Ignacy Krasicki
His Excellency Ignacy Krasicki | |
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Primate of Poland | |
Coat of arms |
Ignacy Błażej Franciszek Krasicki (3 February 1735 – 14 March 1801), from 1766
His most notable literary works were his Fables and Parables (1779), Satires (1779), and poetic letters and religious lyrics, in which the artistry of his poetic language reached its summit.[1]
Life
Ignacy Krasicki was born in
He attended a Jesuit school in
Returning to Poland, Krasicki became secretary to the
In 1766 Krasicki, after having served that year as
In 1772, as a result of the
He now made frequent visits to Berlin, Potsdam and Sanssouci at the bidding of Frederick, with whom he cultivated an acquaintance. This created a difficult situation for the poet-bishop who, while a friend of the Polish king, maintained close relations with the Prussian king. These realities could not but influence the nature and direction of Krasicki's subsequent literary productions, perhaps nowhere more so than in the Fables and Parables (1779).
Soon after the First Partition, Krasicki officiated at the 1773 opening of Berlin's
After Frederick the Great's death, Krasicki continued relations with Frederick's successor.
In 1795, six years before his death, Krasicki was elevated to
Krasicki was honored by Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski with the Order of the White Eagle and the Order of Saint Stanisław, as well as with a special 1780 medal featuring the Latin device, "Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori" ("The Muse will not let perish a man deserving of glory");[2] and by Prussia's King Frederick the Great, with the Order of the Red Eagle.
Upon his death in Berlin in 1801, Krasicki was laid to rest at St. Hedwig's Cathedral, which he had consecrated. In 1829 his remains were transferred to Poland's Gniezno Cathedral.
Czesław Miłosz describes Krasicki:
He was a man of the golden mean, a smiling, skeptical sage [who] prais[ed] moderation and despis[ed] extremes. His was a mentality which returned to
Erasmus of Rotterdam is significant. As a poet, he was [chiefly responsible] for that distillation of the [Polish] language which for a while toned down the chaotic richness of the Baroque. In a way, he returned to the clear and simple language of [Jan] Kochanowski, and his role in Polish poetry may be compared to that of Alexander Pope in English poetry. [H]e conceived of literature as a specific vocation, namely, to intervene as a moralist in human affairs. Since he was not pugnacious by temperament (contrary to one of his masters, Voltaire), his moralizing, rarely distinguishable from sheer play, [does not show] vitriolic accents.[3]
Works
Ignacy Krasicki was the leading literary representative of the Polish Enlightenment—a prose writer and poet highly esteemed by his contemporaries, who admired his works for their wit, imagination, and fluid style.[4]
Krasicki's literary writings lent splendor to the reign of Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski, while not directly advocating the King's political program.
Krasicki, the leading representative of
The Prince Bishop of Warmia gave excellent Polish form to all the genres of European
Tradition has it that Krasicki's mock-heroic poem, Monachomachia (War of the Monks, 1778), was inspired by a conversation with Frederick II at the palace of Sanssouci, where Krasicki was staying in an apartment that had once been used by Voltaire. At the time, the poem's publication caused a public scandal.
The most enduring literary monument of the Polish Enlightenment is Krasicki's
Other works by Krasicki include the novels,
In 1781–83 Krasicki published a two-volume encyclopedia, Zbiór potrzebniejszych wiadomości (A Collection of Essential Information), the second Polish-language general encyclopedia after Benedykt Chmielowski's Nowe Ateny (The New Athens, 1745–46).
Krasicki wrote Listy o ogrodach (Letters about Gardens) and articles in the Monitor, which he had co-founded, and in his own newspaper, Co Tydzień (Each Week).
Krasicki
Fame
Krasicki's major works won European fame and were translated into Latin, French, German, Italian, Russian, Czech, Croatian, Slovene, and Hungarian. The broad reception of his works was sustained throughout the 19th century.
Krasicki has been the subject of works by poets of the Polish Enlightenment – Stanisław Trembecki, Franciszek Zabłocki, Wojciech Mier – and in the 20th century, by Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński. He has been the hero of prose works by Wincenty Pol, Adolf Nowaczyński and Henryk Sienkiewicz.
