National Cultures, ed. G. Hofsteded (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998), 106–16. 11. Some scholars, for example, Nira Yuval-Davis, claim that “construction of nationhood usually involves specific notions of ‘manhood’ and ‘womanhood’”; and that the nationalist rhetoric is usually gendered—that is, it has a masculine gender. Yuval-Davies highlights the role of women as both biological and symbolic/cultural “reproducers” of the nation, and the ways in which these concepts have structured women’s obligations, rights and duties, as well as their subjectivities and experiences in different national contexts. Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London: Sage, 1997), 1. Among Polish researchers, it is Agnieszka Graff in particular who has given this subject much attention, for example, in her book Rykoszetem. Rzecz o płci, seksualności i narodzie [Ricochet: on gender, sexuality and nation] (Warsaw: W.A.B, 2008). 12. The ”Matka Polka” figure, which in today’s language stands for a certain Polish female stereotype, was promoted by a number of Polish poets, including Adam Mickiewicz in his poem ”Do Matki Polki” [To a Polish Mother] written in 1830 shortly before the outbreak of the November uprising. The poem expresses the hopelessness of the fight for freedom. Polish men are destined to be dead martyrs, because they have no chance to win against the powerful enemy. The role of the Polish Mother would therefore be to prepare her son for the hopeless fight and ultimate defeat. 13. “poczynając od ”szlachty panów braci,” poprzez hufce rycerskie, filomatów i filaretów,

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In this context, one should not forget either the Solidarity movement of the 1980s. In authoritarian political systems in general, the so-called hegemonic masculinity is often achieved through “military habitus” established and strengthened within the military institution called the army, and expressed through a military lifestyle and total adherence to higher ideals such as courage, honor, duty, and sacrifice.14 This can be compared to the situation in the Polish Republic of Nobles (Rzeczpospolita Szlachecka, 1569–1795), where the nation was nurtured in the spirit of “Sarmatism” and cultivated similar values and lifestyle. The older Polish literature and tradition (“kultura staropolska”) that was widely spread among the literate citizenry created an elitist poetic image of “szlachcic-żołnierz” (noble soldier), which was based on constantly modified notions of the “Sarmatian warrior,” and then also the “Christian knight”—the defender of the European “bulwark of Christianity.” In order to be called “a knight” (“rycerz”), one had to be of noble birth. Chivalry and nobility went hand in hand with pride and honor. Honor was associated with heroism in battle and a kind of fearlessness verging on arrogance and folly.15 In addition, a series of other noble virtues such as loyalty, generosity, and chivalry toward women, courtly behavior, knowledge of court etiquette, moderation, temperance, and religion, completed the portrait of the semilegendary, poetic character of the Polish nobleman (“Sarmata”). What about Polish women? In the men’s absence, Polish women have often had to learn to adopt male roles—to earn a living, to take care of and to protect the family property, work in factories, engage in voluntary forbidden activities on the home front, and so on. After the defeat of the January uprising, Polish women mo- bilized in so-called passive resistance, wearing black dresses and symbolic jewelry. The Solidarity movement in the 1980s could not have continued without the help of women, who, thanks to the unwritten immunity granted to their sex (“immunitet płci”), could keep the movement alive by organizing its underground networks during martial law.16 These were the moments when a new gender contract should have

XIX-wiecznych spiskowców, legionistów Piłsudskiego, no i oczywiście współczesne drużyny futbolowe. Wszystkie te grupy—aż do cudownej męskiej wspólnoty, jaką stanowią ułani— składają się na męski mit narodowy.” Maria Janion, “Moje herezje antynarodowe—rozmowa z Marią Janion,” Gazeta Wyborcza, May 26, 2006, http://wyborcza.pl/1,75478,3374302.html (accessed December 10, 2013). My translation. 14. Monika Szczepaniak, “Libido dominandi. Męski habitus w świetle teorii socjologicz- nych” [Libido dominandi. Male habitus in the light of sociological theories], Nowa Krytyka, Czasopismo filozoficzne, May 15, 2010, http://nowakrytyka.pl/spip.php?article328 (accessed: December 15, 2013). 15. Jan Ryś, “Żołnierz w społeczeństwie staropolskim” [A soldier in old Polish society], in Mężczyzna w rodzinie i społeczeństwie—ewolucja ról w kulturze europejskiej [Man in family and society—the evolution of roles in European culture], ed. Katarzyna Kabacińska and Krzysztof Ratajczak (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2010), vol. 1, 53–68, here, 60–64. 16. Shana Penn, Solidarity’s Secret: The Women who Defeated Communism in Poland (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005).

