Antoni Malczewski was an influential Polish romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 poet, known for his only work, "a narrative poem of dire pessimism

Pessimism

Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...

", Maria (1825).

At the times, prominent and scandalizing was his autodestructive romance with married woman, Zofia Rucińska, who suffered from mental illness.

Biography

Malczewski was born to a wealthy family in either Volhynia

Volhynia

Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...

 or Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, and attended school in Krzemieniec (modern-day Kremenets, Ukraine), but did not graduate. He joined the army of the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw

Duchy of Warsaw

The Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...

 during the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 in 1811, and remained in the army of Congress Poland

Congress Poland

The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...

 under Emperor Alexander

Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

 from 1815. He was wounded in the foot in a duel in 1816 and so had to leave the army.

After leaving the army, he spent several years traveling through western Europe, staying some time in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, climbing Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco , meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe and the European Union. It rises above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence...

 in 1818, and spending a good portion of his inherited fortune. He returned to his estate in Volhynia in 1821, where he began an ill-fated affair with a married woman and began writing. He moved to Warsaw in 1824, where he published the poetic novel Maria at his own expense in 1825, and died in poverty the next year in unclear circumstances.

Work

Malczewski's fame rests almost solely upon that of Maria, published near the end of his life and popularized in the decade following his death (an English translation appeared in 1835). Considered a masterpiece of Polish Romanticism, it tells the tale of a young noble woman who marries above her station, and so incurs the wrath of her husband's family, who plot revenge. It is generally held to be most influenced by Lord Byron, whom Malczewski had met in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 during his travels around western Europe, though it is considerably more gloomy and Gothic

Gothic fiction

Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...

 than Byron's work. Malczewski is sometimes considered part of the "Ukrainian school

Ukrainian school

In Polish poetry, the Ukrainian school were a group of Romantic poets of the early 19th century who hailed from Ukraine, on the southeastern fringes of the Polish-inhabited lands of the time...

" in Polish poetry, though others consider his work to stand uniquely separate. Maria was also influential on later Polish poets, especially Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

 and Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...

.