Polish literature, the literary works of Poland.

Early History

The early literature of Poland was written in Latin: its chief figures included the historians Martin Gallus (12th cent.) and Jan Dlugosz (1415-80), the astronomer Copernicus, and the poet Klemens Janitius (1516-43). The first book printed in Poland was issued in Wrocław in 1475.

The Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

Under the impact of humanism, religious reform, and the increasing sophistication of the gentry, the 16th cent. became the golden age of Polish literature. Mikolaj Rej (1505-69) is considered the father of Polish literature; other writers of this period are the great poet Jan Kochanowski; the humanitarian Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503-72); Piotr Skarga (1536-1612), a spokesman for the Counter Reformation; the historian Martin Bielski; and the political writer Stanislaus Orzechowski (1513-66).

After the mid-18th cent. there was a revival of classicism and a new flowering of the arts influenced by the Enlightenment. Modern Polish journalism was born, and light drama flourished under the playwrights Wojciech Bogusławski (1757-1829) and Franciszek Zablocki (1754-1821). Ignacy Krasicki wrote satire and fables. A disciple of Voltaire, Julian Niemcewicz, bridged the classical and romantic periods in Polish literature.

The Nineteenth Century

The romantic era, with its revolutionary and reform movements, was one of extraordinary productivity. Themes of nationalism and freedom predominated, developed by the patriotic poets Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, and Zygmunt Krasiński. Romantic novelists of note were Jozef Korzeniowski (1797-1863) and Henryk Rzewuski (1791-1866), and the major dramatist was Alexander Fredro (1793-1876). In the 19th cent. much Polish literature was written by émigrés in Paris and other European centers; these included the poet Cyprjan Norwid (1821-83).

Positivism, stimulated by the revolutionary fiasco of 1863, marked an effort to gain national strength through literary attacks on ignorance and reaction. A notable representative of this school was Bolesław Prus. The colorful historical novels of the Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz gained international popularity at this time. The last decade of the 19th cent. saw the appearance of the neoromantic school of Young Poland, influenced by French poetry and by Nietzsche. The poet and dramatist Stanisław Wyspiański, the novelists and dramatists Stefan Żeromski and Stanisław Przybyszewski, and the novelist Władisław Stanisław Reymont were the outstanding writers of this period.

The Twentieth Century

The regaining of Polish independence in 1919 after generations of partition inspired new literary activity. The Skamander group of urban poets, including Julian Tuwim and Kazimierz Wierzyński, called for an end to nationalist preoccupation and for experimental freedom; other significant figures included the novelists Marja Dąbrowska and Zofia Nalkowska (1885-1954) and the dramatists Karol Hubert Rostworoski (1877-1938) and Jerzy Szaniawski. The period's greatest writing, which gained recognition only after World War II, was the prose and drama of Stanisław Witkiewisz, Witold Gombrowicz, and Bruno Schulz. Notable postwar writers who focused on the anguish of the period include Tadeusz Borowski, Jerzy Putrament, Leon Kruczkowski, and the great expatriate Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981.

The advent of the Communist regime was accompanied by themes of socialist realism. Communist writers include the poet Constantine Galcyzynski (1906-53) and the novelists Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski and Kazimierz Brandys. In 1956 writers joined in the popular uprising against the Moscow-dominated regime, and subsequently there was some relaxation of literary strictures. The thaw (culminating in the rise of the "Solidarity" movement, the state of emergency, and the collapse of Communism) resulted in renewed contact with the West and a surge of literary experimentation. Many novelists continued to explore themes related to the war experience and its aftermath; others wrote works of psychological and political realism, reflecting current European trends.

Among the foremost postwar novelists are Wilhelm Mach, Leopold Buczkowski, Roman Bratny, Bohdan Czeszko, Julian Stryjkowski, Stanisław Dygat, Stanisław Lem, and Sławomir Mrożek, also well known for his plays and short stories. Postwar poetry in Poland deals principally with philosophical concerns. The chief poets of the era include Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Zbigniew Herbert, Tadeusz Różewicz, and Wisława Szymborska (awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996). The works of Miron Białoszewsky, Jerzy Harasymowicz, and Stanisław Grochowiak are in a more lyrical vein. Notable among the writers who began as members of the Polish New Wave movement of the late 1960s is the expatriate poet and novelist Adam Zagajewski. Principal essayists and critics include Tadeusz Breza, Artur Sandauer, Jan Kott, and Jan Błoński.

