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Henryk Sienkiewicz 1905 (28)
Far more celebrated than any of his positivist contemporaries, Henryk Sienkiewicz began as a journalist and achieved considerable renown with his account of a two-year journey to the United States. Between 1882 and 1888 he wrote three historical novels dealing with political and military events in seventeenth-century Poland: With Fire and Sword, The Deluge (1886), and Fire in the Steppe (1888, also translated as Pan Michael). Although superficial in its analysis of historical events, the trilogy gained enormous popularity both in Poland and in other Slavic countries thanks to Sienkiewicz’s masterful use of epic techniques and of the seventeenth-century colloquial idiom. Even more popular, if artistically far weaker, was his Quo Vadis? (1896), a novel about Rome in the age of Nero (Sienkiewicz’s fame in the West is chiefly based on this work). Another historical novel, The Teutonic Knights (1900), deals with the fifteenth-century struggle between Poland-Lithuania and the Teutonic Order. The Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz is best remembered for his historical novels, particularly the internationally known bestseller ‘Quo Vadis’. Numerous translations of his innovative novels gained him international renown, culminating with the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature for “outstanding merits as an epic writer.” This comprehensive eBook presents Sienkiewicz’ complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material.
Polish novelist, a storyteller, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Henryk Sienkiewicz’s most famous novels include the widely translated and several times filmed Quo Vadis? (1896). His strongly Catholic worldview deeply marked his writing. Sienkiewicz’s works have been published in 50 languages.
Henryk Sienkiewicz was born to a well-to-do family in Wola Okrzejska, a town in Russian-ruled Poland. Because of economic difficulties, the family sold their rural property and moved to Warsaw. At the age of 12, Sienkiewicz entered Warsaw Gymnasium. While a student he started to write newspaper columns under the pseudonym Litwos. Inspired by the novels of Sir Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas, Sienkiewicz composed his first historical story, Ofiara (The Sacrifice), of which no manuscript is known to survive.
Finding himself penniless, Sienkiewicz left the city without receiving a degree, and moved to the countryside, earning his living as a private teacher. Upon returnin to Warsaw, he attended the Polish University (Szkola Glowna), where studied law and medicine, and later history and literature. In the 1870s, he worked as a freelance journalist, and wrote short stories and novels.For a time he was a coeditor of the biweekly Niwa. Sienkiewicz’s debut novel, Ma marne (1872), was set in the ancient city of Kieff and depicted student life. First printed in the magazine Wieniec, its publication in book form (1876) was delayed due to the failure of the Kraszewski publishing house.
Inspired by Walter Scott and French historical novels Sienkiewicz started to work in 1882 on his own trilogy of historical novels. Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword) was published in 1884. It was followed by sequels Potop (1886, The Deluge) and Pan Michael (1888). All these works were carefully researched and written in an exciting, fast-paced style. Sienkiewicz showed his skills in creating colorful characters, which also fascinated readers outside Poland. Speaking of his work, Sienkiewicz said that he wrote most of his novels day by day, sending off the newly-written pages to the printer.
In 1876, Sienkiewicz went to the United States with the actress Helena Mofjeska, who planned to establish in California a settlement with his friends. This journey lasted three years. Sienkiewicz published enthusiastic letters about American technical achievements, society and the natural beauty of California in the newspaper Gazeta Polska. His stay in the USA also inspired several short stories, among them ‘Latarnik’ (1882).
At the end of 1879, Sienkiewicz returned to Warsaw. He became co-editor of the conservative newspaper Slowo (1882-87), where he published his early novels. He was a founding member of the Mianowski Foundation and a co-founder and president of Literary Foundation (1899).
Sienkiewicz’s indifference to the ideological debate of the time angered some critics. The poet and dramatist Adam Asnyk (1838-1897) said he was “just an artist without any convictions.” (Sienkiewicz’s Bodies: Studies of Gender and Violence by Ryszard Koziolek, translated by David Malcolm, Peter Lang, 2015, p. 18) Sienkiewicz remained silent during the smear campaign, but he was deeply hurt by it.
