Where Is Poland? | Henryk Sienkiewicz

Chapter 3

Henryk Sienkiewicz

The Polish classics that were shaped by censorship include the works of Henryk Sienkiewicz, the most popular Polish writer of those times and Poland’s first Nobel Prize winner. His Trilogy (1884–1888) of historical novels, chock full of adventures, was set back in the seventeenth century and represented a kind of escape from the sad modern reality. Read More

The cover of Quo Vadis, 1909. Source: Polona.pl

Sienkiewicz and Constructing the Nation

Written 'to uplift people’s hearts', the novels took readers back to times when the Poles could feel pride – while efficiently making use of the techniques of Aesopian language. The bestselling Trilogy soon became formative reading for a whole generation of Poles – for many of them, it was even a gateway to the sense of being Polish. The Trilogy was the material many peasants first learned to read with, absorbing the heroic culture of swashbuckling adventurers as their own.

Józef Brandt, Falcon market, 1888–1889. Photo National Muzeum in Warsaw

Józef Brandt, Zaporizhian Camp, 1895–1900. Photo: National Museum in Warsaw.

Henryk Siemiradzki, Nero's Torches, 1876. Photo: National Museum in Kraków

Henryk Siemiradzki, Christian Dirce, 1897. Photo: National Museum in Kraków

The great success of the novels, and their role in consolidating the sense of what it meant to be Polish, came as an unpleasant surprise to the censor, who is alleged to have vowed that after the Trilogy he would never again allow Sienkiewicz to publish any book on Polish history. In consequence, Sienkiewicz went on to write Quo Vadis (1896), a novel about the persecution of the first Christians, playing out in ancient Rome. Quo Vadis became a worldwide bestseller. In Poland, it was read in Aesopian fashion, as a parable about the Poles suffering under foreign rule.

When receiving the Nobel Prize in 1905, Sienkiewicz could not resist saying a few words about Poland – seeing the prize as a gesture of recognition towards his stateless nation:

It has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved, but here is the proof of her life and triumph. Like Galileo, one is forced to think ‘E pur si muove’, when before the eyes of the world homage has been rendered to the importance of Poland's achievement and her genius.