The theme of Revenge (Zemsta), a comedy in four acts written in verse by Aleksander Fredro most likely in 1833, is a dispute between two county dignitaries over a ruined castle they co-own. The conflict escalates when one of them attempts to repair a boundary wall across the courtyard.
The time of the work’s narrative is set in the early 19th century, when Sarmatian customs were still alive in the provinces. The setting is connected with the castle in Odrzykoń near Krosno, which belonged to the author, part of which found its way into the dowry of his wife, Zofia née Jabłonowska.
This castle was also called Kamieniec, after the name of the hill on which it stands on the border between the administrative districts of Korczyna and Wojaszówka. A border wall separated the spheres of influence of the two previous co-owners of Kamieniec in the castle: governor Piotr Firlej and castellan Jan Skotnicki.
Aleksander Fredro found 17th-century court documents relating to their long and acrimonious dispute in the castle archives, which was the direct inspiration for him to write Revenge. Janina Rucz-Starowieyska wrote about why the castle fell into ruin (in Spór Panów na Zamku Odrzykońskim w Zemście Aleksandra Fredry [Dispute of the Gentlemen in Odrzykoń Castle in Fredro’s Zemsta], Kamieniec Castle Museum Library, 2017) – this tale born in the folk imagination is worth citing:
Local legend has it that when Catherine the Great died, in 1797, there was great joy in hell: at last, the long-awaited prey would fall into the hands of the devils. So a special team of devils was sent to fetch her. Unfortunately, they did not anticipate how heavy the monarch would turn out to be. They had to lower their flight, and, moreover, a terrible turmoil fell upon the world, the devils got lost and snagged on the roof of the Odrzykoń castle, ripping it off completely. The fact is that, indeed, on the day the Empress Catherine died, a gale tore the roof off the castle.
The cost of a new roof proved to be unaffordable for the owners of the time, and so the chipped walls of 14th-century Kamieniec have been caught up in the fad for romantic ruins that was a thing at the time. Seweryn Goszczyński visited the ruins of the former castle, which he immortalised in his prose poem Król Zamczyska (King of the Castle):
Fredro’s pen recalled the two previous owners, representing feuding families: the Firlej family (the lower part of the castle) and the Skotnicki family (the upper part). Piotr Firlej (the prototype of the Royal Cupbearer) was a nuisance to Jan Skotnicki (the prototype of the Notary), for which the latter directed his gutters at the former’s buildings in retaliation. In reprisal, Firlej attacked [Skotnicki’s] workers, who were repairing the walls of the upper castle, and destroyed the gutters that were causing the damage. Skotnicki sued him and won the case. Their long-standing quarrel ended only with the marriage of Mikołaj Firlej’s son and the castellan’s daughter, Zofia Skotnicka, concluded in 1630.
Fredro moved the plot of his Revenge to the contemporary early years of the 19th century – shortly after the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – in an unspecified province. The most concise description and interpretation of the work was given by Kazimierz Wyka (in Literatura Polska: Przewodnik Encyklopedyczny [Polish Literature: An Encyclopedic Guidebook], vol. 2, Warsaw 1984]:
The cornerstone of the plot is the dispute between dignitaries at the county level: Royal Cupbearer Raptusiewicz and Notary Milczek (names of significance), neighbours in a ruined castle divided into two parts. The protagonists’ tribulations result from the escalation of a dispute as a result of an attempt to repair the wall dividing the castle, commissioned by the Notary and foiled by the Royal Cupbearer. The Royal Cupbearer, seeking revenge on his neighbour, lures Wacław, the Notary’s son, by tricking him into marrying his daughter-in-law Klara, unaware that he is acting in accordance with the wishes of the young lovers. When it turns out that the property of the wealthy widow, Podstolina, whom Raptusiewicz has chosen as his wife and Milczek as his daughter-in-law, in fact belongs to Klara, the Notary comes to terms with the fait accompli and also with his neighbour. An important role in the plot is played by the freeloader Papkin, a yellow-livered braggart, an excellent, extremely amusing comedic creation of the self-serving soldier type, as his interventions keep the Royal Cupbearer–Notary conflict within a comedic framework.
What makes Revenge stand out is a fast-paced plot, full of unexpected twists and turns, a masterful characterisation of characters, dialogue and verse form, and lyrical praise of the gentry’s way of life as an embodiment of nationhood.
According to Juliusz Kleiner (in Zarys Dziejów Literatury Polskiej [Outline of the History of Polish Literature], Ossolineum, Wrocław 1974], Revenge is both an anti-Romantic comedy and a realisation of the ideal of Romantic art:
The plot was a parody of a knightly romance in the spirit of Walter Scott, changing a dispute over a castle into a dispute over a hole in the wall and staging the kidnapping of a young man instead of kidnapping the beloved, which works to his advantage. The fate of Papkin, an inexhaustibly ridiculous character, who is both the traditional jester of comedy and the ‘miles gloriosus’ self-serving soldier known already as early as in Roman literature, is a parody of the history of the knight: he appears successively as a fighter, lover and messenger, and finally ends up dying, an act which also turns out to be a parody.