Sienkiewicz traveled widely, spending time in Africa in 1891, where he contracted malaria, and visiting Italy for his novel Quo Vadis? His marriage to Maria Romanowska-Wołodkiewich in 1893 was annulled on technical ground in 1896; she was 28 years his junior and left him soon after the wedding. Later Sienkiewicz admitted his error in judgment. Among the other real historical characters are the writers Petronius (d. 66), a rich aesthetician, and Seneca (d. 65), who opposes Nero. Petronius meets Paul who tells him: “The whole world is trembling before you, and ye are trembling before your own slaves, for ye know that any hour may raise an awful war against your oppression, such a war as has been raised more than once. Though rich, thou art not sure that the command may not come to thee to-morrow to leave thy wealth; thou art young, but to-morrow it may be necessary for thee to die.”
It was one of the first novels adapted for the screen; this made it a part of popular culture. In the early 1900s two versions were produced, one French and one Italian. Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s adaptation of 2001, supported by Pope John Paul II, was filmed in Tunisia, Poland and France. Along with Edward Bulwer Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) and Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ (1880), Sienkiewicz’s work has been among the most popular historical novels dealing with early Christianity.
Sienkiewicz was married three times. Already in 1888, he had promised to marry Maria Babska, his niece, who was 14 years younger than he. She spent years in a monastery, but eventually the married in 1904. Maria became his partner for the rest of his life.
Krzyzacy (1900, The Teutonic Knights), Sienkiewicz’s last important novel, was set in medieval Poland at the time of its conflict with the Teutonic Order. This work, which culminated in the Battle of Grunwald, where the Teutonic knights were defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian coalition, clearly referred to the policy of the then German state towards the Poles. While Sienkiewicz’s heroes in Ogniem i mieczem affected the course of history, now the comradeship of the Poles play a major role. The protagonist is a young nobleman, Zbysko of Bogdaniec, who fights against the Order. Since 1918, the novel has been on the compulsory reading list of the elementary school curriculum. W pustyni i w puszczy (1911, In Desert and Wilderness), written for teenagers, was located in the deserts and savannas of Africa in the year of Mahdi’s rebellion and the capture of Khartoum. Its lively details were partly based on the author’s travels in Africa. Prusse et Pologne (1907) attacked the Prussian government’s land policy in Prussian-occupied Poland.
In 1900, Sienkiewicz was given an estate by the Polish government at Oblegorek, near Kielce. With the outbreak of WW I, Sienkiewicz fled to Switzerland and settled in Vevey. He was a member of the Swiss Relief Committee for the War Victims in Poland. Sienkiewicz died of heart failure in Vevey on November 15, 1916. His body was returned to Poland eight years later. “To appraise him objectively is quite a task,” wrote the Polish Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz, “for he combined a rare narrative gift with shortcomings that are serious enough to disqualify him from the title of a truly great writer.” (The History of Polish Literature by Czesław Miłosz, second edition, University of California Press, In his acceptance speech of the Nobel prize Sienkiewicz stated that “it has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved; but here is the proof of her life and triumph.”
Novelist, journalist, columnist and scholar. He is the first Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, admired by generations of his compatriots for awakening a sense of national community and patriotic spirit. He was born on May 5, 1846 in Wola Okrzejska, in the so-called Polish countryside halfway between Warsaw and Lublin, in the Podlaskie region of northeastern Poland, and died on November 15, 1916 in Vevey, Switzerland.
At the time of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s birth, Kierkegard was writing his work Deadly disease with the analysis of the nature of existential anguish and the act of faith as something terrifying, a non-rational leap to reach a passionate, total and personal commitment to God. Auguste Comte finished his Positive philosophy courserejecting all theology and metaphysics to affirm that only positive science is capable of giving order and progress to the human being. Ernest Renan began the path of the search for the historical Jesus, without faith in his divinity, which would end up in his work Life of Jesus. The second half of the 19th century is a time of skepticism and doubts about the old faith, and in Poland it is a time of penance in expectation of a new birth.
Sienkiewicz’s stories were an eloquent testimony to the vivacity with which he reacted to matters that touched public opinion, and at the same time demonstrated a profound knowledge of human psychology.
