Cancelling Russian Literature, Polish Style! – Lessons from the 19th Century | Article

Cancelling Russian Literature, Polish Style! – Lessons from the 19th Century

rosyjska_warszawa_2.jpg, default, Russian street signs and architecture were ubiquitous elements of the Warsaw's cityscape at the the turn of centuries. Poles found ways not to see the, center, #000000

#language & literature

Let us take a closer look at the sweeping if largely invisible boycott of Russian culture enacted over a century ago in Poland. This boycott also covered Russian literature – and involved many strategies and insights which can still be salient and useful today in deconstructing Russia’s cultural legacy of imperialism.

The act of boycotting the culture of an aggressor state certainly wasn’t born yesterday and has quite a history – especially in Poland. In fact, 19th-century Poles experimented with the idea of what one could aptly today call ‘cancelling’ Russian culture – long before the term was coined and the whole procedure became fashionable and politically acceptable.

Polish authors were also among the first to recognise the specific position of Russian literature and its links to imperial discourse, an important and long-overlooked aspect of the Russian cultural hegemony and ‘soft power’ – now in the process of decolonial critique and deconstruction.

Importantly, Polish boycotting and cancelling pertained to much more than literature and culture, stretching over to cover large areas of everyday life. But this was not without a curious and ambivalent underside: a secretive fascination with Russian culture – literature, in particular. The allure of the latter came to be seen as a dangerous and potentially lethal factor, threatening the very existence of the Polish nation.

Here’s a look at some of the remarkable strategies implemented by Polish society, writers and readers alike, which pretty much enabled Poles to survive the darkest period of their history and not succumb to the pressure and charm of the oppressor’s culture.

Russian landscape of the Vistula Country

The classicist building of the Staszic Palace in Warsaw was turned into a Neo-Byzantine style box of chocolates in the late 19th century, part of a larger Russification policies adopted in the Polish Kingdom by Russian administration. Photo: fot. Library of Congress — The classicist building of the Staszic Palace in Warsaw was turned into a Neo-Byzantine-style box of chocolates in the late 19th century - as part of larger Russification policies adopted in the Polish Kingdom by Russian administration. Photo: fot. Library of Congress

At the end of the 19th century, Poland’s capital, Warsaw, didn’t look much like a Polish city any more. The names of streets and shop signs were all written in Cyrillic (alongside the Polish), Orthodox churches were numerous – and slowly starting to dominate the urban landscape. The historical architecture of the city was gradually transformed in the alien Russian Byzantine style, with the once classicist building of the Staszic Palace serving as one odd and terrifying example. Soon, in the early 20th century, the giant Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral would be erected, sitting firmly in the midst of what had once been the centre of the capital of Poland.

Warsaw, which during that century witnessed two great uprisings against Russia, was full of monuments to Russian rule. These included monuments and statues dedicated to Poland’s most ruthless oppressors, such as General Ivan Paskevich, Catherine II or Tsar Alexander I – this last on the plaque was called Poland’s Suppressor (usmiritel’) and Benefactor. Ever since the fall of the November Uprising in 1831, a formidable Alexandrine Citadel loomed over the city – built, as Tsar Nicholas I put it, not to defend the city, but to destroy it in case of any inner turmoil.

The city, moreover, was teeming with Russian administrative officials, policemen, military personnel – all dressed in their official state uniforms (which was also the case with pupils and students of Russian schools and the university). Russian was the official language of communication in the streets, education, administration, courts and the railways. Speaking Polish in public was punishable in many of these places and venues.

This country, which constituted the westernmost province of the vast and still growing Russian Empire at the peak of its expansion, used the Julian calendar and marked Orthodox holidays. It was governed by a Russian general-gubernator, and its Russified school system was supervised by a curator (such as the notorious Aleksandr Apukhtin or Iosif Gurko), who also presided over a severe system of censorship. The latter made sure that Polish newspapers and books, which were still allowed, were free of any unorthodox thoughts, opinions, words or names.

In the late 19th century, these banned words included, for instance, the name ‘Poland’, which was carefully wiped out of all publications, and often substituted by the unofficial name of the province – Vistula Country. In fact, for many it may have seemed that the name of the country, as well as its inhabitants, their history, culture and traditions, were on a firm path to oblivion.

