Henryk Sienkiewicz (pseudonym Litwos), writer and essayist, born 5th May 1846 in Wola Okrzejska, died 15th November 1916 in Vevey, Switzerland.

A son of an impoverished landowner, Sienkiewicz attended a Warsaw gymnasium prior to studying at the Main School in 1866-9. When the School got closed, he continued his education at Warsaw University (where Russian was the language of instruction at the time), but did not graduate and instead started to work as a Warsaw press correspondent. He made friends with the artistic bohemia, notably with the circle of the actress Helena Modrzejewska (Modjeska). He married Maria Szatkiewiczowna, who would die from tuberculosis five years later. In 1876-8 he was a correspondent of "Gazeta Polska' in North America. There he set out to establish a farming commune with Helena Modrzejewska and her friends; the project failed, however. Despite poor health, he travelled extensively around Europe, visiting Constantinople and going hunting in Zanzibar. From 1870s, he devoted himself to writing and to community projects, such as the erection of the Adam Mickiewicz monument. He was Chairman of the Prudence Fund for Writers and Journalists in 1899-1900 and co-founder of the Mianowski Fund for Persons Working in Scholarly Areas. In 1889 he funded the Maria Sienkiewicz Scholarship for men of letters living in materially difficult conditions. He spoke on public and political matters, in particular against the Prussian policy of Germanization and for the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland. The setting up (with Andrzej Osuchowski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski) of the Relief Committee for the War Victims in Poland was his last major initiative, implemented in Vevey, Switzerland. The Committee managed to collect significant amounts of food, medicines, clothes and money. Sienkiewicz died in Vevey on 15th November 1916. In 1924 his ashes were brought to Poland and placed inside St John's Cathedral in Warsaw.

Sienkiewicz's literary career started in the age of positivism, and his biography was typical of this movement in terms of social background (impoverished nobility), education (the Main School), early journalistic work for the Warsaw press ("Gazeta Polska", "Niwa"), involvement in public matters, and charity work. Early on his talent and insight produced the series of essays "Chwila obecna" / "Present Moment" (in "Gazeta Polska") and "Wiadomosci biezace" / "Current News" (in "Niwa"). His popularity climbed with "Listy z podrozy / Letters from America", which were published in "Gazeta Polska" and related his American experiences and impressions. Brilliant in form, with an eye for detail and a sense of humour, they described the American ways, the life of Polish Americans and of Indians, American nature and wildlife, reporting on study and hunting trips as well as Modrzejewska's performances. Letters have been translated into nine languages and have earned recognition in America.

Himself a man of letters, Sienkiewicz was a keen student of literature. He wrote major studies on the baroque poet Mikolaj Sęp Szarzynski, the naturalist movement in literature, the historical novel. He reviewed Piotr Chmielowski's "Zarys literatury polskiej" / "An Outline of Polish Literature" and Ludwik Kubala's "Szkice historyczne" / "Historical Sketches." In the spirit of positivissm, he was an advocate of realistic literature with its portrayal of social life, its humanist message and its service to the nation. He disapproved of naturalism, maintaining that it presented a distorted, one-dimensional image of reality.

Sienkiewicz's first works were short stories; he was to write more than forty of them, using the form of a humorous sketch, tale, realistic observation, diary. The two stories making up his first work, "Humoreski z teki Worszylly / Humorous Sketches from Worszylla's File", have a clear positivist message. The first one, "Nikt nie jest prorokiem między swymi / Nobody is a Prophet among His Own Kind", recounts the failure of a pioneer of positivist work, an exemplary farmer surrounded by hostility and lack of understanding. The other one, "Dwie drogi / Two Ways", contrasts a reckless landowner Zlotopolski who sells land to German colonists with his peer, the enlightened engineer Iwaszkiewicz who grows industry and creates jobs for Polish workers. Contrary to their serious subject-matter, both stories are satirical. Humorous is also the short story "Ta trzecia / The Third One", filled with observations of the lives of the artistic bohemia and the hypocritical bourgeoisie.

