Rola środowiska rodzinnego w procesie kształtowania się aktywności literackiej polskiego duchowieństwa na ziemiach byłego zaboru pruskiego w latach 1848-1939

Abstract

Together with the trends of the Spring of the Peoples there occurred a considerable national revival, initiated mainly by the League of the Nation. This was done by means of the Polish press and respective literature, intent on awakening Polish national awareness. The League of the Nation issued an appeal to spread educational work, and to that appeal responded, above all, Catholic clergymen who – apart from their engagement in the press and journalism – put their creative ability to creating popular literature, full of ideas, for the people. Their participation in that sphere has not been investigated so far, therefore the paper attempts to answer the question about the influence of the familiar milieu on that type of activity. It turns out that it was, above all, formation in the spirit of the Polish national values that decided about it, and undoubtedly the personal patterns from the most proximate surrounding. The more vivid was the degree of activity, the more common was one’s participation in the creative literary process. Therefore the largest number of priests originated from Greater Poland and Pomoria, and the least from Varmia. No matter how we look upon the genealogy of that phenomenon, it is difficult not to notice the enormous influence of home and family. The values taken from there, in combination with indubitable talent and individual predispositions, then appropriately shaped during school education and studies, would bring forth fruit by the standards of the phenomenon that was met nowhere except in the former Prussian partition.