Stanisław Brzozowski’s Florentine Writing

maleszewski_wladyslaw_1869-1941_dziedziniec_galerii_uffizi_we_florencji._071d2961-de52-4b39-b9e7-5f0f07c4f904.jpg, large, The courtyard of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, 1895, photo: Władysław Maleszewski/Polona National Library

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Stanisław Brzozowski was one of Poland’s most outstanding literary and cultural critics, thinkers and publicists, as well as an original writer. Brilliant, polemical and extraordinarily hard-working, he produced a body of work whose bold cultural diagnoses remain intellectually inspiring and strikingly relevant today.

His confrontational attitude towards contemporary authorities, such as Henryk Sienkiewicz or Zenon Przesmycki (Miriam), quickly earned him the reputation of an uncompromising and insightful author, but also one not easy to read because he provoked cognitive effort, overcoming mental habits and breaking linguistic patterns.

The reader of his writings can choose from outstanding critical works, such as Współczesna powieść polska (The Contemporary Polish Novel, 1906), Współczesna krytyka literacka w Polsce (Contemporary Literary Criticism in Poland, 1907), Legenda Młodej Polski. Studia o strukturze duszy kulturalnej (Legend of Young Poland: Studies on the Structure of the Cultural Soul, 1909); philosophical writings, such as Kultura i życie (Culture and Life, 1907), Friedrich Nietzsche (1907), Idee (Ideas, 1910); novels: Płomienie (Flames, 1908) or Sam wśród ludzi (Alone Among Men, 1911). The texts published posthumously deserve attention because they give us a clear realization of how prematurely this great and comprehensive work of changing Polish literature and culture, which the author had planned, ended: Głosy wśród nocy. Studia nad przesileniem romantycznym kultury europejskiej (Voices in the Night: Studies on the Romantic Solstice of European Culture, 1912), Stanisław Wyspiański (1912), Pamiętnik (Memoir, 1913), Widma moich współczesnych (Specters of My Contemporaries, 1914), Książka o starej kobiecie (Book about an Old Woman, 1914), translation of John Henry Newman’s Testimony of Conscience and an introduction to it (1915). Their publication was possible thanks to the efforts of his wife, Antonina née Kolberg, and a friend – an outstanding critic, Ostap Ortwin. Two disastrous events overshadowed the author’s writing and life activity.

Title page with a portrait of Stanisław Brzozowski 'The Legend of Young Poland: Studies on the Structure of the Cultural Soul', author: Stanisław Brzozowski, 1910, photo: Polona National Library

In October 1898, he was arrested on charges of belonging to the Tajne Towarzystwo Oświaty Ludowej (Secret Society of People’s Education), and his stay in prison activated tuberculosis. In 1906, political opponents made false accusations against him of collaborating with the tsar’s Okhrana (secret police). Until the end of his life, he fought unsuccessfully to remove this stigma, which brought him many opponents.

Born (1878–1911) in the Chełm district (village of Maziarnia), educated in Warsaw, active not only there but also in Kraków, Lviv and Zakopane, Brzozowski had to spend the last years of his life abroad, where he moved at the turn of 1906 and 1907. The writer, together with his wife and his daughter, Anna Irena, first lived in Nervi and then, on 15 August 1907, settled permanently in Florence (they lived in the city or its close vicinity). The driver for this important life change was his health – progressing tuberculosis, which particularly affects the bones. This beautiful Italian city became for him a place of spectacular intellectual development but also the most difficult life experiences. It would be no exaggeration to say that it was in Florence that Brzozowski worked the hardest, was most seriously ill, experienced the greatest loneliness, and died in the greatest physical and moral agony. He was buried in Trespiano Cemetery.

Thumbnail — Stanisław Brzozowski from 'Stan. Wyspiański' (posthumous edition), 1912, Kraków, photo: Polona National Library

Everything he wrote during this time – that is, his most important and mature works – should be seen through the prism of this particular situation. What was unique about it? The Florentine life and writings of the Polish author were full of tragic contradictions. Sick and depressed by accusations, Brzozowski found himself in a place that embodied the myth of the South. Treatment in the climate and sun of Tuscany could bring a return of strength and recovery, but the writer had to experience increasing symptoms of tuberculosis, painful surgeries (because they were performed without anaesthesia) and finally disability (he moved with increasing difficulty, limped despite using a cane, and would fall with increasing frequency). As a man with an eminently European mind, that is, seeing native culture in a broad context, appreciating the Mediterranean sources of common heritage, he found himself in the capital of Renaissance culture, which strongly stimulated him intellectually and artistically. However, he could not take advantage of the wonderful cultural and artistic resources of this place to the extent of his aroused ambitions and needs because his illness confined him at home. For this reason, contacts with the contemporary creative community there were difficult. As Kazimierz Wyka put it,

Living alone, he now devoted himself exclusively to literary work, writing a lot and absorbing even more. Only now did he become familiar with the Italian and English languages and cultures. He met Gorky and Lunacharsky from amongst foreign writers and became close to the group gathered around Prezzolini’s ‘La Voce’.