A number of Sienkiewicz's short stories have children as protagonists: a talented country boy who gets beaten to death for an attempt to touch a violin inside a manor house ("Janko muzykant / Janko the Musician"), a little Michas suffering the drill of the Prussian school ("Z pamietnika poznanskiego nauczyciela / From the Diary of a Poznan Teacher"). Some stories show the fate of uneducated, confused and helpless peasants who face the military service in partitioners' armies ("Szkice weglem / Sketches in Charcoal", "Bartek zwyciezca / Bartek the Winner"). A number of stories were inspired by the American experience, such the ones about the lives of emigrants who are unable to cope with the strange realities ("Za chlebem / For Bread") or miss their native country ("Latarnik / The Lighthouse Keeper"). Others were written owing to Sienkiewicz's concern for disinherited Indians, most notably "Sachem" – a poignant story of a son of the chief of an annihilated tribe (NB a doing of German settlers) who is forced to play the humiliating role of a circus oddity.

"Trylogia / Trilogy" Sienkiewicz's masterful narratives, rich language and superb endings earned him a solid place in the Polish short-story writing, and numerous translations ensured his international recognition. What elevated him to the peaks of fame were, however, his historical novels, especially "Ogniem i mieczem / With Fire and Sword", "Potop / The Deluge" and "Pan Wolodyjowski / Pan Michael", the "Trilogy" that he had published in installments in "Slowo" in 1883-6.

Sienkiewicz highly appreciated the historical novel for its didactic and ideological values and its contribution to building patriotism and nurturing tradition. He conducted detailed studies on the age in which his novels would be set, and was inspired by "passionate reading of the age's chronicles and diaries which aroused more artistic emotion in me than did other ages". This age were the years 1648-73, the time when the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania faced a number of threats, yet overcame them successfully.

Sienkiewicz's Commonwealth was not free of vices such as egoism, self-interestedness, anarchy and treason. However, when the country was in danger, the knights and noblemen proved able to make huge sacrifices to save it. In "Ogniem i mieczem" they push back the rebellious Cossacks led by Chmielnicki, in "Potop" they stop the Swedish invasion, and in "Pan Wołodyjowski" they win with the Tartar hordes.

Sienkiewicz combines the adventure novel with the historical love story, setting the story in the huge territory from Silesia to easternmost Ukraine, mostly in military camps, but also at the royal court, noble manors, local parliaments. The plot is extremely dynamic, with lots of adventures, skirmishes, pursuits, escapes and abductions. At least one spectacular battle is fought in a besieged castle per book: in Zbaraż in "Ogniem i mieczem", Czestochowa in "Potop", Kamieniec Podolski in "Pan Wołodyjowski", and the superbly evocative descriptions of battles, skirmishes and executions are not free from cruelty, if not sadism.

Sienkiewicz populated the pages of his "Trilogy" with a range of characters that included historical persons such as Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, Stefan Czarnecki, Pawel Sapieha, kings Jan Kazimierz and Jan Sobieski, Karol Gustaw and Bohdan Chmielnicki as well as fictitious characters, notably the protagonists of each part, i.e. Skrzetuski, Kmicic and Wolodyjowski. As one would expect of an adventure story, the characters are usually black or white, their morality clearly defined. Yes, Kmicic does sin when young, but redeems himself with heroic actions, and Mr Zagłoba, the colourful Sarmatian, liar, boozer and coward, does great things at critical moments.

Historical events are invariably intertwined with love affairs: between Skrzetuski and Helena Kuncewiczowna, Kmicic and Olenka Billewiczowna, and Wołodyjowski and Basia Jeziorkowska. These love affairs are not without obstacles, for each maiden is also loved by a black character and traitor (Bohun, Boguslaw Radziwill, Azja Tuhajbejowicz), kidnapped and held prisoner. Naturally enough, at the end the positive heroes prevail and marry their beloved. Thus valiance and patriotism win in public life, while love and family come victorious in private lives.

