Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

Born in Warsaw into a noble family, he spent much of his youth with his maternal grandparents in Romanów and completed his education in various cities, including Vilnius. Kraszewski's literary career began in 1830, and he became an influential writer and journalist. Despite facing political challenges and imprisonment for his involvement in the November Uprising, he continued to support Polish independence. He spent his later years in Dresden, where he remained active in political and literary circles until his death in Geneva.

Kraszewski wrote over 200 novels and several hundred novellas, short stories, and art reviews, making him the most prolific writer in the history of Polish literature and one of the most prolific in world literature. He is best known for his historical novels, including an epic series on the history of Poland, comprising twenty-nine historical novels; and for novels about peasant life, critical of feudalism and serfdom. His works have been described as liberal-democratic but not radical, and as proto-Positivist.

Life

Early life

Józef Ignacy Kraszewski was born in Warsaw on 28 July 1812 to a family of Polish nobility (szlachta) bearing the Jastrzębiec coat of arms. He was the oldest son of Jan Kraszewski and Zofia and had four siblings, including artist Lucjan Kraszewski and writer Kajetan Kraszewski.

Józef Ignacy Kraszewski spent much of his youth in the house of his maternal grandparents in Romanów. His grandmother influenced him during this time and taught him French, history, and drawing.

From 1822 to 1826 he attended school in Biała Podlaska (the Biała Academy); from 1826 to 1827, a gymnasium (secondary school) in Lublin; and in 1829, in Svislach. He graduated from the Svislach gymnasium after passing his matura examinations there.

Beginning in 1829, he studied medicine at University of Vilnius; soon after, he transferred to the Faculty of Literature and Fine Arts. 1830 marked his literary debut with several short stories (Biografia sokalskiego organisty, Kotlety. Powieść prawdziwa, and Wieczór, czyli przypadki peruki), followed a year later with his first novel (Pan Walery).

While at university, he participated in a Polish-independence movement in support of the November 1830 Uprising. On 3 December 1830 he was arrested and was imprisoned until 19 March 1832. Thanks to his family's intervention, he avoided being conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army. After release, until July 1833 he lived in Vilnius under police supervision. He was then allowed to go to his father's estate in Doŭhaje (Dołhe), near Pruzhany in Volhynia. He also spent time, at Horodziec, in the library of Antoni Urbanowski, whom he would visit often in future.

Landowner

In 1836 Kraszewski was nominated to join the faculty of Kiev University as professor of Polish language, but the nomination was vetoed by the Russian government, which considered him politically suspect. In 1851 he was offered a professorship at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, but this was again vetoed by the authorities, this time both Russian and Austrian.

In 1837 Kraszewski leased a farm in the village of Omelno. Eventually he also became a landowner in several nearby villages: Gródek, 1840–1848; Hubin, from 1848; and Kisiele, from 1854. As time passed, he steadily lost interest in farming and focused on his literary work. By the 1840s he was becoming well known as a prolific writer, and his works appeared in numerous Polish-language magazines and newspapers.

On 10 June 1838 he married Zofia Woroniczówna, niece of Jan Paweł Woronicz, former Bishop of Warsaw. They had four children: Konstancja, born 1839; Jan, born 1841; Franciszek, born 1843; and Augusta, born 1849.

Kraszewski travelled extensively, visiting and staying for extended periods in Warsaw (1846, 1851, 1855, 1859); in 1860 he bought a Warsaw townhouse, now known as the Kraszewski House), in Kiev (on numerous occasions), and in Odesa (1843, 1852). Through the 1850s and 1860s he periodically travelled through Western Europe (visiting Italy, German and France, among other places), and published travel accounts from them: Kartki z podróży 1858–1864 (Letters from Travels 1858–1864; 1866). His most significant trip occurred in 1858, when he travelled to Western Europe, visiting Austria, Belgium, Italy, Germany, and France. In Italy he was received by Pope Pius IX, who admonished him for his alleged liberal bias. This, however, likely heightened Kraszewski's critical view of the Holy State. His travels in the West also made him impatient with the feudal relations – particularly, serfdom – in eastern Poland.

In 1853, in an effort to better support and educate his four children, Kraszewski moved to his wife Zofia's inherited family estate near Zhytomyr, where he became, from 1856, school superintendent and director of the local theatre (Teatr Szlachty Wołyńskiej, or Zhytomyr Theater). At first popular with the local nobility, he became less so on account of his support for the abolition of serfdom.

