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Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz (also known as "Litwos"; May 5, 1846 – November 15, 1916) was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize winning novelist. A Polish szlachcic (noble) of the Oszyk coat of arms, he was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 for his "outstanding merits as an epic writer." Born into an impoverished gentry family in the Podlasie village of Wola Okrzejska, in Russian-ruled Poland, Sienkiewicz wrote historical novels set during the Rzeczpospolita (Polish Republic, or Commonwealth). His works were noted for their negative portrayal of the Teutonic Order in The Teutonic Knights (Krzyżacy), which was remarkable as a significant portion of his readership lived under German rule. This can be contrasted with his positive portrayal of German mercenaries in With Fire and Sword. Many of his novels were first serialized in newspapers, and even today are still in print. In Poland, he is best known for his historical novels "With Fire and Sword", "The Deluge", and "Fire in the Steppe" (The Trilogy) set during the 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while internationally he is best known for Quo Vadis, set in Nero's Rome. Quo Vadis has been filmed several times, most notably the 1951 version. Sienkiewicz was meticulous in attempting to recreate the authenticity of historical language. In his Trilogy, for instance, he had his characters use the Polish language as he imagined it was spoken in the seventeenth century (in reality it was far more similar to 19th-century Polish than he imagined). In The Teutonic Knights, which relates to the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, he even had his characters speak a variety of medieval Polish which he recreated in part from archaic expressions then still common among the highlanders of Podhale. In 1881,
Sienkiewicz married Maria Szetkiewicz (1854 – 1885). They had two
children, Henryk Józef (1882 – 1959) and Jadwiga (1883 – 1969). Sienkiewicz
was
born in Wola
Okrzejska, a village in eastern Poland's Podlasie region,
that
was part of the Russian
Empire at the time. His was an impoverished gentry family, on his father's side deriving
from Tartars who had settled in Lithuania.
His
family used the coat of arms Oszyk. His parents were Józef
Sienkiewicz (1813 – 1896) and Stefania (née Cieciszowska,
1820 – 1873). Wola Okrzejska belonged to the writer's maternal
grandmother, Felicjana Cieciszowska. He was baptized in the
neighbouring village of Okrzeja in a church founded by his
great-grandmother. His family moved several times and in the end
settled in Warsaw in 1861. In 1858,
Henryk began secondary school in Warsaw. He did not receive very good
grades but he was good at liberal arts. Because of the hard financial
times at that time, the nineteen year old Sienkiewicz took up a job as
a tutor in the Weyher family in Płońsk.
During this period he probably wrote his first novel, Ofiara (Victim). He also
worked on his publicized novel Na
marne (In Vain).
In
addition,
he finished his extramural classes in secondary school and
in 1866 received the secondary school diploma. According to his
parents' wishes, he passed the examination to the medical department at Warsaw
University. After some time, he resigned and took up law studies.
He ended up transferring to the Institute of Philology and History
where he acquired a thorough knowledge of literature and Old
Polish. In 1867 he made his first attempts in literature and wrote
a rhyming piece Sielanka
Młodości, which he submitted for publication in Tygodnik Ilustrowany (Illustrated Weekly)
but it was rejected. In 1869 Sienkiewicz debuted as a journalist. Przegląd Tygodniowy (The Weekly Review)
printed his review of a play, and Tygodnik
Ilustrowany printed
his essay about Mikołaj
Sęp-Sarzyński. Sienkiewicz also wrote for Gazeta Polska (The Polish Gazette)
and Niwa under the pen name
"Litwos". In 1873 he started to write a column "Bez tytułu" ("Without a
Title") in Gazeta
Polska and in 1875
the series called "Chwila obecna" ("The Present Moment"). From 1874 he
took care of the literary section of Niwa. He wrote
the novel Na marne (In Vain, 1871) and
then Humoreski z
teki Woroszyłły, Stary
Sługa (The Old
Servant, 1875), Hania (1876) and Selim Mirza (1877). The last three
works are referred to as the Little
Trilogy. Sienkiewicz also visited his relative Jadwiga
Łuszczewska (known
as "Deotyma") and the actress Helena
Modrzejewska, as their dinner parties were very popular. In 1876
he went to the United States with Helena
Modrzejewska. He stayed for some time in California.