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 40 The Polish Review been renegotiated. Despite women having made inroads into male domains, new forms of female subordination and new ways for men to enforce this subordination have always surfaced. The question of “masculine anxiety” (or “masculinity crisis”), which in today’s western society most often relates to the growing male violence that has become a considerable social issue, has usually manifested itself in Poland through conservatism, traditionalism, nationalism, moral aggression, homophobia, and restriction on women’s rights, particularly reproductive rights, which was the case after 1918 and after 1989. Let us, however, go back to the second half of the nineteenth century. This was the period when the Polish struggle for political freedom suffered a great setback in the defeat of the January uprising of 1863–64. This was also the time when Poland entered the modern world. Serfdom was finally abolished in 1864, and a viable middle class appeared to be on the rise. Following the suppression of the January uprising, an outburst of activity called Positivism emerged in the Kingdom of Poland as a reaction to the national trauma after the defeat of the uprising, the economic crisis, and tsarist repressions. After a series of unsuccessful uprisings, Poles needed to reassess how they were to cope with the ongoing repression. Many Poles began to voice the opinion that further attempts at regaining independence from impe- rial Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia by armed force should be abandoned in favor of a program of economic development, general education, and promotion of “positive heroes” that would boost national morale. Industrial capitalism, which came to Poland in the later decades of the nineteenth century, resulted in the rapid and painful transformation of traditional agrar- ian society. The sociopolitical changes were most painfully experienced by the Polish upper classes (landed-gentry, nobility, and aristocracy). Previously clear-cut, the distinction between the upper classes and the professional middle ranks was slowly disappearing, because so many of the nobility were dispossessed and forced to earn a living. Adjustment to new sets of social and economic relations defined by a new socioeconomic system, on the one hand, and the governing Russian power on the other hand, proved difficult in most instances. Polish people (either collectively or individually) experienced a sense of general bewilderment as to their contemporary identities and roles. This bewilderment is also to be found in literature of that time. The major shift in the masculinity paradigm found in the literature of that time is the transition from masculinity of the noble class (“męskość szlachecka”) of the feudal era into masculinities of the “middle-class,” “intelligentsia,” and “common man” of the modern era. At least until mid-century, the Polish national conscience was, as we all know, shaped by the writings of the Romantics who performed a vital political act and, at the same time were the most revered and accessible expression of nationhood. The Positivists, however, deliberately set themselves apart from the Romantic tradition and urged their readers to pursue concrete action that was attainable on a more modest scale and within workaday horizons. According to Beth Holmgren, their programmatic reformulation of political Romanticism proved “surprisingly produc-

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in search of the new man 41 tive in stimulating the economic growth in the Kingdom of Poland, at least for a short time.”17 Recurring types of literary heroes in the tendentious, programmatic works of Eliza Orzeszkowa and Józef Kraszewski, or the early works of Bolesław Prus and Henryk Sienkiewicz, included aristocrats and members of the landed gentry who managed to retain their estates through hard work or scientific farming, or lost them, yet managed to find other employment. The Positivists maintained their affirmative heroes for about fifteen years before the injustices and brutality of capitalism forced them to reconsider their approach. “In the last two decades of the 19th century—the literary era termed by Polish critics ‘mature realism’—writers did not necessarily abandon their hopes for an educated, industrious Polish society, but they admitted the real problems of capitalism. They moved towards an ambiguous position on capitalism.”18 This ambiguity is evident in the works that I have chosen to examine. The heroes’ initial affirmative attitude to the idea of social and economic betterment is gradually replaced by disillusion with the lofty idealism that was the main driving force behind their actions at the beginning. The plots of the novels and their main discourse, too, reveal the ambivalence caused by the uneasy coexistence of materialism and idealism, pragmatism and romanticism/idealism, which shows through the actions of the characters, who are often put in positions where they need to choose between contradictory options. In her valuable and interesting book Rewriting Capitalism, Beth Holmgren analyzes the socioeconomic changes in the Kingdom of Poland and their influence on the literary market. As caste-like social structures eroded due to the greater mobility demanded by the market, and as literacy ceased to be the preserve of elites, an emerging mass-circulation press both represented and shaped a new consumer culture. As market forces were set free, the role of the writer and the poet changed. All this had a bearing, of course, on the literature of the time: “the sociopolitical context of post-1863 Russian Poland fundamentally redefined what could be heroic and who could be a [literary] hero, and Polish writers obligingly produced the new scripts.”19 New models of masculinity associated with the progress of capitalism began to appear in literature—models that defied/challenged the prevailing models of masculinity and, at the same time, reflected growing Polish ambivalence toward capitalism and skepticism toward the Positivist program. These new heroes were still largely drawn from the upper classes, but the plots of the works reflected the changing social demand for professionalization and economic reoccupation. In her study of the construction of literary heroes at that time, Holmgren focuses particularly on the figure of the “New Merchant” in both Russian and Polish literature. In my study, I focus instead on the literary character that I have chosen to call the “New Man,” or Homo Novus.

17. Beth Holmgren, Rewriting Capitalism. Literature and the Market in late Tsarist Russia and the Kingdom of Poland (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), 57. 18. Ibid., 58. 19. Ibid., 57.