At the same time, this Papkin, as if straight out of an Italian folk comedy (commedia dell’arte) – a de facto braggart, liar and self-absorbed coward – could be heartrendingly poignant when, in the scene about writing his will, he marvelled at his father’s name. ‘Yes, his name was John!’ – he reassures himself, which allows us to presume that this is an invention dictated by a need of the moment, as he was most likely illegitimate and did not recognise his parent’s name. In this way, for the blink of an eye, Fredro unveiled the true, unadorned face of this character.
But let us return to Kleiner:
At the same time, this Revenge, which develops an extremely complicated plot at a lively pace and enhances this vividness with a brisk octosyllabic verse – realises the ideal of resurrecting an era irretrievably past. In doing so, it makes use of the achievements of realism, which – in Pan Tadeusz above all – was often united with Romanticism. He keeps his characters typical but gives them a wealth of individual and characteristic features, [...] bridging the gap between Fredro’s style of comedy and the comedy of Realism.
After Julian Krzyżanowski (Dzieje Literatury Polskiej [History of Polish Literature], Warsaw 1979], we should add that the opposition of the characters, ‘symbolised in fairy tales by the lion and the fox, came to the fore here in the contrast of two personalities: the impetuous magnate with a military past and the “nobleman”, a hypocritical attorney’. The man of crimson versus a grey man – both of equal status, though unequal social standing.
Maria Janion and Maria Żmigrodzka (in Romantyzm i Historia [Romanticism and History], Warsaw 1978), on the other hand, brought up another aspect of one of the work’s main characters:
The confederate past of the old nobleman is for the Romantics a legitimation of his patriotism and Old Polish virtue, and in a tale – or even in a comedy – it can negate the character’s vices and ridiculousness. The Royal Cupbearer in Aleksander Fredro’s Revenge, staged in 1834, is also rehabilitated by his confederate sabre – the ‘Lady of Bar’. The confederate – as the embodiment of the vigour of his ancestors – must be a ‘spry old man’, like Maciek of all the Macieks in Pan Tadeusz.
It is not without reason that Marcin Sieński (in Fredro, Wrocław 2003) characterises the antagonists as appropriately contrasted but also similar.
Raptusiewicz is a violent brawler, a despotic hothead, a soldier-nobleman with ambitions far greater than his wealth. Milczek, on the other hand, represents the type of nobleman who was disliked in old Poland: a lawyer, a prevaricator and often a troublemaker, a nouveau riche. At the same time, he is a calculating phlegmatic who, however, according to the nobleman’s system of values, grabs his sword when offended. Both protagonists are selfish and stubbornly strive for victory over their opponent.
Fredro showed them in action, reversing the arrangement of roles we might expect from the characters, and this is one source of comedy. The Royal Cupbearer, for example, gets down to intrigue, while the Notary rushes into battle and falls into the trap of the legal acts he has written. What unites the two protagonists most strongly is what divides them most – namely, a dispute over the castle they both inhabit. It is this dispute that brings to light their allegiance to the gentry’s honour, understood by them as the need to hold the field against their opponent, not to yield an inch to him. In essence, it is a mental incapacity to compromise, which could violate the dignity of a nobleman, even though this honour dictates adherence to ancient customs. Among other things, this is what makes the final agreement in Revenge possible: the law of hospitality prevents the Royal Cupbearer from duelling with the Notary, since the latter has ‘entered his abode’. Perhaps it is also thanks to the principle of faithfulness to one’s word, which is in keeping with a gentleman’s honour, that the final reconciliation concluded under the high patronage of God will prove lasting, although the character of both adversaries demands caution in this matter.
In practice, Aleksander Fredro had little in common with Polish Romanticism. His ambition was to keep comedy as ‘classical’ as possible, to bring it out of oblivion and restore its former dignity. He constructed his works according to the Enlightenment model, in which the plot was built around a central character and the characters around a single, dominant trait.
Not surprisingly, Fredro at one point became the target of attacks from the Romantics. In 1835, Seweryn Goszczyński wrote a dissertation for the Powszechny Pamiętnik Nauk i Umiejętności (Universal Diary of Science and Learning) titled Nowa Epoka Poezji Polskiej (A New Epoch of Polish Poetry), in which he accused Fredro of lacking a proper, deeper insight into national matters. Goszczyńsk’s voice was joined by criticisms from Leszek Dunin-Borkowski, Edward Dembowski and Wincenty Pol.
These attacks became one of the reasons why Fredro decided to withdraw from active literary life, although he did return to comedy writing in 1857. Unfortunately, his new works, full of bitter truths about man and the world, were by no means on a par with his earlier works.
In Revenge, Aleksander Fredro introduced us to the impassioned Sarmatian trifler, the Royal Cupbearer, in a clash with the sober, calculating and cautious Notary and the common type of cowardly braggart soldier, Papkin. And nothing changes: there are plenty of such people around; you only have to look around. Or, even better, is to have a deep look into your own soul.