Monika Rudas-Grodzka. Sfnks słowianski i mumia polska. Warsaw: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2013. Maps. 392 pp. 27 złoty, paper, ISBN 978-83-61750-32-1.
Reviewed by Tomasz Jędrzejewski (Warsaw University)
Published on H-Poland (December, 2020)
Commissioned by Anna Muller (University of Michigan - Dearborn)
Rereading Polish Romantic Slavdom
Interest in Slavic history (histories), culture(s), of literature but rather as a model of national cul‐ and literature(s) increased among Polish scholars, ture existing up to the present. The author shows critics, and poets after the partition of Poland in how and why Polish common identity based on 1795. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century Romantic ideas arouse and survived to our time. and first decades of the nineteenth, political Sfinks słowiański i mumia polska consists of nonexistence was compensated by the question of two parts. The first, “The Slavic utopia, or awaken‐ whether Slavs had come to the attention of Euro‐ ing to sleep,” is dedicated to the Slavic idea before pean thinkers and writers. The famous fourth the November uprising. The author depicts early chapter of Johann Gotfried Herder’s Ideas on the Romantic interest in Slavic cultures, beliefs, myths, Philosophy of the History of Mankind (Ideen zur and languages. Such interest can be traced in the Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit writings of scholars and critics like Maurycy [1784-91]) gave an impulse to Romantic philosophy Mochnacki (see, for example, the chapter “The of Slavic history. Polish poets and critics became Concept of the nation by Maurycy Mochnacki: zealous heirs of Herder’s theory. How did they use Narcissistic character of the Polish nation”) or this heritage? How did the Slavic idea evolve in Pol‐ prominent poets like Józef Bohdan Zaleski (see the ish post-partition literature? These are the prob‐ chapter “A frail bond: On the Polish-Ukrainian uni‐ lems Monika Rudaś-Grodzka discusses in her ty in the Dumkas of Józef Bohdan Zaleski”). The Sfinks słowiański i mumia polska (Slavic sphinx major problem Rudaś-Grodzka discusses in this and Polish mummy). part is the symbolic colonization of eastern lands The book concerns not only the Slavic issue of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. but also Slavdom within the context of Polishness As she points out, Polish Romantic poets and crit‐ and the construction of the nation. The author be‐ ics glorified, in the name of Slavic brotherhood, the gins with the assertion that these two ideas—Slav‐ eastern “wild” landscapes and the people inhabit‐ dom and Polishness—shaped Polish Romantic lit‐ ing these regions. At that time the myth of eastern erature. Rudaś-Grodzka describes the beginnings lands as the heart and soul of Polish culture had of this identity-shaping process. Romanticism is been crystallizing. But this admiration failed to treated here not as a limited period in the history meet the emerging national consciousness of Be‐ H-Net Reviews larussians and Ukrainian people (see the chapter important, for the first time these problems are “On Polish-Ukrainian friendship”). comprehensively presented from the perspective In part 2, “The Slavic atopia, or how to save Eu‐ of gender studies, postcolonial studies, political rope,” the author describes the way participants of philosophy, memory studies, and psychoanalysis. the so-called Great Emigration after the collapse of Thus the monograph can be treated as a modern the 1830-31 insurrection raised the problem of Pol‐ rereading of crucial questions of Polish Romantic ishness and Slavdom. Her analysis leads to the identity. For instance, the innovative and convinc‐ conclusion that they used the Slavic idea to get Eu‐ ing interpretation of Polish adaptations of the rope to focus on the Polish question. They contin‐ manifestos of other Slavic literatures is very inter‐ ued the pre-uprising tendency to link Slavdom esting. The translation of the poem “The Tale of with Polishness (see the chapter “Copernicus in the Igor’s Campaign” is an example of appropriation moral world: The Slavic myth and Messianism in and entrapment of text, which only in the Polish the writings of Kazimierz Brodziński”). Although version became allegedly truly Slavic (see the other Slavs—Russians, Czechs, and Ukrainians— chapter “On translations of ‘Ziewonia’ writers”). were presented as fraternal nations, Adam Mick‐ Rudaś-Grodzka claims that Polish Romantic iewicz and other writers considered these nations poets and critics were haunted by two phantas‐ as inferior (see the chapter “The invention of the mas: a great and heroic Slavic past, perceived and nation in Paris lectures”). The Slavic mission in his‐ described as monumental and sacred but distant tory, the concept inherited from Herder, was re‐ in time; and a Polish national resurrectio, which placed by the idea of the Polish Messianic role in also was supposed to be glorious. The key is that history. The approach to the Slavic issue in the the present does not belong to either the monu‐ 1830s and 1840s was a more radical and much mental past or the upcoming splendid future. Be‐ more politicized version of the Slavic idea from the ing among these two visions invoked the feeling of start of Polish Romanticism. greatness, but mingled with an inferiority com‐ Rudaś-Grodzka bases her analysis on a wide plex, caused by political nonexistence. The title range of material. She has made great use of liter‐ Sfinks słowiański i mumia polska, taken from ary and journalistic sources. The time span she Cyprian Norwid’s drama Cleopatra and Caesar covers is also impressive, as the book begins with (written in 1872 but not published until 1904), early Romantic articles and treaties (Kazimierz refers to the specific state of Polish national con‐ Brodziński and Zorian Dołęga Chodakowski) and sciousness: Romantic writers still dreamed of dis‐ ends in the conclusion with Mickiewicz’s lectures tant and vague Slavic origins and were looking in Collège de France (1840-44). She puts these texts, forward to resurrecting the mummy. declarations, and manifestos into broader Euro‐ Thanks to the author we can trace Slavic pean contexts, as she often refers to other Slavic themes and ideas from the late Enlightenment to literatures. Brodziński’s, Mochnacki’s, and Mick‐ late Romanticism. The book shows the evolution of iewicz’s visions of the “Slavic continent” were Slavdom and national issues for nearly half of a strictly polonocentric. century. Of course, it is impossible to take into ac‐ One of Rudaś-Grodzka’s most important count all those who constructed Slavic/national achievements is modernizing scientific discourse discourse, since the topic was taken up in lots of lit‐ on Polish Romantic conceptions of Slavdom in re‐ erary works. Hence, the material had to be limited lation to the national issue. On the one hand, to some characteristic examples. However, sur‐ many literary texts discussed in this book are well prisingly Juliusz Słowacki is almost absent in known. But on the other, and this is much more Rudaś-Grodzka’s narrative (she gives an explana‐
2 H-Net Reviews tion of his exclusion on page 40). His specific ap‐ proach to Polish-Ukrainian relations (for example, in Salomea’s Silver Dream [1844]) could have been a counterweight to Slavic conceptions of other po‐ ets and critics. But this oversight does not over‐ shadow Rudaś-Grodzka’s profound interpretations of numerous Romantic texts. Sfinks słowiański i mumia polska is one of the most important books concerning the Romantic construction of national identity in relation to Slavdom. It can also be seen as the next step in revising these problems after Niesamowita Słowiańszczyzna (The uncanny Slav‐ dom) (2006) by Maria Janion.
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Citation: Tomasz Jędrzejewski. Review of Rudas-Grodzka, Monika. Sfnks słowianski i mumia polska. H- Poland, H-Net Reviews. December, 2020.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53177
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