Warsaw - Photographs from the Russification era – Image Gallery

Embeded gallery style

display gallery as slider

Literature that doesn’t see

Kadr z filmu "Lalka", reżyseria: Ryszard Ber, 1977, fot. Romuald Pieńkowski/Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny — *What does Stanisław Wokulski see?* Timeframe from the film The Doll ("Lalka"), directed by Ryszard Ber, 1977, photo: Romuald Pieńkowski/Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny

Yet all of these jarringly alien elements of life and reality in the Russian Warsaw (and Poland) were, as if by a magician’s sleight of hand, virtually absent from the Polish realist literature of the day. Polish writers of the second half of the 19th century, writing and publishing in what was still officially called the Polish Kingdom, avoided introducing into their books even the slightest traces of the Russian presence in their country.

A case in point is the novel The Doll (Lalka, 1890) by Bolesław Prus. This masterpiece of 19th-century literature, which focuses on the romantic life of a parvenue entrepreneur, Stanisław Wokulski, is set for the most part in Warsaw in the late 1870s, at the height of the russification of Polish territory, and constitutes a sweeping panorama of Polish social life of the day. And yet it is ostensibly devoid of almost all elements that could testify to the presence of the Russian element in the city and the country.

As many scholars have shown, in his otherwise very realistic representation of the Polish capital, Prus omits whole aspects and areas of life and the cityscape. He purposefully ignores and forgoes the locations and venues that were associated with the Russian administration or military, such as the Royal Castle (which at the time served as the headquarters of the Russia-imposed governor-generals), the Viceroy Palace, the Belvedere – not to mention the Citadel.

M.Scholz, Pomnik siedmiu generałów na Placu Saskim, 1841, Wikimedia Commons — The drawing of the Saxon Square in Warsaw with the notorious monument to the Seven Officers-Loyalists, erected by the Russian administration in 1841; drawing by M. Scholz. Photo: public domain

The Doll’s protagonists choose not to see the most iconic and familiar sights in their city’s landscape, elements which they must pass in front of every day as they stroll about the city, such as the monument to the loyalists in Saxon Square or the Paskevich statue, located close to Wokulski’s home. There is no mention of Orthodox churches, of which there were several just in the immediate vicinity of the area frequented by the book’s protagonists.

Moreover, there’s hardly any mention of Russian policemen, officials, administration and military personnel, all of whom – dressed in their characteristic uniforms – must have made for the most conspicuous presence in the city. The only character in the novel who is openly described by the narrator as Russian is Wokulski’s business partner, Suzin – but that’s pretty much it.

As one critic noted, referring to this aspect of Polish literature of the period, if not for the names of units of measuring distance (versts) and currency (roubles), one would hardly be able to say in what country, or rather in what empire, the story takes place.

Airbrushed photo, or Aesopian realism

Kolaż: Janek Twardowski / Culture.pl, na podstawie: Ulica Niecała w Warszawie, ok. 1908, fot. autorstwo nieznane/Muzeum Warszawy — Niecała Street in Warsaw around 1908, Photo by an unknown artist, source: Muzeum Warszawy; Collage by Janek Twardowski / Culture.pl

The peculiar case of The Doll was actually typical of the bulk of fiction published in the Polish Kingdom in the second half of the 19th century. And while some aspects of this awkward omission policy were also caused by the oppressive censorship, the overall strategy was by no means makeshift or coincidental.

It also resulted in a peculiar kind of realism. As Agata Tuszyńska noted, ‘the realistic world of The Doll, which omitted the most characteristic and disturbing elements, is in its peculiar way quite un-realistic’. Other scholars have compared the literary technique of Prus and other Polish writers of the day to a careful airbrushed photograph, where all Russian elements are erased from the picture.

But while such ellipsis of a large portion of the presented world would normally be seen as an inherently flawed model of realism, it wasn’t considered as such by the Polish audience. In fact, this can be seen as part of the specific contract between the writer and the reader of Polish literature, which is usually referred to as Aesopian speech. This peculiar writing strategy, which included coded language and ellipsis of many aspects of reality, enabled Polish authors to write in the conditions of censorship, but also to say something that was only comprehensible to the reader who was privy to the rules of the game.