During
this period he wrote Listy z
podróży (Letters
From
a Journey), which were published in Gazeta Polska and received wide
recognition. He also wrote Szkice węglem (Sketches
in Charcoal) in 1877. The trip to the USA inspired him to write the
following works: Komedia z pomyłek (A Comedy of Errors,
1878), Przez stepy (1879), W krainie złota (1880), Za chlebem (For Bread, 1880), Latarnik (Lighthouse Keeper, 1881) Wspomnienia z
Maripozy (1882), and Sachem (1883). In 1878
Henryk Sienkiewicz returned to Europe. First, he stayed in London and
then went to Paris for a year. In France he had got a chance to
familiarize himself with naturalism,
a
new trend in literature. In the article "Z Paryża" ("From Paris"),
written in 1879, he expressed a positive opinion on this trend. He
stated that, "For a novel naturalism was in fact a brilliant,
indispensable and perhaps the only step forward." Two years later he
changed his mind and became more critical about this movement. He
expressed his opinions on naturalism and writing in general in the
following published works: O
naturaliźmie
w powieści (Naturalism
in
the Novel, 1881), O
powieści
historycznej (Historical
novel, 1889), and Listy
o
Zoli (Letters
about Zola, 1893). His stay
in America and his letter-writing published in Polish newspapers
resulted in national recognition and interest. Bolesław
Prus in his article
entitled "Co p. Sienkiewicz wyrabia z
piękniejszą połową Warszawy", published in Kurier Warszawski in 1880, nicely showed the
popularity of the writer. "As he was back from America, almost every
lady took tall and handsome men for Sienkiewicz. Finally, when I
noticed that every man has got hair like Sienkiewicz and all of the
young men, one by one, grow a royal beard and try to have a statuesque
and swarthy face, I realised that I wanted to meet him personally.
From the corner where I sit, I can see that the room is almost
exclusively crowded with the fair sex. Some men, who were there to
amuse ladies or to write reports, spent so much time in the company of
women that they started to talk in the feminine." In 1879 in Lviv,
Sienkiewicz
gave a lecture entitled Z
Nowego
Jorku do Kalifornii. In 1880 at the Bazar hotel in Poznań he read his novel Za chlebem, and
later in Warsaw he read two works on naturalism in literature. In Szczawnica,
on
his way back to Lviv in 1879, he read a work about his stay in
America. This was also the place where he saw his future wife, Maria
Szetkiewicz, for the first time. When he discovered that the whole
Szetkiewicz family was going to Venice,
Sienkiewicz
went there too and met Maria personally and they got
married on 18 August 1881, on Theatre Square in a church which was a
property of the Community of Canonesses (the church no longer exists).
They had two children, Henryk Józef and Jadwiga Maria. The
marriage did not last long, however, because Maria died on 18 August
1885. In 1882 he worked with Słowo (a daily newspaper with a
tendency to conservatism and nobility). In the beginning, he was the
editor-in-chief. He also wrote a drama Na jedną kartę which was later staged in
Lviv and Warsaw (1879 – 1881) In 1880
Sienkiewicz wrote a historical novella, Niewola tatarska (Tartar Captivity),
and began work on another historical novel, Ogniem i Mieczem (With Fire and Sword).
In
a letter of February 1, 1884, to Stanisław Smolka, editor of the
Kraków newspaper Czas, Sienkiewicz
wrote: "With regard to the great novel, it will probably be
titled Wilcze gniazdo (The Wolf's Nest). It takes
place during the reign of King Jan
Kazimierz, during the Cossack revolt." The novel Wilcze gniazdo appeared in installments in Słowo from May 2, 1883, to March
1, 1884, under the title Ogniem
i
mieczem (With
Fire and Sword). It also ran simultaneously in the Kraków newspaper, Czas. With
Fire and Sword was
enthusiastically received by readers (as were the next two volumes of
the Trilogy) and
won national recognition for the author . Many readers wrote to
Sienkiewicz, asking about the next adventures of their favorite characters. In 1879 a street in Zbarazh (one of the settings in With Fire and Sword)
was named after Sienkiewicz; in 1900 its citizens would not permit
building works on the church grounds, believing that it was the place
where Pan Podbipięta (a fictional
character in With Fire and Sword) was buried. The novel was also
adapted for the stage. In 1884 Jacek
Malczewski exhibited tableaux vivants inspired
by With Fire and
Sword. The novel also garnered some criticism. It was pointed out,
not without reason, that some of the historical facts and events were
misrepresented and distorted. He began
writing the second volume of his Trilogy – Potop ("The Deluge"); according
to Sienkiewicz the title was supposed to indicate the deluge of masses of people trying
to stop the Swedish invasion. Potop was printed in Słowo (from 23 December 1884 to 2
September 1886). The novel quickly became a best-seller and it
established Sienkiewicz's position in society. While Sienkiewicz was
writing Potop,
his wife, Maria Szetkiewicz, died of tuberculosis so it was a difficult
time for the writer. After Maria's death, Sienkiewicz went to Constantinople (through Bucharest and Varna)
from
where he was writing reports. After his return to Warsaw the third
volume of the Trilogy, Pan
Wołodyjowski (Fire
in
the Steppe) appeared. The novel was published in Słowo from May 1887 to May 1888. The
Trilogy made Henryk
Sienkiewicz the most widely read and known Polish novelist. Stefan
Żeromski wrote in
his Diaries: "In the Sandomierz area I witnessed myself that everybody,
even those who usually do not read, were asking about The Deluge."