Polish language, member of the West Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Slavic languages). Polish is spoken as a first language by about 38 million people in Poland, where it is the official language; by more than 1 million in the other countries of E Europe; and by about 1 million in North America. The Polish language is written in the Roman alphabet augmented by the use of diacritical marks. It is extremely rich phonetically, having 10 vowels and 35 consonants. In pronunciation the stress is normally placed on the penultimate syllable of a word. A distinctive feature is the preservation in spoken Polish of the nasal vowels which are no longer found in the other modern Slavic tongues. As in Czech, the nouns, pronouns, and adjectives have seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, and locative). The verb is inflected to indicate gender as well as person and number, and can do so without the use of the personal pronoun. There are three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural). A large number of diminutive and augmentative forms is also characteristic. The vocabulary of Polish is basically Slavic, but it has been enriched by borrowings from German in the Middle Ages, from Italian during the Renaissance, from French in the 17th and 18th cent., and also from English, White Russian, and Ukrainian. The earliest surviving manuscripts containing Polish words are some 12th-century Latin texts containing Polish proper names; there are no extant Polish writings of substantial length from before the 14th cent. Modern Polish came into use in the 16th cent., developing as the sophisticated and expressive language of a great literature (see Polish literature).

Polish Succession, War of the, 1733-35. On the death (1733) of Augustus II of Poland, Stanislaus I sought to reascend the Polish throne. He was supported by his son-in-law, Louis XV of France. The rival candidate for the throne was the son of Augustus II, the elector of Saxony, who was supported by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and by Anna of Russia. Stanislaus was elected by a majority of the Polish nobles, but a minority proclaimed the elector of Saxony king of Poland as Augustus III. Stanislaus, being without troops, could not resist the Russian forces that intervened in his rival's behalf; after the fall (1734) of Danzig, he fled to France. The war continued to be fought along the Rhine and in Italy, with Spain and Sardinia joining France against the emperor. Spain sought to recover Naples and Sicily, which it had ceded to Austria at the Peace of Utrecht, and Sardinia sought to dislodge the Austrians from Lombardy. The allies were successful in Italy, where Spanish troops seized Sicily and Naples. The territories of the duke of Lorraine (the son-in-law of Charles VI, later Emperor Francis I) were in the meantime occupied by the French. In 1735, by the preliminary Treaty of Vienna, peace was obtained through a general dynastic reshuffle. Stanislaus I renounced Poland, though he retained his royal title, and was compensated with the duchies of Lorraine and Bar, which were to pass to the French crown at his death. The dispossessed duke of Lorraine was promised the succession to the grand duchy of Tuscany after the death of its last Medici ruler (which occurred in 1737). Spain received Naples and Sicily and in exchange ceded to Austria its claims to the duchy of Parma. Austria retained Lombardy; in addition, the emperor received from France a guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction. Sardinia neither gained nor lost anything. A final peace treaty was signed after lengthy negotiations in 1738.

Polish Corridor, strip of German territory awarded to newly independent Poland by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The strip, 20 to 70 mi (32-112 km) wide, gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea. It contained the lower course of the Vistula, except the area constituting the Free City of Danzig (see Gdańsk) and the towns of Toruń, Grudziąz, and Bydogoszcz. Gdynia was developed as Poland's chief port and came to rival the port of Danzig. Free German transit was permitted across the corridor, which separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Although the territory had once formed part of Polish Pomerania, a large minority of the population was German-speaking. The arrangement caused chronic friction between Poland and Germany. In Mar., 1939, Germany demanded the cession of Danzig and the creation of an extraterritorial German corridor across the Polish Corridor. Poland rejected these demands and obtained a French and British guarantee against aggression. On Sept. 1, 1939, the Polish-German crisis culminated in the German invasion of Poland and World War II.

West Slavic language of Poland, spoken by more than 41 million people, including 2–3 million in North America and perhaps 1.5 million in the former Soviet Union. The earliest continuous text in Polish dates from the 14th century. The standard language, formulated in the 16th century, combines features of western and southeastern dialects. Polish is written in the Latin alphabet and utilizes both digraphs (combinations of letters) and diacritics to distinguish its fairly elaborate repertory of consonants. Stress is fixed on the next-to-last syllable.

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(1733–38) European conflict waged ostensibly to determine the successor to Augustus II. Austria and Russia supported his son Augustus III, while most Poles, France, and Spain supported Stanisław I, a former Polish king (1704–09) and father-in-law of France's Louis XV. Stanisław was elected king in 1733, but a Russian threat forced him to flee, and Augustus was elected in his place. France, with Sardinia and Spain, declared war on Austria (1733), seeking to reclaim territory in Italy held by Austria. An inconclusive campaign ended in the preliminary Peace of Vienna (1735), which redistributed the disputed Italian territory and recognized Augustus as king. A final treaty was signed in 1738.

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Strip of land that gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea. Transferred to the newly constituted state of Poland as part of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the corridor, 20 to 70 mi (30 to 110 km) wide, separated eastern Prussia from the main part of Germany. The Germans resented the transfer, though the region had been historically Polish before the partitions of Poland and was inhabited by a Polish majority. When Poland refused to accede to Adolf Hitler's demands for extraterritorial highways across the corridor and cession of the free port city of Danzig (Gdańsk), Germany seized the pretext to invade Poland (1939), beginning World War II.

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