Part of that deal between writers and readers consisted also in the unwritten rule which forbade portraying Russians in literary texts. In fact, a Russian protagonist, or even one with a Russian background, was extremely rare in Polish literature, at least ever since the fall of the January Uprising. Those who chose to break this taboo – no matter how patriotic they might have been – faced a backlash which involved heavy critique and some ostracism. A case in point was Wiktor Teofil Gomulicki’s short story Sołdat (Soldier, 1898), which portrayed a Russian soldier as a positive character, even rescuing a Polish insurgent at one point.

This strategy was rooted perhaps in motivations that could be called escapist, but it also had some therapeutic effect, as it helped readers to better cope with the traumatic reality which was painful and hardly acceptable. Yes, Polish literature was engaging in – let’s not be shy and use that phrase – censoring itself in order to erase or airbrush whole areas of experience. But the same thing was actually taking place in reality.

Cigarettes & people, or the boycott of things Russian

Genaral-guberator of Polish Kingdon, Josif Gurko, Photo: public domain — Genaral-guberator of the Polish Kingdon, Josif Gurko, Photo: public domain

The image of reality and literary strategies employed in The Doll and other literary works from that era are in fact representative of the more general attitude of Polish society towards the Russian contexts of life in their country. The latter included representatives of foreign administrations, military and other officials, along with members of their families, a sort of colonial elite living in the country and by now constituting an important minority in the capital and the whole province.

This attitude can generally be described as a boycott of all things Russian or connected to Russia. This pertained in particular to the social taboo of inviting Russians to parties and other social gatherings. In practice, any kind of social contact and ties with Russians – or for that matter, even the Poles who had close contact with Russians – was seen as undesirable and inappropriate.

One of the few places of contact between Russians and Poles was theatre, which also happened to be one of the few places where the Polish language was still allowed (the other being churches). But even there, the Russian repertoire was virtually absent from the stage. In a similar vein, the Polish audience boycotted the guest performances of Russian artists, nor did it express any interest in exhibitions of the Russian arts – which effectively were a rather rare occurrence.

This unofficial social boycott stretched to a similarly unofficial economic boycott of Russian products, such as tea or cigarettes, which were associated with a Russian lifestyle. Cigarettes in particular were seen as a harmful influence connected to an alien Russian way of life and associated in particular with Russian soldiers – as was the case with gambling.

Splendid isolation

Fragment pierzei zachodniej ulicy Nowy Świat w Warszawie, 1873, fot. Biblioteka Narodowa Polona — Nowy Świat Street in Warsaw, 1873, photo. Biblioteka Narodowa Polona

This all-encompassing boycott quite naturally stretched also to the regions of literature. As Polish scholar Aleksander Brückner noted in the early 20th century:

Thus a peculiar fact, unheard of anywhere else, came into being: within the borders of one ‘empire’ two societies and two literatures stood side by side – with no seemingly natural and necessary blood transfusion – each having no knowledge of one another, mutually exclusive, hostile.

This lack of cultural exchange, especially on the Polish part, was indeed striking. In the Russian partition, Polish newspapers and magazines did not run reviews of books by Russian authors, nor did they inform about Russian book publications. As scholar Marian Jakóbiec observed, ‘the statistics regarding translations of Russian books after 1863 gives the impression of a boycott of that literature’. Polish translations of classic books by Dostoevsky or Tolstoy often came out many decades after their original publication.

This isolationism was especially remarkable considering that it took place precisely at a time when Russian literature was gaining worldwide recognition – especially in western Europe, where it was celebrated with fresh translations of new books by Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, with reviews and essays promoting Russian authors and praising their work for its universalist and progressive values.

This silent boycott stretched also to other cultural areas, such as science and cultural life, which were also shunned in the Polish press. As Jakóbiec notes, there are virtually no Russian names in the opinion journalism of Piotr Chmielowski, Adam Wiślicki, Aleksander Świętochowski – the leading journalists and authors of the positivist period.

Effectively, as W. T. Gomulicki argued, Russian literature and opinion journalism remained for the majority of Polish society a terra ignota.

‘Killing by silence’

Author Eliza Orzeszkowa(1841-1910), photo potrait by Meir Rubinstein; source: National Museum in Warsaw

Jakóbiec has noted that ‘the great writers of the positivist era by and large did not reveal their attitude toward Russian literature’. One example is Eliza Orzeszkowa, a popular novelist from the Grodno region (present-day Belarus), an area which by the 1880s had been part of the Russian Empire for over a hundred years. Her bulky letter correspondence to multiple recipients across many decades reveals only one (!) mention of a Russian writer. As the story goes, when visited by a lady who had been educated in Petersburg and asked whether she could lend her any Russian books, Orzeszkowa reportedly answered indignantly that she has only books in foreign (i.e. Western) languages and those in Polish.