Sienkiewicz was given 15 thousand roubles in recognition of his
achievements from an unknown admirer who signed himself as Michał
Wołodyjowski (the name of the character in the Trilogy). Sienkiewicz
used this money to open the scholarship fund (named after his wife)
designed for artists endangered by tuberculosis. In 1888
Sienkiewicz went to Spain. In 1890 he involved himself in organizing the Mickiewicz Year.
At
the end of 1890 he went to Africa which resulted in the writing of Listy z Afryki (Letters from Africa).
In
1891 a book edition of the novel Bez
dogmatu (Without
Dogma) was published. Earlier, from 1889 to 1890, the novel was
printed in installments in Słowo.
In
1892 Sienkiewicz signed an agreement for another novel - Rodzina Połanieckich (Children of the Soil),
and
the book came out in print in 1895. In the summer of 1894 in
Zakopane, Sienkiewicz introduced some fragments of his new novel Krzyżacy (The Teutonic
Knights, or "The Knights of the Cross"). In 1893
Sienkiewicz began preparations for his next novel, Quo
Vadis. The period at the turn of the 1880s and 1890s was
associated with intensive work on several novels. Maria Romanowska, the
stepdaughter of a wealthy Odessan named Wołodkowicz, entered
the writer's life and Sienkiewicz and Romanowska became engaged in that
city. Their wedding took place on November 11, 1893, but the bride soon
left the author and Sienkiewicz obtained papal consent to dissolution
of the marriage. In
February 1895 Sienkiewicz wrote the first chapters of Quo Vadis, for which
he had been gathering materials since 1893. The novel started appearing
in print in March 1895 in several Polish newspapers: in Gazeta Polska in Warsaw, Czas in Cracow and in Dziennik Poznański in Poznań (Greater
Poland region). It
stopped appearing at the end of February 1896. The book edition then
appeared very quickly. The novel gained recognition and became
extremely popular all over Europe. It was translated into many
languages, including Arabic and Japanese.
The
popularity of Quo
Vadis at that time
was supported by the fact that the horses competing in Grand
Prix
de Paris were
given names of the characters from the book. The novel was repeatedly
adapted and put on the stage. There was also an opera made on the basis
of the book. In 1913 Quo
Vadis was screened
and the novel was filmed several more times. In 1900
Sienkiewicz celebrated an anniversary of his artistic work. On the
occasion the Polish people presented him with an estate at Oblęgorek and he went on to open a
school for children there. In the same year the Jagiellonian
University awarded
Sienkiewicz an honorary
doctorate. Sienkiewicz
involved
himself in social matters. In 1901 he made an appeal in a
cause of children in Września.
In
1906 he called on his fellow countrymen in the USA to help starving
people in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1904 he married his niece, Maria
Babska. In 1905
he won a Nobel
Prize for lifetime
achievement as an epic writer. It is often erroneously said that
Sienkiewicz received his Nobel Prize for Quo vadis. He
actually received it "for his outstanding merits as an epic writer"
although Quo vadis perhaps brought him the
widest international recognition. In
the acceptance speech
Sienkiewicz said that this honour was particularly valuable for a son
of Poland, saying "She was pronounced dead - yet here is a proof that
She lives on". He also added, "She was pronounced defeated - and here
is proof that She is victorious". He wrote
a novel, Na polu
chwały (On the
Field of Glory), that was intended as the beginning of a trilogy.
In 1910 his novel for young people, W
pustyni
i w puszczy (In
Desert and Wilderness) appeared in installments in the newspaper, Kurier Warszawski. After the
outbreak of World War I, Sienkiewicz left for Switzerland.
Together
with Ignacy
Paderewski he
established the Vevey Swiss General Committee to Aid Victims of the
War. He died on November 15, 1916, in Vevey,
where
he was buried. In 1924, after Poland had regained its
independence, the writer's ashes were repatriated to Warsaw, Poland,
and
placed in the crypt of St.
John's
Cathedral. Sienkiewicz
was
a knight of the French Légion
d'honneur. |