We read Catullus last week to introduce the series.
Poland had little political future, it seemed, in the aftermath of 1863’s January Uprising. Russia responded to the insurrection with harsh retribution against local economic and political leaders: hanging some four hundred, deporting tens of thousands to Siberia, and confiscating 1,600 estates. Poland had been divided politically over the past century through a series of partitions, and Russian administrators now hoped to eradicate any residual sense of loyalty to a Polish state. The Catholic Church, the backbone of resistance, was officially denied any union with Rome in 1875. Sermons were to be in Russian and traditional hymns abandoned. No bishop remained at the head of his diocese after 1870. The Russians also attempted economic change. The landowning gentry were especially hard hit, driven from their land by excessive tax levies or outright confiscation. As a result of the economic instability, a number of former landowners moved to the cities in search of employment over the following decade. (Wandycz, pp. 196-9)
21-year-old Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910) married shortly prior to the insurrection. In the intervening years, she would raise six children before separating from her much older husband. Like many of her class and generation, Konopnicka could not find economic opportunities in rural Poland, and moved to Warsaw to work as a literary editor and translator. As an editor for the journal Swit, she helped to shape the intellectual trends of her nation’s politically-conscious urban population.
Poland’s political and cultural leadership was a unique phenomenon at the time in Europe. It remained similar to Russian influences, but with one key difference: Russian intellectuals were largely alienated within their own state due to the political dominance and repression of the Romanovs. Their Polish counterparts, however, had no state of their own on account of the partition. With no political identity to unify Poland, those looking for a national consciousness turned towards cultural leaders. For most of the 19th century, the Polish rallied around Romantic thinkers and writers like Adam Mickiewicz who saw Poland in an intensely patriotic light and advocated armed resistance against outside political dominance.
After the harsh response to the January Uprising, some began to rethink the revolutionary ideals of Polish Romanticism in favor of a Positivist “Organic work” (praca organiczna) that attempted to foster the growth of the nation as a whole organism. Influenced by Auguste Comte’s Course of Positive Philosophy, Konopnicka’s poetry reflects this trend through a concern for contemporary political and social problems. Her poem “The River,” for example, can be read both as an account of a thawing stream as well as an extended metaphor for her partitioned homeland.
“The River” (“Rzeka“), trans. Watson Kirkconnell
Gleaming pool and rippling ford
Now are held in ice abhorr’d;
Gone are foam and living tide,
Hid in depths of frozen pride:Lost his spring-dawn’s
Ecstasy:
Lost his journey
Far to sea.Dark, cold river, ice as king
Brings no new and fatal thing;
Every year the winter chains thee,
Every year the blizzard pains thee.Spring at last
In buxom glee
Sends thee dashing
Far to sea.Not for aye the sun hides deep;
Not for aye earth falls asleep;
Not for aye the flowers are furl’d;
Not for aye frost rules the world.Buxom spring arrives with glee;
Streams go dashing
Far to sea!
Za tą głębią, za tym brodem,
Tam stanęła rzeka lodem;
Ani szumi, ani płynie,
Tylko duma w swej głębinie:
Gdzie jej wiosna,
Gdzie jej zorza?
Gdzie jej droga
Het, do morza?
Oj, ty rzeko, oj, ty sina,
Lody tobie nie nowina;
Co rok zima więzi ciebie,
Co rok wichry mkną po niebie.
Aż znów przyjdzie
Wiosna hoża
I popłyniesz
Het, do morza!
Nie na zawsze słonko gaśnie,
Nie na zawsze ziemia zaśnie,
Nie na zawsze więdnie kwiecie,
Nie na zawsze mróz na świecie.
Przyjdzie wiosna,
Przyjdzie hoża,
Pójdą rzeki
Het, do morza!
“Waiting,” trans. Watson Kirkconnell
Once, and twice, the heavy plough
Through our land has riven now;
Black the cloven clods remain –
Waiting, sowing, waiting grain.
-Seedtime, sower, come, we plead!
-Do not tarry at our need.Storms have awed the heart of earth;
Winds wail’d o’er with course of death;
Fruitful rain has fall’n from heaven;Still we lack the sower’s leaven!
-Nation’s soul and prairie soil,
-Sower, wait thy vital toil!With our fathers’ bones each field
Hallow’d, grants an ampler yield;
Slow the sun dispels our shadows;
Roses tremble down the meadows.
-Sower, mankind supplicates you-
-Earth, the ancient, here awaits you!
Przeorały raz i drugi
Ziemię naszą ciężkie pługi;
A po każdym skiba czarna
Czeka siewu, czeka ziarna.
Hej, siewacze, błogi czas!
Czemuż dotąd nie ma was?
Burze wstrząsły ziemi łonem,
Wiatr przeleciał nad zagonem,
Spadły z nieba żyzne deszcze,
A was dotąd niema jeszcze!
Hej, siewacze, na wasz trud
Czeka ziemia, czeka lud!
Kości ojców, ich mogiły,
Pola nasze użyźniły,
Słonko wschodzi nam powoli,
Białe rosy drżą na roli…
Hej, siewacze, błogi czas!
Stara ziemia czeka was!