Similarly, the author of The Doll, who for close to four decades regularly published feuilletons under the heading Kronika Tygodniowa (Weekly Chronicle), did not include in them even a single Russian detail. Prus, who was also a prolific literary critic, did not publish a review of a Russian book until 1900, when he penned a short essay about Leo Tolstoy, who by then had been a celebrated writer for at least 30 years.

The same goes for the other two Polish greats of the period: Maria Konopnicka and Henryk Sienkiewicz. Konopnicka’s only mention of a Russian author (Pushkin) appears in her lengthy article about Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve). Sienkiewicz as well didn’t reveal his attitude to Russian literature, nor, as Jakóbiec asserts, can one find any rossica in his writings. In fact, the only two times Sienkiewicz mentions Russian literature and Russian writers is when he suggests that any potential profit from the sales of his books in Russia should go to support the hungry. The second and last time was a ritual, and a bit odd, statement about Tolstoy on the writer’s anniversary celebrations.

This boycott of all things Russian in literature also had the effect that Polish literature of the day took very little from the celebrated literature of its neighbour slash oppressor – and precisely at a time when Russian writers pioneered new trends in literature, such as the psychological novel. Effectively, the novels and short stories of Prus, Konopnicka, Orzeszkowa and Sienkiewicz are to a great extent free of any influence from the great Russian novel. Or so it would seem...

Fascination and pangs of conscience

Kadr z filmu "Ludzie bez jutra", reżyseria: Aleksander Hertz, 1921, fot. Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny — Still from "Ludzie bez jutra", a movie directed by Aleksander Hertz, about the scandal surrounding the romance and murder of Maria Wisnowska; photo: Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny

The Polish boycott of Russian literature also had, as scholar Anna Sobieska shows, its secretive and dark underside. Sobieska invokes the figure of a renowned theatre actress and a celebrity of the time, Maria Wisnowska, who got involved in a romance with a Russian officer. The breaking of one of the rules of the Polish boycott (that of not engaging socially or romantically with Russians) and a gruesome end to the romance (Wisnowska was eventually killed by her lover) fascinated and scandalised the Polish public in a way that can be seen as representative and symbolic of a wider stance of Polish society towards Russia.

Polish literature of the period was much like this actress: she despised, feared and often didn’t even acknowledge publicly her acquaintance with the cornet of the Grodno hussar regiment, who embodied Russian culture; she humiliated and exploited him, but also loved him, seduced him and let him seduce her. Many of the readers of Russian literature, just like Maria Wisnowska, were torn between fear of the imperialist, destructive influence of all things Russian and adoration of the mysteriously seductive Russian nihilist maximalism.

This ambivalent relationship between Polish and Russian culture is probably best reflected in the personal experience of Maria Kuncewiczowa (1895-1989). The writer grew up in the Russian Warsaw of the early 20th century, at a time ‘when the hatred towards Russia in Polish homes was still the most respected and solid element of the atmosphere of the day’, with hardly any Russian books around in her childhood home.

One day, I stumbled upon the first volume of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I can perfectly remember the sense of shame with which I indulged in reading the book. The real pangs of conscience, however, came the moment when, having laid the book aside, I realised that I adore Natasha and Nikolay [...]. That in fact I agree with everything that the Muscovites desire…, the Muscovites, that is, the enemies of ‘our’ Napoleon. And I agree with them because I have no will to oppose the people who seem so nice, intimately comprehensible, and homely. It was at this point – the peak of my wickedness it was – that I understood that Konrad Wallenrod had never felt as sympathetic to me as the coarse, silly and dear Pierre Bezukhov! I broke into tears reflecting on the duplicity of my nature – and in a superhuman effort of will – I denied myself the next volumes.

According to Anna Sobieska, this ‘perverse’ case of forbidden fascination with the culture that continues to exert its magnetic, almost sensual, attraction, combined with the pressure of patriotic surroundings, may actually be more representative of the changing attitudes towards Russia near the end of the 19th century, as the russification policies in the Kingdom began to wane, and the image of Russia gained a more positive aspect.