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The New Man that I seek in the Polish classics could be seen as a likely counterpart to the already existing concept of the “New Woman,”20 as her possible ally, in a similar way to the way in which the “New Man” of our own times is seen as the new evolving male role model for which feminists have been waiting.21 The term “Homo Novus” implies yet other associations. In ancient Rome the designation was applied to a plebeian who gained the right to a state office that was otherwise restricted to patricians. Some historians use the term in a more general sense to denote the lowly born man who, by means of his virtues, literacy, or various skills, would be granted higher social or political positions. In my study, the term “New Man” could be applicable in the latter sense to all “newcomers” to the new capitalist society that formed in Russian Poland after 1863.22 I am not the first to apply the term Homo Novus to the new types of literary hero emerging in late nineteenth- century Polish prose. Agnieszka Rozpłochowska uses the term in her analysis of Sienkiewicz’s novel Bez dogmatu when discussing the “strange careers of a ‘new type man,’” or a “new species of man,” who comes either from the lower or upper classes (peasantry, bourgeoisie, or impoverished nobility) and who distinguishes himself from others (i.e., the elites) by replacing their ethical norms and their “idealistic dreams” with a particular desire for success and a passionate commitment to making money. This type of “modern man” had found his way into Polish literature earlier, for example, in Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s novel Morituri (1874) or Józef Bliziński’s comedy Rozbitki (Castaways, 1882), and had frequently appeared in Henryk Sien- kiewicz’s works since his early novel Na marne (In vain, 1872).23 I apply this term particularly to Stanisław Wokulski—the hero of Prus’s famous novel Lalka, Doc- tor Tomasz Judym—the protagonist of Żeromski’s highly acclaimed work Ludzie bezdomni, and even to Kazimierz Zaliwski—the title character of Wacław Berent’s less-known novel Fachowiec. In contrast to the hero of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel Bez dogmatu, the aristocrat Leon Płoszowski, who sees himself as a specimen of

20. The figure of the “New Woman” emerged in the late nineteenth century. It was popu- larized by Henry James through the heroines of his novels, such as Isabel Archer in Portrait of a Lady (1881), or Daisy Miller in his Daisy Miller (1878). It is generally applied to feminist, educated, independent career women in Europe and the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century. See Hugh Stevens, Henry James and Sexuality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 27. 21. Nowadays, the New Man is a concept of masculinity that means a man empowered to acknowledge his own emotions freely and to actively respect the emotions of others, to feel as secure in being led by women as in leading them, to denounce homophobia, to combat its violence against others and its limits on his soul. He is able to have healthy, intimate relationships with women without feeling compelled to control them. 22. See Agnieszka Rozpłochowska, “Gorączka złota po polsku, czyli o Bez dogmatu Hen- ryka Sienkiewicza raz jeszcze,” in Literackie portrety Innego, ed. Paweł Cieliczko and Paweł Kuciński (Warsaw: Instytut Badan Literackich PAN, 2008), 9–19. 23. Ibid., 9.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in search of the new man 43 an endangered species, Wokulski, Judym, and Zaliwski represent different types of homo faber—“self-made men” whose “social careers” illustrate the possibilities and impossibilities of transgressing the borders of one’s own class, when entering social communities different from one’s own. All three are “rational men of action,” who put radical ideas into practice through ideological or personal dedication, even though, simultaneously, they are also dreaming, searching, and reflecting characters of a more old-fashioned type. However, in the end they all become tragic heroes. Their heroism and commitment to solving society’s problems turns out to be at odds with their personal happiness, and ultimately each one of them has to give up the woman he loves. Let us take a look at these images of men in the chosen works. Henryk Sien- kiewicz’s works perhaps best exemplify the different shifts in the construction of masculinity. In order to uplift the Polish spirit, Henryk Sienkiewicz created in his historical novels a range of positive heroes or noble soldiers, such as Kmicic, Skrze- tuski, and Wołodyjowski, who fight for their country’s sovereignty. It is significant that such a restitution of the Sarmatian myth as well as the myth of the Polish Golden Age (which we might even call: the Golden Age of Masculinity) takes place at the moment when Polish hopes and beliefs had just suffered their ultimate defeat. The heroes of Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy (1884–88) embody the ideal of Polish mythical manhood and as such have no counterpart in Polish literature. Sienkiewicz’s glorious restitution of the Sarmatian myth of the “noble soldier” shaped the imagination of several generations of Poles. Tired of historical themes Sienkiewicz decides at some point, however, to address the dilemmas of the “modern man.” The result is the psychological novel, Bez dogmatu (1891). The novel’s hero, Leon Płoszowski, is an intelligent, talented, and extremely rich last descendant of an aristocratic family, who spends all his time and energy on continual travel around Europe, social gatherings and interaction, temporary romances, and various kinds of entertainment. In his diary he analyzes his own behavior, experiences, and thoughts, and repents of his own skepticism, lack of solid moral principles, and the absence of any goal in life. Leon cannot find any value for himself in his unproductive life, until he finally, as a result of his aunt’s matchmaking efforts, meets his beautiful cousin, Anielka. Leon’s greatest dilemma is that, even though he is truly in love with the young woman, he cannot bring himself to marry her.

The community to which I belong is not as rich as others, but personally I am rich. These riches prevented me from doing anything, and I have no fixed aim in life. It might be different had I been born an Englishman or a German, and not been handicapped by that l’improductivité slave. No one of the compound active principles of civilization attracts me or fills up the void, for the simple reason that civilization is faint and permeated with skepticism. If it feels its end is drawing near and doubts itself, why should I believe in it and devote to it my life? . . . I brought with me into the world a bright intellect, a luxuriant organism, and vital powers of no mean degree. These forces had to find an outlet, and they could find it only in the love for a woman.