Literary reflection
Scholars have viewed Krasicki's Fables and Satires as adaptive to the culture for which they were written, and as politically charged.[8] The characterizations were not based on reconstructions of individuals from direct observation, but were fictional constructs that reflected society's actual values. Krasicki held that Poles, and humanity generally, were governed by greed, folly, and vice.[8]
Target audience
Evidence for this is found in the preface, "To the Children,", targeted not to children but to villagers, congregations, and the commonalty. The fables were meant to bring attention to major questions of the day, and to advocate for social reforms.[9] Although the New Fables, the sequel to the Fables and Parables, were published posthumously in 1803, the better known Fables and Parables found their audience between 1735 and Krasicki's death in 1801, most of them being published after the First Partition of Poland, of 1772. The fables usually find their meaning in the final line, through the symbology of the tale rather than through a complex presentation of ideology, thereby readily conveying even to the illiterate the moral and the Enlightenment ideal behind it.
Enlightenment contributions
Katarzyna Zechenter argues in The Polish Review that Western historians have generally overlooked Krasicki's works, and that the publisher of Polish Fables overlooked the importance of the "political and social context contributing to [the fable's] origin."[10] However, it is easy to see Krasicki's influence on his contemporaries and on the early 19th century, as in the case of Gabriela Puzynina, a Polish princess, poet, and diarist. In 1846 she started a newspaper for the intelligentsia of Vilnius and Warsaw, and furthered the establishment of Krasicki's Fables in Poland's suppressed political life. In her Diary of the Years 1815–1843, Puzynina focuses on the fable, "Birds in a Cage", as a commentary on the Partitions of Poland.
See also
- The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom
- Fable
- Fables and Parables
- List of Poles
- Monitor (Polish newspaper)
- "O Sacred Love of the Beloved Country"
- Poles
- Polish literature
- Political fiction
- Translation
Notes
- ^ Encyklopedia Polski(Encyclopedia of Poland), p. 325.
- ^ The device is taken from Horace, Carmina, 4, 8, 29. Zbigniew Landowski, Krystyna Woś, Słownik cytatów łacińskich: wyrażenia, sentencje, przysłowia (A Dictionary of Latin Citations: Expressions, Maxims, Proverbs), p. 141.
- ^ Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, pp. 176–77.
- ^ Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski, ed., Literatura polska od średniowiecza do pozytywizmu (Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism), p. 245.
- ^ Edward Balcerzan, ed., Pisarze polscy o sztuce przekładu, 1440–1974: Antologia (Polish Writers on the Art of Translation, 1440–1974: an Anthology), pp. 445–46, note 6.
- ^ Ignacy Krasicki, "O przekładaniu ksiąg" ("On the Translation of Books"), Monitor, 1772, no. 1, reprinted in Edward Balcerzan, ed., Pisarze polscy o sztuce przekładu, 1440–1974: Antologia (Polish Writers on the Art of Translation, 1440–1974: an Anthology), pp. 74–75.
- ^ Ignacy Krasicki, "O tłumaczeniu ksiąg" ("On Translating Books"), in Dzieła wierszem i prozą (Works in Verse and Prose), 1803, reprinted in Edward Balcerzan, ed., Pisarze polscy o sztuce przekładu, 1440–1974: Antologia (Polish Writers on the Art of Translation, 1440–1974: an Anthology), pp. 75–80.
- ^ ISBN 0521818699.
- JSTOR 25778281.
- JSTOR 25779127.
References
- Edward Balcerzan, ed., Pisarze polscy o sztuce przekładu, 1440–1974: Antologia (Polish Writers on the Art of Translation, 1440–1974: an Anthology), Poznań, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1977.
- Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski, ed., Literatura polska od śreniowiecza do pozytywizmu (Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism), Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979, ISBN 83-01-00201-8, pp. 245–54.
- ISBN 83-86328-60-6.
- Julian Krzyżanowski, Historia literatury polskiej: Alegoryzm – preromantyzm (A History of Polish Literature: Allegorism – Preromanticism), Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1974, pp. 435–54.
- Zbigniew Landowski, Krystyna Woś, Słownik cytatów łacińskich: wyrażenia, sentencje, przysłowia (A Dictionary of Latin Citations: Expressions, Maxims, Proverbs), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2002, ISBN 83-08-02866-7.
- ISBN 0-520-04477-0, pp. 176–81.
External links
- Works by or about Ignacy Krasicki at Internet Archive
- Works by Ignacy Krasicki at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Polish Forum
- Catholic Online
- Biography at monika.univ.gda.pl
- Biography at poetrymagic.com Archived 1 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- Biography at polishconstitution.org
- Collected works (in Polish)
- Other works (in Polish)
- Virtual tour Gniezno Cathedral Archived 17 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine
- List of Primates of Poland