The "Trilogy" reveals Sienkiewicz's enormous writing talent: the ability to develop the plot, diversify the characters, produce plastic descriptions, convey situational detail and style the language to make it archaic. While he was not terribly modest - indeed, he thought highly of his writing skills - the popularity of the three novels exceeded even his own expectations. Initially an author of adventure and historical novels with patriotic messages, writing for the cause as well as for money, he turned into a national icon of a writer writing to raise the spirits. He accepted this role with dignity and solemnity. His attractiveness to readers was confirmed also beyond his country, the trilogy having been translated into more than twenty languages. All three books have been filmed, and "Ogniem i mieczem" was adapted for the stage and put on at Sara Bernhard's theatre in 1904.

"Krzyżacy / The Teutonic Knights"

A similar combination of a knight's adventures and romance can be found in Sienkiewicz's next novel, "Krzyżacy / The Teutonic Knights", published in "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" in 1897-1900. The story develops at the royal court and nobility manors, in monasteries and on the roads, in a primeval forest and at the Teutonic castle in Szczytno. The historical characters include, among others, king Jagiello / Yogaila and queen Jadwiga, while the main character is Zbyszko from Bogdaniec, a young, hot-headed knight. The story is set against the historical background of the escalating conflict with the Teutonic Order, an organisation which is arrogant and greedy and which justifies any crime in the name of Christ. The romantic theme is provided by Zbyszko's love for Danusia, the daughter of Jurand of Spychowo and lady-in-waiting of the Duchess Anna Mazowiecka. In the wake of the conflict with Jurand, the Teutonic Knights kidnap Danusia. Jurand follows his daughter, but the Knights grab and maim him. Danusia falls ill and loses her senses in captivity. When finally free, she dies on Zbyszko's hands. After a period of despair, Zbyszko finds happiness with Jagna, his childhood friend. The historical conflict ends with an epic description of the Battle of Grunwald, a military success of Polish and Lithuanian knights.

The dark tones used by Sienkiewicz to depict the Teutonic Order reiterated what he had voiced a number of times, namely his protest against the policies of Prussia, considered by him to be the heir of the Order's imperial expansion.

"Quo Vadis"

Sienkiewicz's greatest success - the Nobel Prize [1905] - came with "Quo Vadis". Published in "Gazeta Polska" in 1895-6, this novel showed Rome at the time of Nero's rule, with all its splendour, sybaritism and intellectual culture. This pagan world is witness to the secret and quiet birth of a new, Christian world. Winicjusz, a young patrician, loves Ligia, a beautiful Christian captive of Slavic descent. His love is not requited until he becomes convinced of the moral strength of the new religion and its repressed followers.

Sienkiewicz, who was familiar with Rome and things written about it both in ancient and modern times, paints a colourful and captivating vision of the emperor's court and of such characters as Nero, Petronius the poet and Seneca the philosopher. The first Christians, in contrast, are morally strong, but artistically weak. Despite that, the Christian values earned the author the Nobel Prize. The novel was translated into more than forty languages and proved a perfect material for an opera (Jean Nouges 1909), several films, an oratorium (Feliks Nowowiejski) and a panorama (Jan Styka).

"W pustyni i w puszczy / In Desert and Wilderness"

Another popular novel by Sienkiewicz was "W pustyni i w puszczy / In Desert and Wilderness", a book for young readers. Printed in "Kurier Warszawski" in 1910-11, it built on Sienkiewicz's experience from his African trip. The plot is set in Sudan during the Moslem uprising against the English. The supporters of Mahdi, the leader of the uprising, abduct the children of a Pole and an Englishman working for the Suez Canal Company. The children, Staś Tarkowski and Nel Robinson, escape and travel through a good deal of the African continent, experiencing a number of adventures. Staś fights with wild animals, gets food, saves an elephant trapped in a gorge, cures Nel from heavy malaria. The children are accompanied by Saba the dog and later joined by the saved elephant and a couple of young blacks, Kali and Mea. Finally they return to their fathers and the brave Staś, a Polish patriot, makes an inscription "Long live Poland" on Kilimanjaro.