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There remained nothing else for me. . . . My whole misfortune is that, as a child of a diseased civilization, I grew up crooked; therefore love, too, came to me crooked.24

Płoszowski was obviously intended by the author to be a man, whose character illustrates the “disease of an entire civilization” felt at that time (in Russian literature we have examples of “lishnii,” or “bezpoleznyi chelovek” [superfluous, idle man]). Apart from Płoszowski, however, other male characters appear in the novel. These men, like Leon, are the products of their time, but they present a different set of values and a completely different attitude to life. Among these people are, first and foremost, Leon’s greatest rival, the capitalist Kromnicki (the one who eventually marries Leon’s beloved Anielka and whom Leon perceives as a barbarian, whom he calls a “physical and spiritual upstart,” who suffers from “money-neurosis,”25 and who eventually commits suicide after an unsuccessful business affair), the prosper- ous writer and Leon’s best friend, Śniatyński, and the successful medical doctors, the brothers Chwastowski, for whom Leon shows more sympathy:

There are those [in this country] that can do something and thus form the inter- mediate, healthy link between decay and barbarism. It is possible that this social strata mostly exists in bigger towns, where it is continually recruited by the influx of the sons of bankrupt noblemen, who adapt themselves to burgher traditions of work, and bring to it strong nerves and muscles.26

24. “Społeczeństwo, do którego należę, nie jest wprawdzie bogate tak, jak inne, ale ja osobi- ście jestem człowiekiem zamożnym. Z tej zamożności skorzystałem w ten sposób, żem nigdy nic nie robił, skutkiem czego nie miałem i nie mam określonego celu w życiu. Może byłoby inaczej, gdybym się był urodził Anglikiem lub Niemcem, ale ciężył jeszcze nademną ten fatalny grzech pierworodny, który nazywają: «l’improductivité slave». Żaden ze składowych czynników dzisiejszej cywilizacyi nie pociągnął mnie i nie wypełnił mi duszy, z tej prostej przyczyny, że ta cywilizacya jest mdlejąca i przesiąknięta sceptycyzmem. Jeśli ona sama czuje, że się kończy i wątpi o sobie, trudno wymagać, abym ja w nią uwierzył i poświęcił jej życie. . . . Przyniosłem na świat żywy umysł, naturę bujną i siły żywotne niepowszednie. Siły te musiały znaleść jakieś ujście—i mogły je znaleść tylko w miłości dla kobiety. Nic innego mi nie pozostało. . . . Całe moje nieszczęście polega na tem, że jako dziecko chorej cywilizacyi, wyrosłem krzywo, więc i ta miłość przyszła mi krzywo.” Sienkiewicz, Bez dogmatu, 164. The English quotations come from the online version of the 1893 text translated by Iza Young, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11686 (accessed December 20, 2013). 25. For analysis of this theme in Sienkiewicz’s novel, see Tadeusz Bujnicki, “O ’newrozie pienieżnej’ (Kromnicki i Płoszowski w Bez dogmatu)” [On “money neurosis” (Kromnicki and Płoszowski in Without dogma)], http://literat.ug.edu.pl/pieniadz/0013.htm (accessed December 19, 2013). 26. “Pokazuje się, że w tym kraju są tacy, którzy mogą coś robić i którzy tworzą jakieś pośrednie a zdrowe ogniwa pomiędzy przekwitem a barbarzyństwem. Być może, że tego rodzaju warstwa tworzy się dopiero po większych miastach i że zasilają ją codziennie synowie pobankrutowanej szlachty, którzy z konieczności przyswajają sobie mieszczańską tradycję pracy, a przynoszą do niej tęgie muskuły i nerwy.” Henryk Sienkiewicz, Bez dogmatu (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1978), 147.

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Interestingly, female characters in Bez dogmatu hardly differ from the heroines of Trilogy and, just like them, are much romanticized, though with some exceptions (such as Basia—the gutsy, bright, and determined heroine of Pan Wołodyjowski [Fire in the Steppe]). Sienkiewicz’s heroines are usually beautiful and thoughtful, while their decency and kindness confront treacherous villains, like Kmicic, and inspire the heroes. No need to add that, the more angel-like and chaste, the less sensual they are. The hero ofBez dogmatu, Leon, is able to feel physical attraction only to foreign women, while he idealizes Polish women and treats Anielka as a sacred object, which then becomes a part of his drama. “A foreign woman, even the most beautiful, appears to me more as a species of the female kind than a soul.”27

I would deprive the love for a woman of all embodiment, sever all connection with the earth, and make it live upon earth in a transmundane shape! Love is a natural tendency and desire. What did I take away from it? The tendency and the desire. I might as well have gone to Aniela, and said to her, “Since I love you above everything, I pledge myself to love you no longer.”28

When Leon analyzes Polish women, what he envies most is their modesty and strict adherence to the rules of behavior and the “ethical code”:

The female soul is so dogmatic that I have known women whose very atheism took the form of religion. . . . The greatest subtlety of feeling and thought goes hand in hand with the utmost simplicity of moral ideas. . . . Only the lips that have been drinking at the fountain of doubt opine that a forbidden kiss is not a sin. A religious woman may be carried away, as a tree is swept away by a hurricane, by forbidden love, but she will never acknowledge it.29

Leon himself cannot be dogmatic, because: “where the dogma begins, thinking ends,” and pities himself for his “intellectual overrefinement.” In other words, in Sienkiewicz’s world it is not Woman, but Man who has lost his faith in his life’s meaningfulness. For the heroes of the Trilogy, everything was clear and simple: they followed the military code and subordinated their private lives and personal happiness to higher priorities. For a modern man like Płoszowski, who has lost his

