Young Poland
Encyclopedia
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
period in Polish
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...
visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
, literature
Polish literature
Polish 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...
and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was a result of strong aesthetic
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
opposition to the ideas of Positivism
Positivism in Poland
Positivism in Poland was a socio-cultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and social sciences of Partitioned Poland following the suppression of the 1863 January Uprising against the occupying army of Imperial Russia...
. Młoda Polska promoted trends of decadence
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
, neo-romanticism
Neo-romanticism
The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music, painting and architecture. It has been used with reference to very late 19th century and early 20th century composers such as Gustav Mahler particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who uses it as synonymous with late Romanticism...
, symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
, impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and art nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
.
Philosophy
The term was coined after a manifestoManifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
by Artur Górski
Artur Górski
Artur Górski is a Polish politician. He was elected to Sejm on September 25, 2005 getting 2850 votes in 19 Warsaw district, running on the Law and Justice ticket...
, published in 1898 in the 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...
newspaper Życie
Zycie
Życie was an illustrated weekly established in 1897 and published in Kraków and Lwów in Poland. Founded by Ludwik Szczepański, with time it became one of the most popular Polish literary and artistic journals...
(Life), and was soon adopted in all of partitioned Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
by analogy to similar terms such as Young Germany
Young Germany
Young Germany was a group of German writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth ideology . Its main proponents were Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube, Theodor Mundt and Ludolf Wienbarg; Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Börne and Georg Büchner were also considered part of the movement...
, Young Belgium, Young Scandinavia, etc.
Polish literature of the period was based on two main concepts. The earlier was a typically modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
disillusionment with the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, its life style and its culture. Artists following this concept also believed in decadence
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
, an end of all culture, conflict between humans and their civilization, and the concept of art as the highest value (art for art's sake
Art for art's sake
"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, l'art pour l'art, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function...
). Authors who followed this concept included Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer
Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer
Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer was a Polish poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and writer. He was a member of the Young Poland movement.-Life:...
, Stanisław Przybyszewski, Wacław Rolicz-Lieder
Waclaw Rolicz-Lieder
Wacław Rolicz-Lieder , was a Polish Symbolist poet and translator of German poetry.He was the son of a German immigrant bank clerk, and a Polish mother.-Works:*Poezje I, Krakau 1889;...
and Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz was a poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland.-Life:...
.
A later concept was a continuation of romanticism
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...
, and as such is often called neo-romanticism. The group of writers following this idea was less organised and the writers themselves covered a large variety of topics in their writings: from sense of mission of a Pole in Stefan Żeromski
Stefan Zeromski
Stefan Żeromski was a Polish novelist and dramatist. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature". He also wrote under the pen names: Maurycy Zych, Józef Katerla and Stefan Iksmoreż.- Life :...
's prose, through social inequality described by Władysław Reymont and Gabriela Zapolska
Gabriela Zapolska
Maria Gabriela Stefania Korwin-Piotrowska , known as Gabriela Zapolska, was a Polish novelist, playwright, naturalist writer, feuilletonist, theatre critic and stage actress. Zapolska wrote 41 plays, 23 novels, 177 short stories, 252 works of journalism, one film script, and over 1,500...
to criticism of Polish society and Polish history by Stanisław Wyspiański.
Writers of this period include also: Wacław Berent, Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz was a poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland.-Life:...
, Jan Augustyn Kisielewski, Antoni Lange
Antoni Lange
Antoni Lange was a Polish poet, philosopher, polyglot , writer, novelist, science-writer, reporter and translator. A representative of Polish Parnassianism and symbolism, he is also regarded as belonging to the Decadent movement...
, Jan Lemański, Bolesław Leśmian, Tadeusz Miciński
Tadeusz Micinski
Tadeusz Micinski was an influential Polish poet, gnostic and playwright, and was a forerunner of Expressionism and Surrealism. He is one of the writers of the Young Poland period . His writings are strong influenced by Dark Romanticism and Romantic gothic fiction...
, Andrzej Niemojewski, Franciszek Nowicki
Franciszek Nowicki
Franciszek Henryk Siła-Nowicki was a Young Poland poet, a mountaineer, socialist activist, and designer of the Orla Perć High Tatras mountain trail.-Life:...
, Władysław Orkan, Artur Oppman, Włodzimierz Perzyński, Tadeusz Rittner
Tadeusz Rittner
Tadeusz Rittner was a Polish dramatist, prose writer, and literary critic.Rittner was born in Lemberg, Ukraine.-Sources:*...
, Wacław Sieroszewski, Leopold Staff
Leopold Staff
Leopold Staff was a Polish poet and one of the greatest artists of European modernism honored two times by honorary degrees . He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer
Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer
Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer was a Polish poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and writer. He was a member of the Young Poland movement.-Life:...
, Maryla Wolska, and Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński
Tadeusz Boy-Zelenski
Tadeusz Kamil Marcjan Żeleński was a Polish stage writer, poet, critic above all, and translator of over 100 French literary classics into Polish...
.
Music and visual arts
In music, the term Young Poland is applied to an informal group of composers that include Karol SzymanowskiKarol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...
, Grzegorz Fitelberg
Grzegorz Fitelberg
Grzegorz Fitelberg was a Polish conductor, violinist and composer. He was a member of the Młoda Polska group, together with artists such as Karol Szymanowski, Ludomir Różycki and Mieczysław Karłowicz....
, Ludomir Różycki
Ludomir Rozycki
Ludomir Różycki was a Polish composer and conductor. He was, with Mieczysław Karłowicz, Karol Szymanowski and Grzegorz Fitelberg, a member of the group of composers known as Young Poland, the intention of which was to invigorate the musical culture of their generation in their mother country.He...
and possibly Mieczysław Karłowicz. The group was under strong influence of neoromanticism in music and especially of foreign composers such as Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and those belonging to The Mighty Handful group e.g. Modest Musorgski, Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
.
In the period of Young Poland there were no overwhelming trends in Polish art. The painters and sculptors tried to continue the romantic traditions with new ways of expression popularised abroad. The most influential trend was art nouveau, although Polish artists started to seek also some form of a national style (see also: styl zakopiański). Both sculpture and painting were also heavily influenced by all forms of symbolism.
Prominent painters and sculptors
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Józef Mehoffer Józef Mehoffer was a Polish painter and decorative artist, one of the leading artists of the Young Poland movement and one of the most revered Polish artists of his time.-Life:... Józef Pankiewicz Józef Pankiewicz was a Polish painter, graphic artist, and pedagogue.Pankiewicz was born at Lublin. He studied under Wojciech Gerson and Alexander Kamiński. He travelled to Saint Petersburg with Władysław Podkowiński after winning a scholarship to the Imperial Academy of Arts there... Ferdynand Ruszczyc Ferdynand Ruszczyc was a Polish painter, printmaker, and stage designer.Born in the surroundings of Valozhyn of Belarus, Ruszczyc originally studied law at the University of St. Petersburg, but then switched majors and began taking painting classes at the Academy of Fine Art. He was a student of... |
Wojciech Weiss Wojciech Weiss was a prominent Polish painter and draughtsman of the Young Poland movement.Weiss was born in Bukovina to a Polish family in exile of Stanisław Weiss and Maria Kopaczyńska. He gave up music training to study art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Leon Wyczółkowski... Konstanty Laszczka Konstanty Laszczka was a Polish sculptor, painter, graphic artist, as well as professor and rector of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków... |