"Bez dogmatu / Without Dogma" and "Rodzina Połanieckich / Children of the Soil"

After the "Trilogy" Sienkiewicz published two contemporary novels, "Bez dogmatu / Without Dogma" (appeared in "Slowo" in 1889-90) and "Rodzina Połanieckich / Children of the Soil". Interestingly, both novels were received not quite the way the writer had intended. The first one is a diary kept by the thirty-five-year-old Leon Ploszowski, a wealthy count living in Rome with his father. A patron of European salons, comprehensively educated, sensitive to beauty, women's favourite, he suffers from an illness of will and emotions, seeing neither the purpose nor the sense of life and unable to find grounds for religious faith or a stable system of values. Contemporary science and philosophy as well as his own oversensitivity and predilection for introspection have turned him into a complete skeptic. This does not make him happy, but he cannot find a cure, especially that comfortable living does not motivate him to make an effort. An aunt who settles in Płoszów encourages him to marry Aniela. He falls in love, yet cannot decide to marry her, procrastinates, withdraws, gets involved in love affairs. Finally, for practical reasons, Aniela marries Kronicki, a shady businessman. Ploszowski's love for her turns into an obsession, his emotions moving from love to hate to contempt and back to love. He tries to get Aniela back, but she responds with a "catechism simplicity". The story ends tragically for both of them: after her husband's suicide Aniela, expecting a baby, dies, and Ploszowski's last entry in his diary talks about taking his life.

This psychological drama contains Sienkiewicz's diagnose that it is a sick society. There is the privileged elite on one hand and a completely uncivilized crowd on the other, with a void inside that will hopefully be filled with such characters as the Chrostowski brothers, the sons of the Ploszow farm manager, who have healthy bodies and minds as well as being vigorous and enterprising.

Sienkiewicz was hard on his protagonist: "This novel is intended as and will be a clear warning of what a life without dogma leads to - a mind which is skeptical, over-refined, deprived of simplicity and lacking in support". The generation of modernists, however, found him a positive hero, a decadent suffering from "la malaise du siecle", an oversensitive, doomed man, who is nevertheless a harbinger of spiritual evolution. The novel was fashionable and popular and, translated into eighteen languages, arose a lot of interest, most notably from Leo Tolstoy.

The protagonist of "Rodzina Polanieckich", in turn, is an impoverished nobleman doing business in Warsaw. He marries Marynia, a noblewoman deprived of her property. Marynia, who gets married through necessity, follows her moral code in being a good and faithful wife. Her husband, however, follows a different code of morality. He is tough and ruthless in business and cheats on his wife. The end is quite unexpected and fairy tale-like: Polaniecki buys back his wife's property and returns to the roots, to the land and family values. Naturally, the critics were of the opinion that Sienkiewicz regarded him as a positive character and an exponent of his own views.

"Wiry"

In 1909 Glos Warszawski printed "Wiry", a rather unsuccessful political novel in which Sienkiewicz expressed his concern about the Russian socialist movement and its potential implications for Poland.


Sienkiewicz and His Critics

All in all, it was invariably the "Trilogy" that attracted the largest readership and that made Sienkiewicz a national icon. The masses loved him. In 1900 the nation presented him with a manor in Oblegorek near Kielce (now housing his museum.) Intellectual elites did not share the enthusiasm, but did not dare attack him. True, Boleslaw Prus published some critical notes on "Ogniem i mieczem" in 1884, but did so with caution. He expressed his recognition of the artistic merits of the novel, yet deplored the fact that nobody could learn history from it, for the origins and nature of the Cossack rebellion as presented by Mr Sienkiewicz were totally different from historical fact.

Waclaw Nałkowski went further in "Glos" in 1894. In line with his theory of transformation of biological into psychic energy, he announced that a tired writer might sometimes take a break by escaping into mythology. Things are worse, however, if one is driven by egoistical motives and neither wants nor is able to go beyond mythology. Nałkowski found such detrimental national mythology in Sienkiewicz's writing, and the more popular the more detrimental it got. NB. the publisher refused to include this text in Nałkowski's volume of writing "Jednostka i ogół / One and the Mass".

