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Wincenty POL
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Urodził
się 20 kwietnia 1807 r. w Lublinie. Jego ojciec, Franciszek Ksawery
Pohl, był Niemcem, matka, Eleonora Longchamps, pochodziła ze
spolonizowanej rodziny francuskiej. Uczył się w gimnazjum
we Lwowie, tam też rozpoczął studia uniwersyteckie na wydziale
filozoficznym, które ukończył w 1827 r. W trzy lata później został
zastępcą lektora języka i literatury niemieckiej na Uniwersytecie
Wileńskim. |
He
was born on 20 April 1807 in Lublin. His father, Franciszek Ksawery
Pohl, was German, and his mother, Eleonora Longchamps, belonged to a
French family which had settled in Poland. He attended a grammar school
in Lwów, where he also commenced his studies at the Philosophy
Department of the university, from which he graduated in 1827. Three
years later he became deputy to the lecturer in German language and
literature at Wilno
University. The outburst of the Uprising in Warsaw, which covered the area of Poland that had been under the rule of Russia since the partitions, disturbed his plans to follow an academic career. The poet participated in the irredentism as an officer trainee of the 10th Regiment of Lithuanian Lancers. He was injured, received the Virtuti Militari Order for bravery and was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant. After the collapse of the uprising in Lithuania, he emigrated but he did not discontinue his patriotic activities. He co-operated with General Józef Bem in organising the emigrants; having settled in Galicia, he joined the secret Union of the Twenty One, and later probably the Polish Carbonari Society. In 1840 he settled down in Maryipole near Biecz. He became more and more critical towards the conspiratorial activities. He did not take part in the Kraków Uprising of 1846. He fought for the last time for the independence of the country during the revolution of 1848, where he served as an aide-de-camp to the staff of the National Guard in Lwów. From then he started to advocate legal activities in politics and a conservative social programme. In 1849 he became Professor of Geography at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He had been interested in geography all his life. He knew the works of A. Humboldt, with whom he was friends, and K. Ritter. He went on scientific expeditions to the Tatra and Beskidy mountains. There he collected material, which referred to: "the shape and area of the country, and the relative and absolute relationship of levels", the geological structure, the water system, vegetation, flora, ethnographic relations. All of this was to serve him in writing a geography of Poland. During his stays in Austria and Prussia, he visited various institutes and studied collections regarding natural sciences. He was a member of many scientific societies, e.g. in. Königsberg, Leipzig, Lwów, Tyrol, Prague. In 1853 he was dismissed from the university, the pretext being disloyalty towards the authorities. His further work was impeded by his deteriorating sight. From birth, or maybe as a result of a disease he suffered from in his childhood, he could not see with one eye. In 1868 he went completely blind. The last years of his life were spent in Kraków, where he died on 2 December 1872. He made his debut as a poet writing Pieśni Janusza (Paris 1833, though actually 1835), a collection of 51 poems. Some of these poems, with music composed for them, gained great popularity and became a permanent part of the national songbooks (e.g. Śpiew z mogiły). Apart from Mohorta, he became famous for the epic composition Pieśń o ziemi naszej (published 1843), a poetic description of a journey through lands which had once belonged to Poland (Litwa, Polesie, Wołyń). Fragments of Pieśń have been translated into French, German, Russian and Ukrainian. |
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BIBLIOGRAFIA - BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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M.
Mann, Wincenty Pol. Studium
biograficzno-krytyczne. T.I
- II, Kraków 1904 - 1906. |
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