“Civis Polonus. Hostem Moscoviensem” – Maurycy Mochnacki’s Russia

Abstract

The article attempts to answer the questions of what Mochnacki’s Polish citizenship was, and what the rationale behind his hostility to Moscow was. It presents the figure of the most outstanding literary critic of the Romantic era. It discusses the significance in his biography of his upbringing in the provinces, unrestricted contact with nature and folklore, participation in the anti-tsarist conspiracy, Russian imprisonment, enslavement by censorship, participation in the war with Russia, the Great Emigration – until his death in exile in France.

The analysis of historical thought shows the perspicacity of the 19th-century historian and literary historian as a Kremlinologist. His work The Uprising of the Polish Nation in 1830 and 1831 is a source for recognizing Mochnacki in this field. He emerges on its pages as a penetrating exposer of tsarist autocracy – the façade of constitutional monarchism in the Congress Kingdom.