Henryk Rzewuski
Encyclopedia
Henryk Rzewuski was a Polish
Romantic-era journalist and novelist.
family in Ukraine
. He was the son of Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski, a Russian senator who resided in St. Petersburg; a great-nephew of a Targowica confederate
; and great-grandson of Wacław Rzewuski, Polish Great Crown Hetman who had been exiled in 1767–73 to Kaluga
by Russian
ambassador to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
, Nikolai Repnin, who was effectively running the Commonwealth.
Henryk Rzewuski was, further, the brother of Karolina Sobańska (who became an agent of the Russian secret service and mistress of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
), Ewelina Hańska
(who married Honoré de Balzac
), and Russian General Adam Rzewuski.
In his youth, Rzewuski served in the army of the Duchy of Warsaw
, participating in the Duchy's brief 1809 war with Austria
. In 1845–50, in St. Petersburg, Russia
, with Michał Grabowski he headed a conservative, Russian-aligned "St. Petersburg coterie" and contributed to the Polish Tygodnik Petersburski (The St. Petersburg Weekly).
In 1850–56 Rzewuski, an advocate of the closest Polish-Russian political collaboration, worked with Russian Imperial
Viceroy Ivan Paskevich
, and in 1851–56 he edited Dziennik Warszawki (The Warsaw Daily).
Rzewuski had traveled much—in 1825, to Crimea
, together with Mickiewicz. He had later met the poet in Rome
and had enthralled him with stories of the old Polish nobility, helping inspire Mickiewicz's great verse epic, Pan Tadeusz
. Rzewuski's tales would later similarly influence Henryk Sienkiewicz
's historical novel
s set in Poland (The Trilogy).
The Russian Empire
's suppression of the Polish November 1830 Uprising
and the ensuing repression, by the three partitioning powers, of Polish culture, education and politics had forced Polish writers to seek a collective identity in their country's past. This had created a new vogue for the Polish gawęda
, which had antecedents in Poland's 17th-century memoirists. The gawęda is a discursive fiction in which the narrator recounts incidents in a highly-stylized personal language. It was this genre
of which Henryk Rzewuski was the past master.
Czesław Miłosz characterizes Rzewuski as a literary figure:
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Romantic-era journalist and novelist.
Life
Count Henryk Rzewuski was a scion of a Polish magnateMagnate
Magnate, from the Late Latin magnas, a great man, itself from Latin magnus 'great', designates a noble or other man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or other qualities...
family in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. He was the son of Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski, a Russian senator who resided in St. Petersburg; a great-nephew of a Targowica confederate
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,...
; and great-grandson of Wacław Rzewuski, Polish Great Crown Hetman who had been exiled in 1767–73 to Kaluga
Kaluga
Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Population: It is served by Grabtsevo Airport.-History:...
by Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
ambassador to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
, Nikolai Repnin, who was effectively running the Commonwealth.
Henryk Rzewuski was, further, the brother of Karolina Sobańska (who became an agent of the Russian secret service and mistress of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
), Ewelina Hańska
Ewelina Hańska
Eveline Hańska was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac. Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia, Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański when she was a teenager...
(who married Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
), and Russian General Adam Rzewuski.
In his youth, Rzewuski served in the army of the Duchy of Warsaw
Duchy of Warsaw
The Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...
, participating in the Duchy's brief 1809 war with Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. In 1845–50, in St. Petersburg, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, with Michał Grabowski he headed a conservative, Russian-aligned "St. Petersburg coterie" and contributed to the Polish Tygodnik Petersburski (The St. Petersburg Weekly).
In 1850–56 Rzewuski, an advocate of the closest Polish-Russian political collaboration, worked with Russian Imperial
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
Viceroy Ivan Paskevich
Ivan Paskevich
Ivan Fyodorovich Paskevich was a Ukrainian-born military leader. For his victories, he was made Count of Erivan in 1828 and Namestnik of the Kingdom of Poland in 1831...
, and in 1851–56 he edited Dziennik Warszawki (The Warsaw Daily).
Rzewuski had traveled much—in 1825, to Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, together with Mickiewicz. He had later met the poet in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and had enthralled him with stories of the old Polish nobility, helping inspire Mickiewicz's great verse epic, Pan Tadeusz
Pan Tadeusz
Pan Tadeusz, the full title in English: Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman's Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz...
. Rzewuski's tales would later similarly influence Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. A Polish szlachcic of the Oszyk coat of arms, he was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 for his...
's historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
s set in Poland (The Trilogy).
The Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
's suppression of the Polish November 1830 Uprising
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
and the ensuing repression, by the three partitioning powers, of Polish culture, education and politics had forced Polish writers to seek a collective identity in their country's past. This had created a new vogue for the Polish gawęda
Gawęda
A gawęda is a story; especially, one that belongs to a kind of Polish epic literary genre.-History:Gawęda is a genre of Polish folk literature....
, which had antecedents in Poland's 17th-century memoirists. The gawęda is a discursive fiction in which the narrator recounts incidents in a highly-stylized personal language. It was this genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
of which Henryk Rzewuski was the past master.
Czesław Miłosz characterizes Rzewuski as a literary figure:
Works
- Pamiątki Soplicy (The Memoirs of Soplica; full title: Pamiątki JPana Seweryna Soplicy, cześnika parnawskiego; 1839, 4 volumes; critical edition by Zygmunt SzweykowskiZygmunt SzweykowskiZygmunt Szweykowski was a historian of Polish literature who specialized in 19th-century Polish prose.-Life:...
, 1928); revised for the censorCensorshipthumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
s as Pamiętniki starego szlachcica litewskiego (Memoirs of an Old Lithuanian Nobleman; 1844-45) - Mieszaniny obyczajowe (Assorted Customs; 1841-43), published under the pen namePen nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
"Jarosz Bejła" - Listopad (November; 1845-46), 3-volume novel; critical edition by K. Wojciechowski, 1923; translated into Czech, Russian, German, English; a superb picture of Polish society, artfully styled and constructed, with masterfully crafted characters.
- Zamek krakowski (The KrakówKrakówKraków 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...
CastleCastleA castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
; 1847-48) - Teofrast polski (A Polish TheophrastusTheophrastusTheophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
; 1851) - Adam Śmigielski (1851)
- Rycerz Lizdejko (The Knight Lizdejko; 1852)
- Zaporożec (The Zaporozhian; 1854)
- Pamiętniki Bartłomieja Michałowskiego (The Memoirs of Bartłomiej Michałowski; 1855—57)
- Próbki historyczne (Historic Samples; 1868)
- Uwagi o dawnej Polsce przez starego Szlachcica Seweryna Soplicę Cześnika Parnawskiego napisane 1832 r. (Remarks about Old Poland Written in 1832 by the Old Nobleman Seweryn Soplica...; manuscript, published in 2003)
See also
- Polish Romanticism
- Polish literaturePolish literaturePolish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages, used in Poland over the centuries, have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and...
- GawędaGawędaA gawęda is a story; especially, one that belongs to a kind of Polish epic literary genre.-History:Gawęda is a genre of Polish folk literature....
- List of Poles