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Malczewski's Marja: A Hundred And Twenty Years After (1825–1945)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Marion M. Coleman
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Extract

No one searching for a link uniting the English-speaking world with the world of Malczewski will have to look either far or long. For both Antoni Malczewski himself and his stirring ballad Marja have often touched our English-American milieu.

To be noted first of all was Malczewski's own meeting face to face with Byron, at Venice in 1818. The conversation the two poets had at that time related to the theme Byron was to employ soon after, in part perhaps as a result of this very conversation, in Mazeppa, a tale of Malczewski's own Borderland. There was also the circumstance of Marja's being the first work in Polish to be printed in the original in England, an event which took place in 1836 when one of the leading Panslavists of the day, Jan Marcin Bansemer (1802–1840), brought out an edition of the poem in an odd, Czechified Polish orthography.

Type
Articles
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1-2 , August 1945 , pp. 111 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1945

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References

1 The standard biography of Malczewski is Ujejski's, Józef Antoni Malczewski, Poeta i poemat, Warsaw, 1921 Google Scholar. It is to this we are indebted for the running account of the poet's life which forms the background of this paper.

2 Our authority for the statement that this was the first work published in Polish in England is, besides hearsay and common belief, the statement to this effect in the ForeignQuarterly Review for April, 1840, vol. xxv, p. 184. The author of the article on “Polish Literature” in which the reference to Marja occurs was probably Christian Lach Szyrma, who certainly knew more than anyone else in his day of what was going on in Polish refugee circles in England.

3 For Bansemer, , see Polski Slownik Biograficzny, Kraków, 1935, I, 265–266 Google Scholar. Estreicher calls the orthography of Marja “dziwaczna,” strange.

4 Modjeska, , Memories and Impressions, New York, 1910, 54–55 Google Scholar.

* Mickiewicz

5 Potocka, Angela, Theodore Leschetitsky, New York, 1903, 11–12 Google Scholar.

6 For Jakubowski, , whom Malczewski himself recognized as his natural son, see Thomas Dunn English, The Gentleman's Magazine, III, Oct., 1838, 250 Google Scholar; Julian Krzyżanowski, “ Jakubowski, A. A., syn Malczewskiego,” Silva Return, Kraków, 1930, v, Nos. 8–9 Google Scholar; Pigoń, S., “Syn Malczewskiego,” Ruch literacki, Warsaw, 1930, v, 75–77 Google Scholar; Dębicki, Z., “Syn Malczewskiego,“ Kurjer Warszawski, No. 93,1930, p.5 Google Scholar; Podhorski-Okolów, Leonard, Ruch literacki, vi, 1931, p. 224 Google Scholar; Coleman, A. P., “Polonia and Connecticut, II: William Buell Sprague and Antoni August Jakubowski,” Nowy Świat, New York, June 6, 1937 Google Scholar, English Section.

7 Remembrances of a Polish Exile was published in Albany in January, 1835. The first French version, by Clémence Robert., appeared somewhat later the same year, the first German, by Vogel, C. R., not until ten years later, Leipzig, 1845. 8 Op. cit., pp. 249–251 Google Scholar.

8 Op. cit., pp. 249–251.

9 Pisma Adama Asnyka, Hoesick, , Warsaw, 1916, Vol.III, 152 Google Scholar.

10 Potocki, Leon, quoted by Jan St. Bystroń, Literati i Grafomani, Lwów, 1938, 47 Google Scholar.

11 Remembrances of a Polish Exile, op. cit., p. 24.

12 Marja, Bibljoteka Narodowa Centennial Edition, Józef Ujejski, Ed., Kraków, 1925, pp. 8–9, lines 81–93. Translation by the author, as are all other translations in this paperGoogle Scholar.

13 The story has been used repeatedly in drama and poetry. In 1828, for example, the dramatist Józef Korzeniowski employed it in the tragedy Wróżba i zemsta, Evil omen and Vengeance, a play first presented in Lwów, 1831, later reworked and published as Dymitr iMarja and under this title often reissued, especially for the use of “folk theatres.” Ignacy Kraszewski used the same theme in Starościna Belzka, The Wife of the Starosta of Belzk, which appeared first in the Gazela codzienna, Daily Gazette, in 1857 and was issued in book form in Warsaw, 1858, later republished in Lwów, 1875.

14 For more about Krzemieniec, see Danilewiczowa, Marja, “Zycie naukowe dawnego Liceum Krzemienieckiego,” Nauka Polska, XXII, 1937, 58–101 Google Scholar: and by the same author, “ Krzemieniec-Kilka, przypomnien.” Wiadomości polSkie, London, Sept. 12, 1941, pp. 1–2 Google Scholar.

15 Słowacki, lines from Godzina myśli, Hour of Reflection. For a translation of the portion of this poem in which Słowacki describes Krzemieniec, see, The Polish Land, Coleman, M. M., Ed., New York, 1943, p. 115 Google Scholar.

16 Pamięlnik lileracki, Warsaw, 1918, p. 116

17 For more about the activities of the Volhynians in Warsaw, see Bystroń, Jan St., Literati i Grafomani, Lwów, 1938, passimGoogle Scholar.

18 In the London Athenaeum for Mar. 27, 1830, Vol. III, No. 126, we find confirmation of Malczewski's feat. His name is spelled Matezescki, and he is called “Count.“

19 Klaczko, Juljan, Pisma z lot 1849–1851, Poznań, 1919, 199–200 Google Scholar.

20 See note 10.

21 Marja, op. cit, p 6, lines 32–35.

22 Ibid., p. 16, lines 211–226, in part.

23 Ibid., p. 30, lines 471–476.

24 Ibid., pp. 35–36, lines 575–582.

25 Ibid., p. 52, lines 856–858.

26 Ibid., pp. 71–72, lines 1222–1224

27 Ibid., p. 82, lines 1444–1447

28 Ibid., p. 83, lines 1460–1467

29 An excellent summary of this “war” is to be found in Sto lat myśli polskiej, Warsaw, 1907, m, 260–264 Google Scholar.

30 Part of Grabowski's article is reprinted in Sto lat, op. cit., pp. 269–272. See especially p. 270.

31 Mochnacki, Maurycy, Dziela, v, O literaturze polskiej w wieku dziewielnastym, Poznań, 1862,104 Google Scholar.

32 Mochnacki alone remembered them.

33 See Stan. Pigoń, Na wyżynach romanlyzmu, Krakoów, 1936, passimGoogle Scholar.

34 Pigoń, op. cit., 57, note. The title of Czajkowski's address was Quelle a élé I'influence des Kosaks sur la lillėrature.

35 This was the work referred to above as the first French translation of Marja, the full title of which was Les Ukraїniennes de Goszczyński et Malczeski, tr. par Clémence Robert, published by Merklein, J. A., Paris, 1835 Google Scholar.

36 This Cycle Ukrainien of the series Poeètes illustres de la Pologne au XIX' Sieècle, appeared in 1878.

37 Klaczko, Pisma, op, cit., note 19, p. 196.

38 In his Introduction to the Anniversary Edition, which he edited and which the Ossoliński Foundation published, 1925.

39 For a description of this, an Akademia publication, see WiadomoSci literackie (Warsaw), No. 24,1935 Google Scholar.

40 Mochnacki, op. cit., p. 106.

41 This is the thesis of Ujejski's whole study, mentioned in note 1.

42 Remembrances of a Polish Exile, op. cit., p. 24