“The Poet-Hero” Seweryn Goszczyński in Ivan Franko’s Sociopolitical and Historical-Literary Reception

Abstract

For the first time, Ivan Franko’s characterizations and assessments of the Polish poet Seweryn Goszczyński (b. 1801–d. 1876), one of the leading representatives of the “Ukrainian School” in Polish Romanticism, have been systematically and comprehensively traced and analyzed. All of Franko’s identified statements regarding Goszczyński’s socio-political activities and creative work – found in literary, historical, folkloristic, and journalistic works in Ukrainian, Polish, German, and Russian – have been collected, systematized, and interpreted. The sources of these statements have been identified, and the realities, historical figures, unclear passages, and factual inaccuracies mentioned in them have been commented on (these comments will be useful in preparing the Complete Edition of Franko’s Texts). Franko discussed nearly all the representatives of the “Ukrainian school” in Polish literature, but he spoke most favorably of Goszczyński, holding in high esteem not only his poetry but also his selfless participation in the Polish national liberation and anti-feudal movement of the 1820s and 1830s, particularly in the Right Bank of the Dnieper (under Russian occupation) and in Galicia, which was occupied by Austria. He described the Polish Romantic with great reverence in his only article about him, written and published in Polish: “The Poet-Hero: In Memory of Severyn Goszczyński on the Anniversary of the Belvedere Night” (1889). In this inspired essay, Goszczyński is portrayed more as a fighter and conspirator than as a poet. In the 1880s and 1890s, Franko participated in a socially radical, socialist movement – not only the Ukrainian one, but also the Polish one (until 1897), as well as the broader pan-Austrian movement; thus, he was drawn to Goszczyński’s revolutionary and democratic ideals, his anti-aristocratic stance, and his efforts to involve peasants in the independence struggle. Franko’s literary assessments of Goszczyński concern either Goszczyński in general as a poet or his poem “Kaniv Castle”, its hypothetical influence on Taras Shevchenko’s poem “The Haidamaks”, and the character of the bandura player in “Kaniv Castle” on the image of the kobzar in Shevchenko’s poem “Perebendya (The Blind Minstrel)”, although Franko did not provide a separate analysis of “Kaniv Castle”. His works also contain occasional references to Goszczyński’s other writings and correspondence.