Ryszard Berwiński and his Travels into the Peasants’ Memory. Some Reflections about a Personal Disappointment in a National Matter

Abstract

In this text I would like to analyse the romantic attitude towards the so called “literature of the peasants”. The person in question is Ryszard Berwiński (1819-1879), a poet, a folklorist, a social and political activist. The analysis is concentrated on his poems, novels as well as scholarly essays about beliefs and superstitions of the peasants. Berwiński is an example of a mystical folklorist, who believed in true, pure and original character of a creation of the peasants and especially their oral tradition. He believed that it went back to the pre-Christian era, and that it preserved a true spirit of the nation. Berwiński, as many others in that times, travelled through villages. He called these travels a national pilgrimage. The places he visited were connected with historical monuments and historical events dated back to the Middle Ages. He believed that the stories he collected contained some true historical facts and true spirit of that times. He transformed them into poetical form (e.g. poetical novel Bogunka na Gople). He hoped that such literature will renew the social and national identity. He also hoped that such literature will be useful for peasant in the process of including them into political life. Berwiński as a social and political activist observed that his hopes and believes were wrong. He changed fundamentally his opinion about the potential power of the peasants. His disappointment was especially connected with the true and pure nature of the literature of the peasants. In his scholarly and erudite study about folklore he noticed that beliefs, customs and oral tradition are imitative and are constructed by clergymen and noblemen.