Cornelius Ujejski Julian Klaczko

Adam Mickiewicz

Born near Novogrodek, Lithuania, 1798; died at Constantinople, 1855. He studied

at Novogrodek until 1815, when he entered Vilna University. Here he studied

German and English romantic poetry with the greatest zeal. A thwarted passion

for Marya Wereszczak roused rather than quenched his genius; and, soon after

becoming a professor in Kovno (1819) he published his first poetical creations in

two volumes (Vilna, 1822-3). These included:

(a) "Dziady" (The Ancestors), which besides its artistic lyricism, marks

the first appearance of romanticism in Poland. His hero Gustav is rather of

the morbid Werther type;

(b) many ballads and romances, setting forth Lithuanian folk-lore with

great power and skill; most, though not all, of these are visibly influenced

by Goethe, Schiller, and Burger;

(c) "Grazyna", in form like the lyric epics of that period, but, unlike these,

full of real epic simplicity, majesty, and objectivity.

To the same period belongs his celebrated "Ode to Youth" thou it appeared

somewhat later. The current of his genius was then changed by persecution.

While at the university he belonged to a society of students, with which he

afterwards continued to correspond; he was now most unjustly thrown into prison

with the other members, since none of them had ever dreamed of insurrection.

The keynote of his poems was no longer disappointed love, but suffering

patriotism. Sentenced to exile in Russia, he left Lithuania forever (1824), and

went first to Odessa and thence to the Crimea, where he wrote his "Sonnets"

(Moscow, 1826). These are gloomy but extremely picturesque, and most

effective by the infinite sadness which repeatedly appears in them with striking

unexpectedness. Sent afterwards to Moscow, Mickiewicz wrote there his famous

"Konrad Wallenrod", published later in St. Petersburg (1828). This poem is

unequal; its hero is too Byronesque, and it seems to preach revenge by

treachery. But its wonderful patriotism, inspiration, and artistic finish raised it as

a whole above anything he had yet written.

In 1829, after a stay at St. Petersburg, Mickiewicz obtained his great desire —

leave to go abroad. On his way to Rome he passed through Weimar, and visited

Goethe, who, we are told, was greatly impressed by him. When in Italy he wrote

very little, but returned to the fervent practice of the Catholic religion, which he

had before neglected. In 1831 the Polish insurrection broke out; Mickiewicz

attempted to return to Poland, but was stopped at the Prussian frontier. He then

went to Dresden, where he wrote the third part of the "Dziady". It deserves

special notice as containing, besides the expression of that revolt against God

which some Poles felt after the loss of their independence, a mistaken attempt to

explain their country's fate as that of a Christ-like victim slain for the sins of other

nations; it offers also a key to Mickiewicz's own spiritual life. In 1832 he went to

Paris, and there wrote (in Biblical prose) his "Book of the Pilgrimage", in which

he treats the Polish refugees as apostles and sowers of the Word among the

nations. Later, in 1834, he published his long poem "Pan Tadeusz", a

marvellously lively and faithful portrait of Lithuanian life in the first years of the

nineteenth century. Plot, development, characters, episodes, every passage, and

almost every line are excellent: it is a high-water mark in Polish poetry, one of

the world's masterpieces. After this achievement Mickiewicz gave up poetry: his

sole aim was henceforth to work out Poland's regeneration by serving God. "An

order of Poles", he said, "was needed to bring the nation back to God." From this

idea, which he advocated widely, the Order of the Resurrection may be said to

have sprung.

In 1835 he married, and was afterwards in constant pecuniary straits. For some

time he gave lessons in Latin literature at the Academy of Lausanne (1838-9); he

was then named professor in the Collège de France, and his French work, "A

Course of Slav Literature", is very good. But in the third year of his teaching he

began to abandon literature for certain philosophical and religious ideas.

Towianski had won him over to his wild theory of Messianism, already

foreshadowed in several of Mickiewicz's poems. He eagerly embraced the idea of

a faith that should be to Christianity what the latter was to Judaism. Such a

change, though readily accounted for, had melancholy results. Messianism was

condemned; Mickiewicz became the apostle of a false doctrine, and lost his

chair of literature. He subsequently submitted (1848), but still continued to dream

of a great regeneration of peoples, brought about by revolution. When the

Crimean War came, he hoped for an invasion of Poland, and even went to

Constantinople to form a Polish legion, but died there of cholera. His body was

taken to Paris, and thence (1890) to the cathedral of Krakow, where it now

reposes. Mickiewicz has much in common with Schiller; he is also like Byron,

but above him both in moral tone and in objectivity, in which he recalls Goethe.

But he rose superior to all of them as a fervent believer in Christ. Since

Mickiewicz, Poland can boast of having one of the world's great literatures, while

of all Polish poets he is the most talented, the most intensely patriotic, and the

most potent factor in the national life of Poland.

His Master Thaddeus, tr. BIGGS, Was published in 2 vols. (London, 1886). See the Lives by

TRETIAK (3 vols., Lemberg, 1884); CHMIELOWSKI (2 vols., Cracow, 1898); MICKIEWICZ, Fr. tr.

(Paris, 1888).

