Spór o nowy „dramat narodowy”. Jeden wątek dyskusji o „Rachunkach” J.I. Kraszewskiego

Abstract

The ‘national drama’ highlighted in the title is the particular authorial proposition on the part of Józef Szujski and at the same time, a capacious metaphor for the so-called Polish experience of the 19th century and earlier, which can be gleaned from the polemicists’ statements. The subject of the discussion is as much obvious as it is difficult to grasp, because the main course of the polemic and its seemingly side currents changed rank and location in relation to each other. Moreover, in the proposed approach, the articles, linked by intersecting issues, constitute a (relatively) autonomous part within an immeasurably larger whole, comprising critical reactions to Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s Rachunki. The main adversaries in the dispute were note bene the above well-known writer and Szujski, with Stanisław Tarnowski seconding them. The chronological framework of their statements is set by the years 1866–1869, while the historical and cultural context is the post-January Uprising in Poland and in exile, as well as the changes taking place in the first years of Galician autonomy.