A true debate was sparked off by Sienkiewicz's appraisal of Młoda Polska / Young Poland's literature in "Kurier Teatralny" in 1903. Sienkiewicz reduced the entire movement, and particularly the writings of Przybyszewski (though he never mentioned his name) to "heat and promiscuity". (Earlier, in 1899, Sienkiewicz had visited Przybyszewski to assess his living conditions and assigned him a grant in the name of his deceased wife of 3,600 crowns). Przybyszewski published the following response in "Glos":

"The mind boggles at the words used by one writer to denounce another writer's concentrated and long work, especially one that bore such weighty implications as the powerful awakening of intellectual life in Poland for the past four years..."

. Despite all the differences between them, the positivists and the modernists found a common ground when evaluating Sienkiewicz's writing. It was, as Stanislaw Brzozowski put it, his "fundamental lack of belief in the profundity and complexity of the world". Positivists believed Sienkiewicz unable to see the complexity of social processes; modernists found him insensitive to the metaphysical aspect of the world. Both reached the same conclusion: that he promoted easy optimism, intellectual laziness and spiritual deficiency. It became clear that the Sienkiewicz debate is about the national culture and its salient values rather than about literature, an argument between the modern Pole and the catholic Pole, the exponent of the anachronic views of the nobility. And while modernity meant different things to a positivist community leader, a socialist, a labour ideologist and an artist pursuing the metaphysical truth, they had one enemy. The essence of the conflict was soon grasped by "Głos". Its story "Społeczny obrachunek / Social Soul-Searching" read:

"...it is not an occasional polemics, it is a fundamental argument about the character and the contents of the entire contemporary literature and of our entire spiritual life. (...) Assessing Henryk Sienkiewicz is an exercise in social soul-searching".

Stanislaw Brzozowski responded to "heat and promiscuity" in an article "I smutek tego wszystkiego" / "And the Sadness of It All", expressing his disappointment with such a great writer failing to understand the reality, the nature of historical processes and social transformations. Nałkowski's answer in an article "Zbyteczny ból" / "Useless Pain" was: there is nothing to be sad about, Sienkiewicz never understood the reality nor the nature of historical process and social transformations, opting for a falsified vision of history, shallow religiousness and social hypocrisy, his social idol being Polaniecki, "the utter swine and hypocritical fillister". This encouraged Brzozowski to more intense attacks in the subsequent stories: "Henryk Sienkiewicz i jego stanowisko w literaturze polskiej" / "Henryk Sienkiewicz and His Position in Polish Literature", "Współczesna powieść polska" / "Contemporary Polish Novel", "Legenda Mlodej Polski" / "The Legend of Young Poland". To Brzozowski Sienkiewicz was an apologist of the passing world and its out-of-date noble culture that was incompatible with contemporary times, a eulogist of an unproductive, unhistorical and unsocial class who tried to convince his readers that this was their spiritual fatherland:

"If there is anything I hate with all my soul it is you, the Polish sluggishness, Polish optimism of duds, layabouts, cowards. From the 17th century we have been Europe's gawkers. ... What has been the essence of mankind's life - the back-breaking work - is a pastime to us. Sienkiewicz has codified and given an esthetic frame to our position; he is a classic of Polish unawareness, of noble ignorance".

Two epithets which Brzozowski created to evaluate such a vision of the world have made it to the everyday language: "Polanieckiship" and "gaga Poland". "Polanieckiship" originated from the gaga dementia of the Polish nobility:

"The only thing Sienkiewicz understood from the life of bourgeoisie was that exploitation enabled good living. ... His Połaniecki is not a successful bourgeois - he is a dull commoner, blind to the rights of others, enamoured with himself. He has transferred the vices of the fallen class to new conditions and has adapted to them...".

Nowadays Sienkiewicz's works no longer stir up such emotions. His historical novels are read as adventure stories. And although their popularity with the young generation has considerably decreased, libraries still have waiting lists to take them out and screen adaptations are box-office successes. Nevertheless, the debate between two positions, that of the traditional catholic Pole upholding the patriarchal family model and that of the European Pole, the creative participant of civilisational transformation, goes on.

Main edition of Sienkiewicz's works: "Dzieła" / "Works", ed. Julian Krzyżanowski, vols. 1-60, Warsaw 1948-55.

Autor: Halina Floryńska-Lalewicz, April 2006

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