27. “Oto nawet kobieta-cudzoziemka, choćby najpiękniejsza, pozostaje u mnie w pewnym stopniu tylko okazem żeńskiego rodzaju, nie zaś duszą kobiecą.” Ibid., 139. 28. “jam zaś chciał, żeby miłość do kobiety wyrzekła się wszelkiego wcielenia, wszelkiego związku z ziemią i istniała na świecie w sposób zaświatowy. Czym ona jest?—pożądaniem i dążeniem. Com ja usiłował jej odjąć?—pożądanie i dążenie. Tak samo mógłbym przyjść do Anielki i powiedzieć jej: Ponieważ cię kocham nad wszystko, więc ci przyrzekam, że cię nie będę kochał.” Ibid., 304. 29. “Dusze kobiece są tak dogmatyczne, że znałem kobiety, w których nawet ateizm przy- bierał wszystkie cechy religii. . . . Największa misterność uczuć i myśli łączy się w niej z największą prostotą moralnych pojęć. . . . Tylko takie usta, które już piły ze źródła zwątpień, można przekonać, że zabroniony pocałunek nie jest grzechem. Kobieta religijna może być porwana przez miłość, jak drzewo przez huragan, ale jej nie uzna nigdy.” Ibid., 225.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 46 The Polish Review faith in everything, there remains only love for a woman. When even this love is impossible (he cannot be inspired to become a hero), there remains only one solu- tion. The novel ends with Leon’s farewell note in which he hints at suicide. The hero of Prus’s well-known novel Lalka (1887–89), Stanisław Wokulski, comes from an impoverished noble family. Orphaned by his mother, he was raised by his father—a man with a weak and unstable character. Wokulski owes nothing to his parents. He is the self-made man, who first becomes a storeowner and then a successful capitalist, even though his business dealings, as Prus describes them, seem almost entirely motivated by romanticism and altruism. Wokulski is an amalgam of romantic idealism and a mercantile attitude—he has faith both in man’s inventiveness and love. Romantic and calculating simultaneously, he is the modern hero of his time.30 Wokulski’s character and his social and economic mobility offer an opportunity to explore cultural constructions of masculinity within upper-class milieus as well as the formation of a Polish middle class in the 1870s. This exploration also precipitates a deeper understanding of his friendships with other men (Rzecki) and his attitudes toward women. In fact, one of the most important aspects of Prus’s novel is the way in which men’s social roles and codes of behavior are shaped and interrogated. In her book Between Men, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick highlights issues of social relations as essential to understanding male homosocial desire in literature, claiming that “the emerging pattern of male friendship, mentorship, entitlement, rivalry, and hetero- and homosexuality was in an intimate and shifting relation to class.”31 Social configura- tions of masculinity as described in Prus’s novel therefore raise a series of questions about hierarchical structures, about the use and abuse of power in both the public and private spheres, and about education, marriage, and work. The main plot of this complex novel is Wokulski’s pursuit of the beautiful and almost bankrupt aristocrat, Izabela Łęcka, and his maneuvers to buy himself a new image and a new social status in order to marry “the angel.” Spurred by his love, he tries to win the aristocracy’s respect but fails again and again. He finds love for a woman to be the only meaningful thing in life: “All he knew was that she had become a mystic point where all memories, longing and hopes coincided, a hearth without which his life would have neither sense nor meaning.”32 Wokulski suffers tremendously because of his unreciprocated love for Izabela Łęcka, and he blames Polish romantic poetry for this insanity. Izabela’s way of thinking,

30. Wokulski’s character may be compared to the currently prevailing model of masculinity associated with today’s world of business, technocracy, and technocratic milieus. 31. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 1. 32. “Czuł tylko, że stała się ona jakimś mistycznym punktem, w którym zbiegają się wszystkie jego wspomnienia, pragnienia i nadzieje, ogniskiem, bez którego życie nie miałoby stylu, a nawet sensu.” Bolesław Prus, Lalka [The doll](Kraków: Wydawnictwo Greg, 2013), 71. English translation by David Welsh, The Doll, rev. Dariusz Tołczyk and Anna Zarank (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1996), 70.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in search of the new man 47 as we get to know her, reflects ”the particular mentality of the Polish upper class—a sense of God-given feudal privilege enhanced by a peculiarly romantic, self-indulgent glorification of the supposedly noble past.”33 Wokulski’s main predicament is that, although praised and respected as a former insurgent (he took part in the 1863 rebellion) and admired as a successful businessman, he remains a stranger among the aristocracy who see him mainly as a parvenu, but one who can nevertheless teach them “the new ways,” especially about how to safeguard and increase their financial assets. The traditional rules and codes of behavior of the upper class that safeguard their identity emasculate Wokulski and undermine his attempts to assimilate into their world. Wokulski’s attempt at a duel with Baron Krzeszowski demonstrates the disharmony that appears when the “old” and the “new” ways meet:34

“May I not even do that?” Wokulski interrupted. “Of course, of course,” the eminent lawyer agreed, affably, “you may indeed, but in doing so, you are only repeating former sins, which in any case are better com- mitted by others. But that was not why I and the Prince and these Counts appealed to you, merely to warm up old dishes—but so that you should show us new ways.”35