This aspect is also raised by Marian Jakóbiec, who argues that the fact that Russian literature was hardly translated in the Polish Kingdom may not be indicative of the true levels of its popularity. In the late 19th century, Jakóbiec says, Poles, Russified for the past century, hardly needed translations to be able to read these novels. They could read them in the Russian original, only that they didn’t brag about it. ‘Everyone did it, but without making much ado and lavishing praise, oftentimes in secrecy vis-à-vis one’s own patriotic surroundings’. Still, many who could read Russian preferred to read these authors in the French translations – yet another sign of the boycott’s inconsistencies.

This secretive knowledge of Russian literature and culture was certainly more widespread than reported – especially with regard to the many thousands of Poles who studied at Russian universities, most importantly in Petersburg, which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries became a hub for Polish students and intelligentsia. For them there was hardly a way to not imbibe Russian literature, politics, values and trends.

The changing attitude towards Russian literature and the growing appreciation thereof can be seen in the early 20th century and is best epitomised in the figure of Stanisław Brzozowski, a cultural critic and novelist, who was very fond of Russian literature (including Dostoevsky), and whose own output shows the Russian influence.

Trolling Russian literature?

If the Polish press in the Kingdom largely refrained from informing about Russian literature whatsoever or did so in a superficial way (‛Feuilletons about [Russian] literature [in Warsaw periodicals] rarely excel in depth or originality’, writes Jakóbiec), the critics writing outside the Polish Kingdom at least showed more interest. This rarely, however, entailed favour or objectivity. In fact, many of these texts seem specifically biased and carry peculiar emotional undertones.

For example, the theatre critic writing for the Polish periodical Kłosy (Ears of Grain) in Petersburg about one of Ostrovsky’s plays complains that its author makes their protagonists do ‘things which they don’t do even today amidst the disorderly life of Moscow’.

As Jakóbiec notes, ‘the review of [Russian] fiction made by the [same] critic is naive and random and deals with third-rate works. The novella Dvoryanskaya zhandra (Gentry Ennui) by Saltykov-Shchedrin presents, according to the critic, “a sad picture of the life of the gentry following the abolition of serfdom and the relations of peasants with the gentry”’.

In Galicia, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where a similar kind of discipline to that in the Polish Kingdom was observed with regard to Russian literature, writers were at least free of tsarist censorship. Again, this did not translate into sympathy or reliability.

One critic, Stanisław Tarnowski, much impressed by Aleksey Tolstoy’s plays, expressed amazement at the fact that such good plays were produced in Russia. He praised Smert′ Ivana Groznogo (Death of Ivan the Terrible) for its historical realism. The 20th-century scholar comments: ‘Today we know that it was precisely one of [Aleksey] Tolstoy’s greatest weaknesses: the lack of historical truth about Ivan and the boyars surrounding him’.

Elsewhere, the same critic protests against putting Mickiewicz on a par with Pushkin – and implies that this has also to do with the moral aspect of their work. ‘His [Pushkin’s] talent was of a similar kind to Słowacki’s, only inferior’ – he concluded.

Another literary critic from Galicia, writing for the Kraków magazine Czas (Time), in one of his articles compared poems by Mickiewicz and Kniaźnin with Nekrasov’s Kolybel′naya Pesnya (Cradle Song). But in doing so, as Jakóbiec claims, ‘he fails to understand, or rather pretends not to understand, the scathing satire present in Nekrasov’s poem’.

In fact, some of these reviews and critiques, written often from the conservative and moralistic positions (and attacking Russian literature as nihilist and ‘corrupt’), often sound like an almost intentional misreading of the reviewed work. Writing about Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s novel What Is to Be Done? critic Jaan Kapliński, argued:

Reading this wild and bizarre work of the latest Russian literature, one is at first inclined to laugh; very soon, however, this turns into horror and indignation. Again and again, one can’t but ask whether it was not the intention of the author to mystify the reader, whether he had not intended to write a parody or a satire?

Kapliński goes on to say that Chernyshevsky’s characters ‘lack any moral sense and elementary Christian upbringing. This spiritual deformity seems even more monstrous as it is coupled with a sort of energy: a will that never wavers, an unbounded trust in its own reason’. One is actually tempted to argue that such reviews in their failed capacity to grasp the intent of the original work can be seen as a parody or satire themselves.