S. TARNOWSKI.

Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter

Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Cornelius Ujejski

Polish poet, born at Beremiany, Galicia, 1823; died at Cholojewie, 1897. His

father was a prosperous landowner, member of an ancient noble family. Cornelius

completed his studies at Lemberg, and while still a student at the university there

wrote "Maraton" (1843), a patriotic lyric poem of excellent form. In 1846, at the

instigation of the Austrian Government, the Galician peasants massacred several

thousand of the nobility. Ujejski then gave utterance to the universal feeling of

indignation in his powerful poem "Choral", which has become the national hymn

of Poland. At Paris, 1847, he published a volume of poems entitled "Skargi

Jeremiego" (Lamentations of Jeremias). He made the acquaintance of the most

distinguished men in the Polish colony at Paris, among them Mickiewicz, and

devoted himself with youthful ardor to the poet Julius Slowacki. In 1848 he

returned home, and won great popularity. He was regarded and beloved by the

people as their national poet. Ujejski wrote a number of other poems of fine

sentiment and perfect poetical form, among them "Kwiaty bez woni" (Flowers

without perfume), 1848, and "Zwiedle liscie" (Faded leaves) in 1849. In 1852 he

published a second volume of poems entitled "Melodye Biblijne" (Biblical

Melodies). Ujejski never achieved anything finer than his youthful works, though

his later poems are distinguished by strong patriotic feeling, elegance of form,

and fine poetic taste.

S. TARNOWSKI

Transcribed by Carol Kerstner

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org

Julian Klaczko

Polish author, b. at Vilna, 6 November, 1825, of Jewish parents; d. at Cracow, 26

November, 1906. After taking the doctor's degree in 1847 at the University of

Königsberg, he went to Heidelberg to continue his studies under Gervinus, who

appointed him a collaborator on the "Deutsche Zeitung", a periodical for Russian

and Polish affairs. In 1848 he spent some time in the Grand Duchy of Posen and

published at Berlin his first political pamphlet, "Die deutschen Hegemonen", an

open letter to Gervinus againt the incorporation of Posen in the German

Confederation. About this time he resolved to become a Christian, but deferred

his baptism for a time owing to parental opposition. His father having met with

financial reverses, Klaczko was left without means, and in 1850 went to Paris,

where he supported himself by his literary labours. His articles written in French

and published chiefly in the "Revue de Paris", were so brilliant as to win speedy

fame for the young author. The death of his father, meanwhile, left him free to

enter the Church, and he was accordingly baptized. From 1857 to 1860, with the

collaboration of Valerian Kalinka, he published a monthly, "Wiadomosci Polskie"

(Polish News), the general tone of which was opposed to revolutionary impulses

and sudden uprisings. Viewed from a political, as well as from a literary and

aesthetic standpoint, Klaczko's articles were the most effective and most brilliant

that had ever appeared in the Polish language. The periodical was put under the

ban in Russian Poland and Galicia, and in 1860 also in Prussia, after which it

had to be discontinued on account of a lack of subscribers.

In 1862 there appeared in the"Revue Des Deux Mondes" Klaczko's "Le poete

anonyme", the first adequate appreciation of Sigmund Krasinski, and so

excellently done that it became the basis of all later account of the poet. This

paper assured Klaczko's literary reputation arnorg the French. Soon afterwards

occurred the unfortunate uprising of 1863. While any Polish organization or

activity outside of Poland itself was now impossible, Klaczko did not forget the

cause of his country. From official diplomatic sources he compiled information on

all the details of the Danish and Polish questions, and in 1866 published his

"Etudes de diplomatie", a sharp but veiled criticism of the policy of the Powers,

to the disadvantage of all save Russia and Prussia. The "Etudes" caused a great

sensation, which was increased by the author's subsequent work "Les

preliminaires de Sadowa", in which he shows how Austria was drawn into war

with Prussia (1886).

Klaczko's writings bore such strong testimony to his political talents that he was

appointed by Count Benst on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, holding in addition a

seat in the Galician Diet at Lemberg, and in the Diet which was out of harmony

with Austria's policy of neutrality during the war of 1870 he signed his public

offices and returned to Paris penniless, to devote himself with renewed vigour to

the artistic and literary pursuits of his youth. After several years of work he

published "Causeries florentines", a study of Dante in the form of a dialogue,

containing in one volume the substance of all that scholars and critics had said

on the subject. Even before this he had produced, in 1875, his "Deux

chanceliers", a brilliant portrayal of the characters and policies of Princes

Bismarck and Gortschakoff. Finally, he planned an extensive work under the title

of "La papaute et la renaissance", to show the effects produced on the papacy

by the worldly spirit of some pontiffs, without in the least derogating from the

greatness of any epoch. Of the three volumes "Julius II", "Leo X", and "Clement

VII and the Sack of Rome", only the first was completed, and by the time of its

publication Klaczko was already in the state of paralysis in which he spent the

last eight years of his life. Mass was celebrated in his little drawing-room twice a

week until his death. Klaczko was by far the most powerful intellect and the most

brilliant writer of Poland during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

S. TARNOWSKI

Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org