“Contra Spem Spero,” trans. Michael J. Mikos
Against the hope, which stands upon a cloud
Of tears, anchored to the swift winds’ crest
And turns its eyes toward the stormy shroud
And tempest,
I trust in the stars undimmed in squall’s scope
Against all hope.Just as a blind bard, embraced by the night,
Though he knows the sun won’t rise for him anew,
Lifts his frenzied eyes toward the utmost height,
His trembling hands too,
And with his dimmed eye drinks nocturnal spray,
Trusting the password of day.I know the birds that brought us long ago
The light of glory, flew to a distant shore,
And waters of our rivers do not flow
To the sea as before…
And a son feeds on bitter ears of grain
From his fathers’ domain.Over us God Himself quenched the flambeau
And shook off the ashes upon each narrow house.
We go, just as the homeless wanderers go,
With withered brows,
And the trail of our footsteps is buried soon
By the wind of doom.I know, let a sad echo stop telling me
What burns me with shame and brings painful turmoil,
For I also come from a big cemetery
And from blood-soaked soil…
And I also fly like a maddened quail
Driven by the gale.And yet with wings beating against darkness,
Enveloped in a sphere of our hell aglow,
My eyes are seeking the day’s sun and brightness
Contra spem – spero…
In the depth of the graves I feel life’s thrill,
And I trust still…Against all hope and against confidence
Of frigid spirits and death of augurs,
I trust in new life of ashes and bones hence,
In the dawn of azures.
And in the people’s star I trust in squall’s scope,
Against all hope!
Przeciw nadziei, co stoi na chmurze
Łez, prędkim wichrom rzuciwszy kotwicę,
I obrócony wzrok trzyma na burze
I nawałnice,
W niezgasłe gwiazdy ufam wśród zawiei
Przeciw nadziei.
Tak pieśniarz ślepy, gdy go noc otoczy,
Choć wie, że rankiem nie wzejdzie mu słońce,
Podnosi w niebo obłąkane oczy
I dłonie drżące
I mroki pije źrenicą zagasłą,
Wierząc w dnia hasło.
Wiem, odleciały te ptaki daleko,
Co nam na skrzydłach niosły chwały zorze,
I z rzek już naszych te wody nie cieką,
Które szły w morze…
I syn się karmi kłosami gorzkiemi
Z ojców swych ziemi.
Sam Bóg zagasił nad nami pochodnię
I na mogiły strząsnął jej popioły.
Idziem, jak idą bezdomne przechodnie,
Z zwiędłemi czoły,
A stopy naszej zasypuje ślady
Wicher zagłady…
Wiem, niech mi smętne echo nie powtarza
Tego, co wstydem pali i co boli.
Bom ja też rodem z wielkiego cmentarza
l z krwawej roli…
I ja też lecę jak ptak obłąkany
I wichrem gnany.
Przecież o zmierzchy skrzydłami bijąca
I piekieł naszych ogamiona sferą,
Oczyma szukam dnia blasków i słońca.
Contra spem – spero…
I w mogił głębi czuję życia dreszcze,
I ufam jeszcze…
Przeciw nadziei i przeciw pewności
Wystygłych duchów i śmierci wróżbitów
Wierzę w wskrzeszenie popiołów i kości,
W jutrznię błękitów…
I w gwiazdę ludów wierzę wśród zawiei,
Przeciw nadziei!
“And Why Do You, Morning Dewdrops…” (“A czemuż wy, chłodne rosy…“), trans. Michael J. Mikos
And why do you, morning dewdrops,
Fall to the ground?
When I’m naked, when I’m barefoot,
Hungry homebound?
Isn’t it enough when man is crying
On this earth?
Why then would the night be shedding
Silver tears?If I only walked to and fro
In the ploughland
And just counted those tears that flow
Into the sand…
From this sowing people would dread
To glean a sheaf,
For all the stacks would be blood red
Beyond belief!The sun will appear in the blue,
Rising aglow,
And will drink the abundant dew
In the meadow…
And yet to dry up the entire
Sea of our tears,
You’d have to set the world on fire,
Lord of the spheres!
A czemuż wy, chłodne rosy,
Padacie,
Gdym ja nagi, gdym ja bosy,
Głód w chacie?…
Czy nie dosyć, że człek płacze
Na ziemi?
Co ta nocka sypie łzami
Srebrnemi?
Oj, żebym ja poszedł ino
Przez pole
I policzył łzy, co płyną
Na rolę…
Strach by było, z tego siewu
Żąć żniwo,
Boby snopy były krwawe
Na dziwo!
Przyjdzie słonko na niebiosy
Wschodzące
I wypije bujne rosy
Na łące…
Ale żeby wyschło naszych
Łez morze,
Chyba cały świat zapalisz,
Mój Boże!
Sources for More Maria Konopnicka
Ushered to prominence by Czeslaw Milosz, post-war Polish poets such as Zbigniew Herbert, Wisława Szymborska, and Adam Zagajewski have greatly succeeded in English translation. Pre-20th century authors, however, have not fared quite as well. As a result, a number of significant Polish poets are still widely untranslated. Konopnicka, for example, has not had a full-length volume of poetry translated into English, despite her continued prominence among Polish readers. Her translated verse rests in anthologies, like that of a good deal of her contemporaries. The best recent source for her work in English is Michael J. Mikos’ Polish Literature from 1864 to 1918
The political and intellectual foundations of Konopnicka’s poetry are important for understanding her specific concerns. She should not be read in a vacuum. Stanislaus A Blejwas’ Realism in Polish Politics: Warsaw Positivism and National Survival in Nineteenth Century Poland
Folio Found. 