Franciszek Salezy Dmochowski (1762–1818) was a Polish Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 novelist, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, translator

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

, publisher, critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

, and satirist. Father of Franciszek Salezy Dmochowski

Franciszek Salezy Dmochowski

Franciszek Salezy Dmochowski was a Polish Romantic novelist, poet, translator, publisher, critic, and satirist. Father of Franciszek Salezy Dmochowski.-Biography:...

.

Biography

Dmochowski was born in Oprawczyki in Podlaskie Voivodeship

Podlaskie Voivodeship (1513–1795)

The Podlaskie Voivodeship was formed in 1513 by Sigismund I the Old as a voivodeship in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, from a split off part of the Trakai Voivodeship....

, December 2, 1762, to a family of the minor Polish nobility (szlachta

Szlachta

The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...

).

He attended the Jesuit and Piarist schools in Drohiczyn

Drohiczyn

Drohiczyn is a small historic town in Siemiatycze County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. The town with population 2,110 is situated on a bank of the Bug River.- History :...

, then in 1778 in Podoliniec in Spisz. After his novitiate

Novitiate

Novitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....

 he was admitted to the Piarist order in 1778. Member of the Piarist order from 1778 to 1789.

He taught in Piarist schools in Radom

Radom

Radom is a city in central Poland with 223,397 inhabitants . It is located on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship , having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship ; 100 km south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.It is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest and...

, then was transferred to Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

 in 1785. From 1786 to 1788 he taught Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 in the college in Łomża, then in Radom. In 1789 Dmochowski was a teacher in a department school in Warsaw. At the same time he became a close companion of Hugo Kołłątaj, who obtained for him a release from the order’s duties and then from the presbytery

Presbyterium

Presbyterium is a modern term used in the Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Churches after the Second Vatican Council in reference to a college of priests, in active ministry, of an individual particular church such as a diocese or eparchy...

 in Koło. In 1791 he became the personal secretary

Secretary

A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...

 and the close assistant of Kołłątaj, together with whom he emigrated to Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 at the time of the Targowica Confederation

Targowica Confederation

The Targowica Confederation was a confederation established by Polish and Lithuanian magnates on 27 April 1792, in Saint Petersburg, with the backing of the Russian Empress Catherine II. The confederation opposed the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791, which had been adopted by the Great Sejm,...

 to participate in the preparation of Kościuszko Uprising

Kosciuszko Uprising

The Kościuszko Uprising was an uprising against Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in Poland, Belarus and Lithuania in 1794...

 (1794).

In March 1794 he organised Tadeusz Kościuszko

Tadeusz Kosciuszko

Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko was a Polish–Lithuanian and American general and military leader during the Kościuszko Uprising. He is a national hero of Poland, Lithuania, the United States and Belarus...

’s pronouncement in Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

. During the Insurrection he co-edited the "Gazeta Wolna Warszawska" ("The Free Warsaw Gazette") and "Gazeta Rządowa” ("The Government Gazette"). He was also the member of Supreme National Council

Supreme National Council

Supreme National Council was the central civil government of Poland loyal to the Kościuszko Insurrection. Created by Kościuszko on 10 May 1794 in Połaniec camp, it had 8 councillors and 32 deputies....

 (Rada Najwyższa Narodowa) - de-facto leader of the National Instruction Department (as a deputy to Jan Jaśkiewicz). After the defeat of the Insurrection he left for Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, then moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 where he belonged to the Deputation. As a result of Ignacy Krasicki’s intervention with the Prussian authorities he returned to Warsaw in 1799. After his conversion to Protestantism

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

 he married Izabela Mikorowska. He was one of the founders of the Society of the Friends of Science. From 1801 to 1805 he co-edited another newspaper, "Nowy Pamiętnik Warszawski" ("New Memoirs from Warsaw"). In 1806 he moved to a purchased estate in Kujawy. Dmochowski died on June 20, 1808 during his return journey from Warsaw.

Works

Dmochowski was the author of celebratory poems, pamphlets, political leaflets; one of his major achievements was the first full translation of The Iliad into Polish. He also translated fragments of The Odyssey, The Aeneid, the works of Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

 and Lucan

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...

 and Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

’s Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

. His most famous work was Sztuka rymotwórcza (The Art of Rhyming) (published in 1788), an adaptation of L’art poétique by Boileau, inspired by Horace, Diderot and Pope; referring to the dissertation by Golański entitled O wymowie i poezji (On Rhetoric and Poetry) Dmochowski formulated here the canon of Polish literary classicism. The work was later the subject of a polemic presented by Mickiewicz in the dissertation O krytykach i recenzentach warszawskich (On Warsaw Critics and Reviewers).