Despite the fact that he has a different system of values and a totally different approach to life than men from the upper class, Wokulski nevertheless keeps taking up new social challenges, at times defiantly remonstrating with aristocratic manners and rules of conduct. In aristocratic circles he is always treated as merchant, that is as someone inferior to a nobleman, or even as a landlord, even if they have no assets other than their noble title. He has made it from rags to riches, but he feels that he doesn’t belong in any community. Therefore he continuously asks himself a question: ”And I? What am I—a stranger to them all?”36 So what do Płoszowski and the New Man, Wokulski, have in common? Neither feels he belongs to any of the available social communities. They both believe that the love for a woman is the only meaningful thing in life. They both idealize women, but the moment of realization comes late. Wokulski meets women other than Izabela on his way, for example the angel in human disguise (donna angelicata), the beautiful Mrs. Stawska, who according to his friend Rzecki would make an ideal wife for Wokulski. As a modest, considerate, caring, and in addition, industrious woman, she is Izabela’s opposite, but at the same time she is as immaculate as Sienkiewicz’s

33. Holmgren, Rewriting Capitalism, 66. 34. See Paczoska’s commentary on the motif of the duel in Lalka, 176–77. 35. —Czy mi nawet tego zrobić nie wolno!—wtrącił Wokulski. —Wolno, panie, wolno—potakiwał słodko znakomity adwokat. Wolno robić, ale robiąc to—powtarzasz pan tylko stare grzechy, zresztą daleko lepiej spełniane przez innych. Ani zaś ja, ani książę, ani ci hrabiowie nie po to zbliżyli się do pana, ażebyś odgrzewał dawne potrawy, tylko—ażebyś wskazał nam nowe drogi. Prus, Lalka,193; Welsh, The Doll, 202. 36. “A czymże ja jestem, zarówno obcy im wszystkim?” Prus, Lalka, 87; Welsh, The Doll, 87.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 48 The Polish Review heroines, and maybe therefore, despite his “erotic idealism,”37 Wokulski cannot bring himself to love her. Perhaps one of the most sympathetic and interesting characters in the novel is Baroness Kazimiera Wąsowska—an energetic and seductive widow who is one of the few to genuinely like and understand Wokulski. She is also the only woman who gets the better of Wokulski in a debate on women. Wokulski can feel a twin-soul in her, but due to his preconceived ideal of a woman (hardly matched by reality), he cannot accept her flirtatious attitude toward men.

“Izabela is a woman of different species than me, and only insanity could bind me to her.” . . . “Have you ever found a woman of your own species?” . . . “Perhaps . . .” “That Mrs Sta . . . Sta . . . “Stawska? No. You rather.38

Wąsowska is the only woman in whose presence Wokulski feels comfortable and entirely at ease. Intelligent, self-confident, experienced, and liberated, she is the embodiment of mature femininity, but Wokulski still calls her “a beautiful female” (an epithet mostly reserved for foreign a woman). Moments spent with her have a soothing effect on his tormented soul. She is also the only one he has sexual fantasies about.

Walking around the street, Wokulski pondered over the change that had come over him. He seemed to have extricated himself from an abyss, in which madness dominated, into the light of day. His pulses beat more strongly, he breathed more freely, his thoughts flowed with unusual freedom: he felt a sort of vitality throughout his entire organism, and an indescribable tranquility in his heart. . . . “What a passionate woman she must be!” he murmured. “I’d bite her . . . ”39

It is thought-provoking how both Sienkiewicz and Prus allow their heroes to meet emancipated, liberal New Women (Płoszowski meets Laura Davies, and Wokulski,

37. See Witold Gombrowicz, Diary, trans. Lillian Vallee, vol. 1 (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,1988), 122. 38. —. . . Panna Izabela to kobieta innego gatunku aniżeli ja i tylko jakieś obłąkanie mogło mnie przykuć do niej.[. . .] —Nie znalazł pan czasem kobiety swego gatunku? —Może. —Zapewne jest nią ta pani. . . pani Sta . . . Sta . . . —Stawska? Nie. Prędzej byłaby nią pani. Prus, Lalka, 593; Welsh, The Doll, 639. 39. “Idąc ulicą Wokulski wciąż zastanawiał się nad zmianą, jaka w nim zaszła. Zdawało mu się, że z otchłani, w której panuje noc i obłęd, wydobył się na jasny dzień. Pulsa biły mu silniej, oddychał szerzej, myśli toczyły się z niezwykłą swobodą czuł jakąś rześkość w całym organizmie i nie dający się opisać spokój w sercu. “Co to musi być za kobieta! . . .—szepnął.— Kąsałbym ją . . .” Prus, Lalka, 539–40; Welsh, The Doll, 640.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in search of the new man 49 the above-mentioned Kazimiera Wąsowska) who appear to be perfect matches for them, yet they never give them any chance to achieve a “union of souls.” The main character of Żeromski’s novelLudzie bezdomni, Tomasz Judym, is a medical doctor who comes from a poor Warsaw working-class family (his father was a shoemaker). The family cannot afford his upbringing, so the young Tomasz is raised by his aunt, a former prostitute, in whose home he experiences abuse and humiliation. In spite of this, he works hard to complete his education. After a time spent in Paris Judym tries—unsuccessfully—to develop a practice in Warsaw. He then moves to a spa town where rich people come for treatment and to spend a good time. Judym fights for the right to treat the poor in decent conditions. He runs a hospital for the poor, tries to convince his superiors about the importance of draining of the ponds that are ruining the spa’s climate and poisoning the peasants’ water, and gives a lecture on the sanitation conditions in which the poor live and how these can be improved. Ignored, he comes into conflict with the “doctors to the rich,” though he is sometimes seduced by the charms of their comfortable and elegant lives. Following a major conflict with his superiors, he moves to Silesia, where he learns about new areas of deprivation and exploitation, and decides to devote his life to overcoming them. His decision is mainly founded on the conviction that he owes it to his own class. A separate theme of the novel is the love between Judym and Joasia Podborska, a poor teacher who is prepared to work shoulder to shoulder with him to improve the lives of the wronged. In fact, as a character, Joasia possesses many of the qualities of a positive heroine: emancipated, independent, broad-minded, sensitive to the world’s injustice, and dedicated to her work, through which she would like to make a small contribution to changing the world. However, Judym rejects her proposal. In this case Żeromski uses the same strategy as Sienkiewicz and Prus—rejection of the woman through sublimation of femininity and corporeality, and idealization of the affection itself:

Judym did not desire Joanna as a woman, not even in his dreams did he tear off her virgin clothes. A fragrant, blue smoke surrounded her and screened her from his lustful thoughts. Above all, above the beauty, kindness and intellect he loved in her his own, or her love.40

Judym is even more terrified at the idyllic thought of a modest little house with plants and net curtains: he is afraid this will blunt his sensitivity and determination, and so ultimately gives up personal happiness.41

40. “Judym nie pragnął panny Joasi jako kobiety, nigdy z niej w marzeniu nie zdzierał szat dziewiczych. Pachnące dymy błękitne otoczyły ją i zasłaniały od myśli pożądliwych. Nade wszystko, nad piękność, dobroć i rozum kochał w niej swoją czy jej miłość.” St e f an Żeromski, Ludzi bezdomni (wolnelektury.pl), 124. My translation, http://wolnelektury.pl/ katalog/lektura/ludzie-bezdomni/. 41. This motif reappears in other novels by Żeromski, for example, in his later novel Uroda życia [The charm of life] (1912).

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I’ve got everything. That I need . . . I must give back what I have taken. This cursed debt . . . I cannot have a father, a mother, a wife, or any thing that I could hold onto my heart, until these awful nightmares vanish from the face of the earth. I must reject happiness. I must be alone. So there would be no one beside me, no one to hold me back.42

Critics have noted the psychologically weak justification for the necessity of such a choice, but appreciated the moral message: the absolute imperative to fight against evil, and Judym’s heroic humanism. Wacław Berent’s novel, Fachowiec, is a far less known work and cannot be con- sidered a classic since it has never been a part of the curriculum in Polish schools. However, the novel is unique and remarkable because it presents the story of a hero who, inspired by the slogans of “organic work” and Positivist ideology, voluntarily descends from the ranks of the intelligentsia and enters a new working-class milieu (his class career thus takes an inverted direction, down the socioeconomic scale). Zaliwski could be regarded as a product of the times, when “the old forms of elite political culture became irrelevant as various mass movements burst onto the public stage and vectors of power shifted toward ‘the people.’”43 However, the author as- signed a different role to this protagonist. Zaliwski’s story shows the discrepancy that exists between ideology and practice, even though the decision he makes is evidently the result of the intelligentsia’s romantic view, prevalent at that time, of romanticizing the worker and including the “common man” in the process of de- mocratization of political life. Like Wokulski and Judym, Kazimierz Zaliwski comes from an impoverished family. This time it is a family of intellectuals. After the loss of both parents, he takes care of his younger brother. We get to know him at the time when he makes the crucial decision to turn the new Positivist ideas into action. In fact, it is not absolutely clear whether his decision was made under the influence of his young intellectual friends at school, or his infatuation with the young idealistic Helena, who is much impressed by the resoluteness of his choice, as the hero suggests: “I’ve dreamed enough at school, I’ve heard enough of fine words and slogans there. Now comes the action.”44 However, it seems that Zaliwski, even though he speaks loudly of his dedication, does not really believe in his ambitious project. Yet, even though he is a promising student, he abandons his plans for further education and takes up

42. “Otrzymałem wszystko. Co potrzeba . . . Muszę to oddać, com wziął. Ten dług przeklęty . . . Nie mogę mieć ani ojca, ani matki, ani żony, ani jednej rzeczy, którą bym przycisnął do serca z miłością, dopóki z oblicz ziemi nie znikną te podłe zmory. Muszę wyrzec się szczęścia. Muszę być sam jeden. Żeby obok mnie nikt nie był, nikt mię nie trzymał!” Żeromski, Ludzie bezdomni, 167. My translation. 43. Brian Porter-Szucs, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 14. 44. “Dosyć marzyłem w szkołach, dosyć pięknych słówek i haseł nasłuchałem się tam. Teraz przyszła kolej na czyn.” Wacław Berent, Fachowiec (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1956), 51. My translation.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in search of the new man 51 a position as a worker in a factory, convinced that in doing so, he is doing the right thing. His attempts at learning metalworking prove unsuccessful—he does not have the right skills. However, he cannot abandon his “mission,” mostly because he has many supporters around him—at least at the beginning. One of them is Helena—a girl of the people and the daughter of the foreman under whose supervision Zaliwski takes his first stumbling steps as a factory worker. At the same time, working in a factory has a degenerating effect on him—he stops reading books, and his interest in engaging in intellectual discussions with his friends gradually ceases. He turns into a simple factory worker, identifying more and more with his fellow workers.