According to Jakóbiec, such pieces were more of a warning against Russian literature than its propaganda. But they can also be seen as part of a peculiar strategy on the part of Polish critics, an extension of the boycott and effective cancelling of Russian literature. By intentionally misunderstanding, downplaying and ridiculing the works of Russian culture, they were oftentimes reducing to absurdity the entire Russian literary project. In this capacity, the practice could be compared to today’s act of internet trolling.

What the Poles knew about Russian literature

Almost all Russian buildings, elements of architecture, and Tsarist monuments were effectively erased following the regaining of the independence by Poland in 1918. Pictured are the workers demolishing the dome of the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Warsaw, May, 1925. Photo: NAC

But while some of this freestyle and flippant criticism is embedded in prejudice and certainly exaggerated, it also yields interesting insights regarding the nature of Russian literature. These insights, which often come as if inadvertently, betray a deeper understanding of Russian literature and the literary field, and as such can be considered a part of a larger Polish body of knowledge of Russian civilisation and its culture.

This understanding and critique of Russian literature has a history of its own, one which can be traced back to Adam Mickiewicz, who can also be seen as one of the figures embodying the earliest stage of the Polish boycott of Russian literature. In his Parisian lectures, delivered at Collège de France in the early 1840s, Mickiewicz claimed that Russian literature had ended with Pushkin’s death, which is certainly one sure way of cancelling whatever came after him. Moreover, Mickiewicz saw very direct structural and genetic links between Russian literature (its making, authors and audience) and the Russian military, which he also saw as the direct source of the Russian literary language.

Similarly acute, and long unrecognised, critical insights about Russian literature can also be gleaned from other opinions of Polish critics from the 19th century. Located often on the margins of these texts, expressed summarily, and most often lacking fully fledged argumentation, they nevertheless contain valuable and productive criticism of Russian literature.

One fine example is Stanisław Badeni’s essay about Ivan Turgenev. What largely seems like a bitter pamphlet against the Russian author ends with an intriguing statement: ‘Turgenev did not himself fight openly with the subjugation of the serfs: it was the protagonists of his novel who were supposed to fight for him’, writes the critic.

This argument, absurd as it may at first appear (literature after all is a form of political action and social engagement, as we’re told by numerous modern theories of literature), may actually be seen as a valid insight into the nature of Russian literature and the way it was constructed in the public sphere of tsarist (and possibly 20th-century) Russia. Serving in many ways as ersatz civil, political and social activity, it operated as a safety-valve institution, innocuous to the regime; it put on a pretence of progressive values, giving credibility to the entire Russian project. This criticism, summarily implied in the conclusion to Badeni’s piece, can be extended to also cover many other Russian authors partaking in the project called Russian literature.

Panhumanity, motherland & the gendarme’s baton

pomnik_mikolaja_kopernika_na_tle_palacu_karasia_przy_krakowskim_przedmiesciu.jpg — Russian soldier photographed in front of the Kopernik monument, Krakowskie Przedmieście street, Warsaw, around 1910. Source: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie

Similarly profound criticism regarding the nature of Russian literature and culture can be found in other authors writing at the turn of the century. In 1892, Stefan Żeromski, writing about a minor novel by a minor Russian author, chastised ‘the original sin of Northern altruism: the unconscious worship of slavery’, which he also saw at the core of Russian understanding of motherland. ‘In Russia, motherland means stanovoy pristav [district gendarme]’. ‘Such an understanding of the motherland was extended there also to embrace even the most enlightened minds; it soaked into them, like a germ; and as an integral part of mentality, it is inherited from generation to generation’, argued Żeromski.

At around the same time, Marian Zdziechowski invoked Dostoevsky to identify another dangerous thread in Russian culture: the idea of maximalism. Analysing Dostoevsky’s concept of ‘panhumanity’ (vsechelovechestvo), which the Russian writer believed to be at the core of Pushkin’s work and genius, Zdziechowski was recognising something quite the opposite, namely: ‘a spiritual narrowness, lack of a sense for understanding other nations. They know only how to grasp their negative qualities’.

One would be tempted to invoke here the criticism of Dostoevsky formulated by another Pole, Joseph Conrad, who said: ‘It sounds to me like some fierce mouthings from a prehistoric age’. It would also be hard not to see Conrad’s overall sceptical attitude towards Russian culture as shaped by his Polish background.