[‘Brzozowski Stanisław’ by K. Wyka, p. 63)

Let’s add that this man, who read voraciously and worked at a breakneck pace, did not have constant access to books because he had not brought all his own books with him and most often he could not afford others. The Florentine stage of his creative biography is marked by great literary achievements but also by a race against time (to achieve what he planned before the next intensification of the disease, and finally – before death). It is also marked by a series of humiliations related to poverty. His trips to Kraków were less and less frequent due to his progressing disease and over time became completely impossible. This almost symbolic isolation from the country by being confined at home, or rather in foreign quarters, was in strange contradiction with the necessity of many, sometimes unexpected and rapid, house moves in Florence and its outskirts. The legendary Italian slowness and bliss did not apply to this particular newcomer.

The dramatic nature of Brzozowski’s situation in Florence was made worse by his very difficult financial position. Despite his own efforts and the constant support of his friends, he lacked money not only for books or treatment but sometimes even to provide a decent everyday life for his wife and especially his daughter, which worried him the most. Brzozowski’s correspondence, as well as his Memoir, are a record of these exceptionally difficult experiences. These are special examples of ‘Florentine writing’, documenting heroic creative efforts, impressive achievements and innovative intellectual plans, as well as everyday struggles for existence and the sense of functioning in the shadow of inevitably approaching death. The letters written to his friends are particularly suggestive in this respect. The writer’s deteriorating physical condition quickly resulted in a feeling of increasing loneliness, alienation and irretrievably lost opportunities. The deepening infirmity was accompanied by depression caused by the belief that there were fewer and fewer chances to clear himself of the false accusations, as well as everyday worries about his living conditions. These changes are reflected, among others, in comments about the practical side of functioning in Florence. Here are some significant epistolary passages showing the nature of his situation.

Florence, 1859, photo: Giacomo Brogi/Polona National Library

Two days after settling in Florence, Brzozowski wrote:

We settled in comfortably and quite cheaply. The local libraries, both private ones – because I don’t know the National Library yet – are quite extraordinary. I arrived sick, and yesterday I recovered after reading the catalogue of Vienacher’s reading room.

[‘Listy’ by S. Brzozowski, vol. 1, p. 375]

Shortly afterwards he added: ‘And Italy! What kind of culture is this? I have a whole range of characters. For which I could fight to the death – Machiavelli, Mazzini, Pisacane, Campanella and Vico, above all Vico’ (Listy, vol. 1, p. 393). Less than a year later, his fascination with the cultural wealth surrounding him came into increasingly drastic collision with the mundane calculation of deficiencies that make a decent existence difficult. In a letter to his friend Rafał Buber on 11 June 1908, Brzozowski wrote:

The apartment we live in is impossible: there are no blinds, and the sun burns all day long. No kitchen. You have to eat at soup kitchens. We already have a new apartment, but we have to pay in advance, and here we have to pay 2.5 francs a day for the past 2 weeks. If I had 100 francs today, I could move out, but in a week I would need 150. Połoniecki started printing ‘Flames’ again – maybe he would agree to give 100 crowns. At the same time, sell books for at least 30-40, just to move out. At home, if we have a kitchen, at least we won’t kill the child by poisoning her with public kitchen life.

[‘Listy’, vol. 1, p. 602]

Therefore, it was not the abundance of the library but the simple availability of a kitchen that determined the quality of his Florentine experience. The history of an outstanding mind is then recorded both in the boldest and most ambitious writing projects, scrupulously recorded in letters, but also in the Memoir and in the desperate calculation of everyday shortcomings. However, adversities did not eliminate true spiritual longings:

My God, I haven’t been to any gallery, church, or even the Medici chapel with Michelangelo’s monument for a year […]. And there are so many other things I love here: frescoes from the Spanish chapel with the brooding air of great Catholicism, Saint George in Orsanmichele, the hall of Donatello’s sculptures, the Ghirlandaio of Santa Maria Novella, various paintings from the Uffizi, even the old Madonna of Cimabue.

[‘Listy’, vol. 2, p. 457]

The final result was cruel for both the writer and the city. A few days before his death, Brzozowski scribbled these words in a letter to Salomea Perlmuter:

In any case, this is our last year in Florence. It is a terrible city to be in when in disease and abandonment, and it is worthy of taking Swiftian revenge on its inhabitants – the most hideous type of bourgeoisie I have ever met. I cannot express how namelessly bad and difficult life is for us, and now, when the physical pain does not leave me, the lack of any shelter for the soul in a cruelly exploiting environment, constantly lurking for profit – is difficult to bear.

[‘Listy’, vol. 2, p. 625]

The cultural and artistic charm of the city on the Arno was successively replaced in the perception and writings of the author of Legend of Young Poland by the soullessness of economic interests. However, the overwhelming bills did not weaken his determination as a writer. In an interview with Zofia Nałkowska, he said:

Such conditions of existence have been created for me that for several years I have been standing on a scaffold, but the condemned person has the right to the last word, and if it turns out that the scaffold is a good speaking platform, it is the merit of those who built it. In any case, I will not stop writing.