As a result, in February 1860 he moved to Warsaw to take up the editorship of Gazeta Polska, a position he had accepted the previous year, leaving his family in Zhytomyr. He grew increasingly distant from his wife, whom he would last see in 1863.

In 1858 he became a corresponding member of the Kraków Scientific Society.

In 1861 he became a member of the Delegacja Miejska, a patriotic civic organization based in Warsaw. Kraszewski's political stance was fairly moderate; while supporting the cause of Polish independence, he saw armed struggle as premature, and initially supported conciliatory negotiations with Russian authorities represented by Aleksander Wielopolski. His moderate centrist attitude had alienated him from many; Kraszewski has described himself as "too red for the whites, too white for the reds".

As tensions grew, Kraszewski found it increasingly difficult to remain moderate, and started to increasingly criticize the Russian authorities. For his criticism of censorship in December 1862, the Russian authorities forced him to resign his editorship of Gazeta Polska and ordered him to leave Congress Poland. Following the eruption of the January 1863 Uprising, on 3 February 1863 he fled Warsaw.

Saxony

Leaving the Russian partition, Kraszewski arrived in Dresden. His wife and children remained in the Russian partition, and he would support them financially for many years. After his Russian passport expired, the Saxon authorities, in cooperation with the Russian embassy, attempted to declare him an illegal immigrant; to counter that, Kraszewski used a false French passport until he received Austrian citizenship in 1866.

In Dresden he connected with other Polish refugees and supported the January 1863 Uprising and the cause of Polish independence in the European press (often pseudonymously, to avoid trouble with the Saxon government). From 1870 to mid-1871, with his own funds, he published a weekly, Tydzień Polityczny, Naukowy, Literacki i Artystyczny, but eventually gave up on the endeavour due to financial difficulties.

From 1865 he travelled extensively in the Austrian partition of Poland, visiting Lviv, Kraków, Krynica, and Zakopane, and also visited Poznań in the Prussian Partition. He was again considered but rejected for professorships of Polish literature, at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics in 1865 and the Jagiellonian University in 1867.

Beginning in the 1870s, he increasingly suffered from health problems (kidney stone disease, asthma and bronchitis; some medical treatments for those included treatments with what would be today described as narcotics).

His application for Saxon citizenship was approved in 1869 and for a time he ran a printing press in Dresden. In 1871 he briefly campaigned to be elected a deputy from the Poznań region, but withdrew facing a strong opposition from the Polish conservative-clergy circles that he opposed in his newspaper polemics. In politics he kept representing the weak moderate faction.

Despite his health problems, he kept travelling, often invited to give lectures and attending academic conferences. In 1872 he became the member of the Academy of Learning. In 1873 he decided to become a full-time writer, and this year alone he wrote ten novels and two academic texts. He acquired a villa in Dresden. In 1879 he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his literary career in several cities in Europe, including in Kraków in a large event (on 2 to 7 October) during which he received the honorary degrees from Jagiellonian University as well as the Lviv University. In 1880 he attempted to travel to Warsaw but was denied permission by the Russian authorities. In 1882 he helped to found the educational institution Macierz Polska in Lwów.

He lived in Saxony until 1883, when he was arrested, while visiting Berlin, and accused of working for the French secret service, for whom he indeed worked since c. 1870. After being tried by the Reichsgericht in Leipzig in May 1884, he was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment in Magdeburg (in the Magdeburg fortress). The case was seen as political, since Kraszewski was a vocal critic of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and Bismarck saw this as an opportunity to deal a blow to the Polish faction in Germany, even personally advocating a death sentence for the writer. While in prison, he was given preferential treatment - he was allowed to write, paint, and receive guests. Due to poor health, high profile of the case covered in European press, and requests from clemency from Kraszewski's influential friends (such as prince Antoni Wilhelm Radziwiłł and king of Italy, Umberto I), he was released on bail after a year and a half in 1885.

Rather than remain in Magdeburg, as his bail required, he moved to a new home in Sanremo, Italy; where he hoped to recuperate in peace. This, however, violated the terms of his release and led to the German government issuance of an arrest warrant for him. While in Sanremo, he witnessed the 1887 Liguria earthquake. When the possibility of extradition arose, he decided to move to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he bought a new house; however, he never arrived in it - he died in Hôtel de la Paix in Geneva, from pneumonia, on 19 March 1887, four days after his arrival there. His remains were transferred to Kraków, and after a large funeral on 18 April 1887 he was interred at "Skałka" Basilica, in the Crypt of Merit.