Similar opinions deconstructing Russian literature, its premises, ideology, as well as its global cultural status and prestige, have come down to the mainstream only in recent years, pioneered by such scholars as Ewa M. Thompson, the author of Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism and other publications (compare Badeni’s argument about Turgenev and Thompson’s critique of Chekhov here).

Most recently, the new impulses in dealing with the legacy and status of Russian literature have come from Ukrainian intellectuals, such as Oksana Zabuzhko, Vira Ageyeva, Tetyana Ogarkova or Volodymyr Yermolenko, all of whom have made strong arguments debunking the myth of Russian ‘universal’ literature, deconstructing its imperial ideology and its role in Russia’s policy of expansionism, denouncing its culture of violence, which leads to atrocities, and identifying the deep cultural causes of Russia’s current war in Ukraine.

Monuments of the Russian rule in the 19th-century Warsaw - Image Gallery

Embeded gallery style

display gallery as slider

The Polish cause as a litmus test

D. Kobielski, Warszawa międzywojenna, Wydawnictwo Artystyczno-Graficzne, Warszawa 1969, p. 14, no ISBN Demontaż pomnika Iwana Paskiewicza w Warszawie — Tearing down the Paskiewicz monument in Warsaw, 1916. Source: Warszawa międzywojenna, 1969, p. 14.

But Polish writers and readers alike had a good deal of other reasons for not appreciating Russian literature and its ‘great’ writers. From Pushkin and Gogol, whose works featured openly anti-Polish sentiments, Polish readers could well see through the façade of the seemingly ‘universalist’, ‘human’ and ‘progressive’ ideals of Russian literature, discerning the moral duplicity and imperial agenda behind them. One of its most ready indicators had always been Russian authors’ attitude towards the Polish national cause. As Stefan Żeromski wrote in 1892, ‘[e]ven those among Russian belle-lettres authors who nobly fight under the banner of social justice and humanity reveal no compassion or empathy whatsoever when it comes to the ideas that sustain the life of the Polish nation’. And he went on:

Ivan Turgenev, the melancholy genius of the North, spoke of himself on his deathbed that he had always been ‘pravdiv’ and ‘chesten’ [truthful and noble] – but he had only so much of this nobility if he could write pamphlets supporting the de-nationalisation policies in the Polish Kingdom. [...] Dostoevsky – this mystic of altruism and ‘the poet of pity’, as he is called by [Georg] Brandes – hated Poles just as much as [Mikhail] Katkov did and derided the flaws of character of even those who perished in the Siberian mines. [...] The younger ones, such as Gleb Uspensky, Vsevolod Garshin [...], if they don’t maintain the tone of Dostoevsky, they at best remain silent. [Sędzia – ‘Obrusitiel’ (Judge – ‘Russifier’), trans. MG]

Importantly, for Żeromski the same Great-Russian chauvinism and sense of superiority was also characteristic of Russian émigré literature in the West (with the possible exclusion of Alexander Herzen’s Poland-friendly period) – despite being free of censorship, it still carried powerful nationalist sentiment; its stance on the Polish cause being, once again, the best indicator.

The boycott, canceling avant la lettre, and critique of Russian literature, engaged in so vehemently and consistently by Polish authors 150 years ago, may still be an inspiring lesson for us today. The seeds of this pioneering cultural resistance sown back then may prove productive once again today – at a time when the critique and deconstruction of Russian literature and culture takes on a new dimension and gains on intensity: revealing, long overdue, its colonial and imperial contexts – work that should surely go on unhindered.

Author: Mikołaj Gliński, July 2023.

Selected bibliography: Marian Jakóbiec, “Literatura rosyjska wśród polaków w okresie pozytywizmu”, Wrocław 1950; Anna Sobieska, “Wokół Aleksandra Błoka. Z dziejów polskich fascynacji kulturą i literaturą rosyjską”, IBL, 2015; Agata Tuszyńska, “Rosjanie w Warszawie, 1990; “Leksykon ‘Lalki’”, pod red. Aliny Kowalczykowej i Agnieszki Bąbel; Marian Zdziechowski, “Wpływy rosyjskie na polską duszę”, Kraków, 1920.

Language English