If I avoid them, I’ll never get close to them. But I intended to influence them. This will be a very political step. I’ll get to know them as a friend, in the pub. Later I may be able to drag them out even from there, to make them stop drinking.45

Zaliwski’s identity starts to change and soon he cannot find a common language with his former fellow students. He loses interest in political disputes and, in fact, becomes no longer able to articulate his views, which makes him feel emasculated.46 The end is not very dramatic, but nevertheless tragic and sad—Zaliwski submits to his fate, continues his work in the factory, abandoned by all his friends as well as by the beloved Helena who cannot accept the social degradation and crudeness of the man she previously admired. Nowhere is the ambivalence toward the liberal ideology of capitalism and Positivist slogans more distinctively drawn than in this literary debut by the twenty-two-year-old Berent. Obviously, the four authors were experimenting with new protagonists, especially self-made types who evinced attractive energy and initiative. Their heroes are an amalgam of several conceptions of masculinity—their personalities combine a Romantic attitude toward women and their country with the Positivist ideals of social activism. At the same time they possess new qualities such as: theoretical knowledge, productivity, inventiveness, determination and courage, responsibility and discipline, adaptability to the necessities of certain situations, and so on. Ulti- mately, however, it is their failure in love, the force that might have uplifted them, that seals their destiny as tragic heroes. Thus, on the one hand, we have the positive, even though tragic heroes, while on the other, we have their counterparts (antiheroes). There is the flaneur—an elegant dandy, a decadent idler, and an observer, who indulges in philosophical reflections on human existence and his own, walking slowly through the streets of cities in Europe. Henryk Sienkiewicz, presents this character in all his complexity in

45. “Jeśli ich unikać będę, nigdy się do nich nie zbliżę. A wszak miałem zamiar wpływać na nich. To będzie nawet bardzo polityczny krok. Poznam się z nimi, jako kolega, w szynku. Potem może mi się uda wyciągnąć ich nawet stamtąd, oduczyć pijaństwa.” Berent, Fachowiec, 109. My translation. 46. Berent, Fachowiec, 233.

This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:01:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 52 The Polish Review his character Leon Płoszowski. Other novels of the time are full of similar decadent characters, but they are never given the same psychological depth and complexity. They appear in the works by Eliza Orzeszkowa: for example, Teofil Różyc and Zyg- munt Korczyński in Nad Niemnem (On the banks of the River Niemen) (1888). Later they appear, of course in Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s and Stanisław Przybysze- wski’s novels as decadent artists and degenerate intellectuals. All these protagonists have been called “decadents” (“dekadenci,” “schyłkowcy”) or “men without dogma” (“bezdogmatowcy”), thereby paying tribute to the first of them—Leon Płoszowski. (These characters are already quite well described by Polish literary scholars, while the “New Man” and homo faber have not yet been given so much attention.) In Polish literature of that time, we may thus distinguish certain attitudes to masculinity expressed through literary heroes: (1) a longing for the return of “the real Man/Hero” whose characteristic features are a mixture of courage, passion, strength, and—most important—a sense of meaningfulness; (2) a critical scrutiny of masculinity that appears as weak and unable to either affirm or define itself; (3) images of masculinity induced by social changes, where the New Man is drafted with either a clearly affirmative or a negative purpose; (4) images of masculinity that experience an inner split between the traditional role models and the new social challenges. It turns out that in the prose written by men, the affirmative models of masculinity are rejected as being hardly convincing. Perhaps only in Eliza Orzeszkowa’s novels can we find more positive scenarios. Later on, Sienkiewicz also tried his hand at an uplifting saga about present-day capitalism in his novel Rodzina Połanieckich (The Połaniecki family, 1895). He designed the novel’s businessman protagonist, Połaniecki, as a positive antipode to the “superfluous” antihero, Leon Płoszowski. Połaniecki rediscovers the meaning of life in family happiness. This option was often explored by more popular writers well into the twentieth century. The works that I have presented here seem, however, to sense the cultural impossibility of the New Man, at least a convincing role model, in terms of psychological makeup and social competence. Characters such as Wokulski, Judym, and Zaliwski reveal that the main conflict of the New Man as a literary hero is not a strictly social one (the lack of acceptance of social newcomers), but depends on certain cultural/literary conventions that inscribe specific gender roles on characters. These roles are strongly tied to class identity. Any attempt to go beyond the given paradigm of behavior emasculates the hero. For although certain frictions and fissures appear in the gender pattern and create tensions within the story, the narrative seems to reproduce the prevalent “Romantic templates,” where the choices that the New Man makes eventually prove to be the traditional ones, and the only possible ones within the particular literary convention of the literary hero that Polish culture has created.

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