Świadome uczestnictwo w kulturze literackiej i narodowej drogą do aktywności pisarskiej polskiego duchowieństwa katolickiego w Wielkopolsce, na Pomorzu i Warmii w latach 1848-1939

Abstract

The Revolution of 1848 is marked not only with the revival of Polish national life under the Prussian partition and the development of regional press, but also it saw an equally intensive interest in literary writing. In this area it was, aboe all, the Catholic clergy that was made famous. Taking into consideration only some of them, thos who had published at least one book on belles-lettres (lyric verse, narrative literature, drama, and non-fiction), we can easily point to about fifty clergymen who worked in the Prussian partition in the years 1848-1939. Hence we are justified in our attempt to examine the genealogy of this pehnomenon and to answer the causes of this pehnomenon in the history of Polish literature in the neineteenth and twentieth centuries. In like manner the author shows the forms in which priests participated in literary and national culture, responsing at the same time to the question as regards the degrre and character of the infouence on the their later wiriting. It turns out that the clergy were involved in the secondary school self-tutition movement, leanred societies when at univertiy (Literary-Slavonic Society in Wroclaw, The Learned Society of Poles in Monastery), and the Society of Leanred Aid; this involvment stimultated the process of acquisition of the rich output of Polish literature and improvement in their mother tongue. This was an essential stage on the way to literary writing.