In this article Maurycy Mochnacki’s martyrological and messianic declarations in the Preface to the Uprising of the Polish Nation in 1830–1831 are examined in the context of the martyrological discourse in the literature of the Great Emigration. Such an affirmation may appear puzzling given Mochnacki’s rejection of martyrological interpretations of Poland’s history or messianic readings of his political philosophy, let alone his reputation of being radically opposed to Adam Mickiewicz’s idea of the sacrifi cial victimhood of the Polish nation. In this study the ideological and rhetorical aspects of their statements are compared and analysed. There can be little doubt that in the Preface Mochnacki’s phrasing is steeped in patriotic pathos which seems to be at odds with the tone of his other writings. This article claims that it was a tactical move on his part: he chose the familiar martyrological loci merely as a means to enlist the readers’ support for his own pragmatic programme of restoring Poland’s independence. A general conclusion to be drawn from this apparent inconsistency is that already at that stage (The Uprising was published in Paris in 1834) the logosphere of the Great Emigration had become so dominated by the martyrological discourse that Mochnacki could not afford to ignore it.

This article looks at the characters and types of narration in Michał Czajkowski's Dziwne życia Polaków i Polek [ Strange Lives of Poles and Polish Women]. Published in 1865, the book is a collection of biographical essays recounting in vivid detail the real-life stories of Polish noblemen from the Ukraine caught in the power games of the Ottoman and the Russian Empire in the early 19th-century. Czajkowski makes no direct references to Cervantes, but at one point calls his bunch knight errants, insisting that Poland produced more of them than any country in the world. Elsewhere he counterpoints earthy realism and (mock)epic decorum, fact and literary invention ('dzieje bajeczne') because they both make up the life of Antoni Iliński vel Iskender Pasha. Inspired by Joachim Lelewel's 1820 comparative study Historyczna paralela Hiszpanii z Polską w wieku XVI, XVII, XVIII [ A Historical Parallel between Spain and Poland in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Century] the article tries to trace such covert links or echoes of Cervantes in Czajkowski's handling of his maverick heroes.

This article examines the reception of the féeries, French theatre productions known for their fantasy plots, lavish scenery and spectacular visuals, in the feuilletons by Zofia Węgierska, published in 1853–1869 by the magazine Biblioteka Warszawska. In her reviews of the plays and operas staged in the capital of the French Empire she tried to pinpoint those elements of the productions that were common to the Polish and the French early Romantic aesthetics. She highly appreciated the romantic fairytale magic, the clever juxtaposition of contrastive scenes and moods, historicism, metaphysics, and dazzling stage effects as long as they helped to impress upon the audience the didactic and moral message of a play. The unvarying reference points of her criticism are the plays of Alexandre Dumas père, the Polish Romantic drama, the reception of the Vien-nese romantic fairytale plays in Poland (until 1850) and the journalism of Théophile Gautier.