Maurycy Mochnacki

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Maurycy Mochnacki; Contemporary engraving
Bust of Maurycy Mochnackis in Łazienki Park in Warsaw

Maurycy Mochnacki (born September 13, 1803 in Bojaniec near Żółkiew , † December 20, 1834 in Auxerre ) was a Polish historian , literary critic and revolutionary . He was a representative of Polish Romanticism .

Life

Mochnacki grew up in Congress Poland, which was dependent on the Russian Empire . Already as a student of law at the University of Warsaw , he engaged in secret Polish organizations. However, in 1823 he was arrested. During the interrogation he accused one of his professors and then worked for the censorship agency for about six months . He later worked as a literary critic and published numerous reviews and articles in various magazines, where he distinguished himself as one of the most active romantics in the country. As early as 1827 he philosophized in an article about the core of the Polish nation: “The essence of a nation is not a collection of people who live in an area that is defined by certain boundaries, but rather the entirety of their ideas, feelings and thoughts . These ideas, feelings and thoughts necessarily result from history, religion, legislation, traditions etc. ”Based on this philosophy it was possible for a nation to survive without the existence of a state. As he later wrote in his work on Polish literature, “the country was divided, but only the country; what constitutes the essence of a nation has been preserved. The nation lost its political existence [...] but it did not lose its social ties; it did not lose its social existence, which was even strengthened, which strived for even greater perfection. ”In this regard, Mochnacki was a founder of early romantic nationalism in Poland, which he combined with romantic idealism . Poland not only represented a nation, but also stood for higher ideals such as freedom, justice and brotherhood.

During the November uprising in 1830, he led a group against the Russian authorities in Warsaw. Soon afterwards he founded the "Patriotic Club" ( Klub Patriotyczny ), which included radical members of the Polish intelligentsia. He accused the new Commander-in-Chief General Józef Chłopicki of treason and opposed an understanding with Russia. Instead, a national government should be established. A social revolution should secure full civil rights for the peasants.

He now established a connection between the moral values ​​of poetry and the armed struggle by postulating in his main work “On Polish Literature” ( O literaturze polskiej ) in 1831 : “It is no longer time to write about art [ ...] our life is already poetry. Our meter will be the thunder of the guns henceforth the clank of swords, our rhyme. "Became inevitable when the war, he joined so in February 1831 as a volunteer in the Polish army and participated in the Battle of Wawer and the Battle of Ostrołęka part . After a serious wound he left the military and worked again as a revolutionary. But only a short time later he was arrested by the Warsaw Governor General Wojciech Chrzanowski . He managed to escape to France, where he was involved in the left wing of Polish emigration. His main work from this period was the book "The uprising of the Polish nation 1830 and 1831" ( Powstanie narodu polskiego w r. 1830 i 1831 ). A little later he died impoverished.

literature

Web links

Commons : Maurycy Mochnacki  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jerzy J. Lerski: Historical Dictionary of Poland 966-1945 , Westport 1996, p. 360 f.
  2. ↑ Quotations and presentation cf. Brian Porter: When Nationalism began to hate - Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland , New York / Oxford 2000, pp. 20 f.
  3. ^ Norman Davis: In the Heart of Europe - History of Poland , Munich 2000, p. 185
personal data
SURNAME Mochnacki, Maurycy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish historian and romantic revolutionary
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1803
PLACE OF BIRTH Bojaniec near Żółkiew
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 1834
Place of death Auxerre