[‘Listy’, vol. 2, p. 403]

Florence, 1865, photo: Giacomo Brogi/Polona National Library

The last year of life in Florence, so bitterly concluded, was the final stage of Brzozowski’s life, but his ‘last word’ sounds strong and resonates to this day. Understood symbolically, it indicates intellectual and spiritual achievements, especially those during the Italian treatment. Their abundance and importance – which may again appear ironic – seem to contradict the dramatic sense of hopelessness that probably crept between the lines of all the texts written by the Polish critic at that time. As Andrzej Mencwel rightly noted, ‘Florence was not the most important formatively, but creatively it turned out to be, despite all the challenges he faced, or perhaps thanks to them, the most fruitful’ (Stanisław Brzozowski. Postawa krytyczna. Wiek XX, p. 566). The most important value of this fruit was perhaps revealed in the message contained in the first motto to Legend of Young Poland: ‘No! Io non sono morto…’ – ‘No! I’m not dead…’

If we want to try to imagine the scale of the Florentine writing effort seen from an

Cover of 'Stanisław Brzozowski and the Polish beginnings of Western Marxism', author: Andrzej Walicki, 2010, photo: Biblioteka Narodowa Polona

autobiographical perspective, we need to refer not only to the letters but also to the Memoir. Brzozowski wrote it in the final year of his life, and the dates recorded in it set the time between 10 November 1910 and 5 April 1911. He titled it emphasizing the importance of the work of memory but subordinated his notes to the rhythm of diary entries. However, this is a source not for the originality of this work but for the fascinating movement of thought that has been recorded in it. Compared to his letters, the memoir, relieved of the burden of everyday matters, shows with greater clarity the author’s mind, constantly sparkling with new interests; it is also a strange inventory of constantly growing readings and urgent writing tasks to be performed; and finally, it records reminders addressed to himself and commands mobilizing for deep internal work, the final result of which was the discovery of the values of Catholicism.

By intensively dialoguing with various representatives of European culture, Brzozowski, as the subject of the Memoir, attests to the truthfulness and accuracy of his own diary recognitions. Such as this: ‘Culture is going beyond the current man in order to transform him from outside himself’ (Memoir, p. 187). In Florence, in a different sense, the writer went beyond himself and processed himself, so the more he felt removed from culture, the more he created it. More paradoxes could be discovered here. Renewing his efforts to recognize the intellectual and spiritual potential of European culture (as evidenced by most of his mature texts), the critic was able to define clearly for himself the components of this ambitious task: ‘It will not help if you talk about the greatness of the European mind; you have to outline its drama, outline in a hundred, as many as you can, pathetic, but only intellectually, chapters. You must show all the dramatic unpredictability, all the polymorphism of truth, make minds fall in love with it, as if in search of adventure’ (Memoir, p. 156). He wrote this while every day experiencing new and different acts of the drama of the European mind in Florence.

_{Selected bibliography: S. Brzozowski, ‘Listy’, vol. 1–2, ed. with foreword and commentary by M. Sroka, Kraków, 1970; S. Brzozowski, ‘Pamiętnik’, intro. M. Wyka, ed. M. Urbanowski, Wrocław, 2007; B. Biliński, ‘Na florenckich szlakach Stanisława Brzozowskiego’, in ‘Wokół myśli Stanisława Brzozowskiego’, eds A. Walicki and R. Zimand, Kraków, 1974; E. Kabatc, ‘Ostatnie wzgórze Florencji. Opowieść o Stanisławie Brzozowskim. Apokryf’, Warsaw, 2011; E. Kącka, ‘Lektura jako spotkanie. Brzozowski – tekst – metoda’, Kraków, 2017; U. Kowalczuk, ‘Rachunki i wartość (w) biografii. Listy Stanisława Brzozowskiego’, ‘Wiek XIX. Rocznik Towarzystwa Literackiego imienia Adama Mickiewicza’, year 2, no. 44, 2009; U. Kowalczuk, ‘Doświadczenie śmierci w epistolografii Stanisława Brzozowskiego’, in ‘Śmierć w literaturze i kulturze drugiej połowy XIX wieku’, eds E. Paczoska and U. Kowalczuk, Warsaw, 2002; U. Kowalczuk, ‘Renesansowy rezonans w krytyce Stanisława Brzozowskiego’, in ‘Powinność i przygoda. Pisarze polscy drugiej połowy XIX wieku wobec kultury renesansu’, Warsaw, 2011; A. Mencwel, ‘No! Io non sono morto…’. Jak czytać ‘Legendę Młodej Polski’, Kraków, 2001; A. Mencwel, ‘Stanisław Brzozowski. Postawa krytyczna. Wiek XX’, Warsaw, 2014; K. Wyka, ‘Brzozowski Stanisław’, in ‘Polski Słownik Biograficzny’, vol. 3, Kraków, 1937.}

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