Wladyslaw Reymont
Encyclopedia
Władysław Stanisław Reymont (May 7, 1867 in Kobiele Wielkie
– December 5, 1925) was a Polish novelist and Nobel laureate
. His best-known work is the novel Chłopi (Peasants).
, near Radomsko
as one of nine children to Józef Rejment, an organist. He spent his childhood in Tuszyn
near Łódź, to which his father had moved in order to work at a richer church parish. Reymont was defiantly stubborn; after a few years of education in the local school he was sent by his father to Warsaw
into the care of his eldest sister and her husband to teach him his vocation. In 1885, after passing his examinations and presenting "a tail-coat, well-made", he was given the title of journeyman tailor—his only formal certificate of education.
To his family's annoyance he did not work a single day as a tailor. Instead he first ran away to work in a travelling provincial theatre and then returned in the summer to Warsaw for the "garden theatres". Without a penny to his name he then returned to Tuszyn after a year and, thanks to his father's connections, took up employment as a gateman at a railway crossing near Koluszki
for 16 rubles a month. He escaped twice more: in 1888 to Paris and London as a medium with a German spiritualist, and then again to a theatre troupe. After his lack of success (he was not a talented actor), he returned home again. Reymont also stayed for a time in Krosnowa
near Lipce
and for a time considered joining the Pauline Order
in Częstochowa
. He also lived in Kołaczkowo, where he bought a mansion.
, Koluszki
and Skierniewice
was accepted for publication by Głos (The Voice) in Warsaw in 1892, he returned to Warsaw once more, clutching a group of unpublished short stories along with a few rubles in his pocket. Reymont then visited the editorial offices of various newspapers and magazines, and eventually met other writers who became interested in his talent. On a Mr. Świętochowski's advice, he went on a pilgrimage to Częstochowa in 1894 and wrote a report on his experience there. The report remains a classic example of travel writing.
Rejmont proceeded to send his short stories to different magazines, and, encouraged by good reviews, decided to write novels: Komediantka (The Deceiver) (1895) and Fermenty (Ferments) (1896). No longer poor, he would soon satisfy his passion for travel, visiting Berlin, London, Paris, Italy. Then, he spent a few months in Łódź collecting material for a new novel ordered by the Kurier Codzienny (The Daily Courier) from Warsaw. The earnings from this book—Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land) (1897)—enabled him to go on his next trip to France where he socialized with other exiled Poles (Jan Lorentowicz, Żeromski
, Przybyszewski, Rydel, etc.).
His earnings did not allow for this kind of life of travel. However, in 1900 he was awarded 40,000 rubles in compensation from the Warsaw-Vienna Railway
after an accident in which Reymont as a passenger was severely injured. During the treatment he was looked after by Aurelia Szacnajder Szabłowska, whom he married in 1902, having first paid for the annulment of her earlier marriage. Thanks to her discipline, he restrained his travel-mania somewhat, but never gave up either his stays in France (where he partly wrote Chłopi between 1901 and 1908) or in Zakopane
. Rejmont also journeyed to the United States in 1919 at the (Polish) government's expense. Despite his ambitions to become a landowner, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to manage an estate he bought in 1912 near Sieradz
, the life of the land proved not to be for him. He would later buy Kołaczkowo Gmina Kołaczkowo near Poznań
in 1920, but still spent his winters in Warsaw or France.
In November 1924 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature over rivals Thomas Mann
, Maxim Gorky
and Thomas Hardy
. Public opinion in Poland supported the Nobel for Stefan Żeromski
, but the prize went to the author of Chłopi. Żeromski, considered a better candidate,, was reportedly refused for his allegedly anti-German sentiments. However, Reymont could not take part in the award ceremony in Sweden due to a heart illness. The award and the check for 116,718 Swedish kroner were sent to Reymont in France, where he was being treated
In 1925, somewhat recovered, he went to a farmers' meeting in Wierzchosławice near Kraków
, where Wincenty Witos
welcomed him as a member of PSL "Piast" (the Polish Peasant Party) and praised his writing skills. Soon after that event, Reymont's health deteriorated. He died in Warsaw in December 1925 and was buried in the Powązki Cemetery
. The urn holding his heart was laid in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.
Reymont's literary output includes about 30 extensive volumes of prose. There are works of reportage: Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry (Pilgrimage to Jasna Góra) (1894), Z ziemi chełmskiej (From the Chełm Lands) (1910 – about the persecutions of the Uniates), Z konstytucyjnych dni (From the Days of the Constitution) (about the revolution of 1905) and some sketches from the collection Za frontem (Beyond the Front) (1919). There are numerous short stories on life in the theatre, village life or work on the railway: "Śmierć" ("Death") (1893), "Suka" ("Bitch") (1894), "Przy robocie" ("At Work") and "W porębie" ("In the Clearing") (1895), "Tomek Baran" (1897), "Sprawiedliwie" ("Justly") (1899) and a sketch for a novel Marzyciel (Dreamer) (1908). Then there are the novels: Komediantka, Fermenty, Ziemia obiecana, Chłopi, Wampir (The Vampire) (1911), which was sceptically received by the critics, and a trilogy written in the years 1911–1917: Rok 1794 (1794) (Ostatni Sejm Rzeczypospolitej, Nil desperandum and Insurekcja) (The Last Parliament of the Commonwealth, Nil desperandum and Insurrection).
, but they stress that this was not a "borrowed" Naturalism, but rather a record of life as experienced by the writer himself. Moreover, Reymont never formulated an aesthetic of his writing. In that, he resembled other Polish autodidacts such as Mikołaj Rej and Aleksander Fredro
. With little higher education and unable to read any foreign language, Reymont realized that it was his knowledge of grounded reality, not literary theory, that was his strong suit.
His novel Komendiantka paints the drama of a rebellious girl from the provinces who joins a traveling theater troupe and finds, instead of escape from the mendacity of her native surroundings, a nest of intrigue and sham. In Fermenty, a sequel to Komediantka, the heroine, rescued after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, returns to her family and accepts the burden of existence. Aware that dreams and ideas do not come true, she marries a nouveau riche
who is in love with her.
Ziemia Obiecana (The Promised Land), possibly Reymont's best-known novel, is a social panorama of the city of Łódź during the industrial revolution, full of dramatic detail, presented as an arena of the struggle for survival. In the novel, the city destroys those who accept the rules of the "rat race", as well as those who do not. The moral gangrene affects equally the three main characters, a German, a Jew, and a Pole. This dark vision of cynicism, illustrating the bestial qualities of men and the law of the jungle, where ethics, noble ideas and holy feelings turn against those who believe in them, are, as the author intended, at the same time a denunciation of industrialisation and urbanisation.
Ziemia Obiecana has been translated into at least 15 languages and two film adaptations—one in 1927, directed by A. Węgierski and A. Hertz; and the other, in 1975, directed by Andrzej Wajda
.
In Chłopi, Reymont created a more complete and suggestive picture of country life than any other Polish writer. The novel impresses the reader with its authenticity of the material reality, customs, behaviour and spiritual culture of the people. It is even more authentic in that it is written in the local dialect. Not only did Reymont use dialect in dialogues but also in narration, creating a kind of a universal language of Polish peasants. Thanks to this, he presents the colourful reality of the "spoken" culture of the people better than any other author. He set the action of the novel in Lipce, a real village which he came to know during his work on the railway near Skierniewice, and restricted the time of events to ten months in the unspecified "now" of the nineteenth century. It is not history that determines the rhythm of country life, but the "unspecified time" of eternal returns. The composition of the novel astonishes the reader with its strict simplicity and functionality. What is easier than writing a novel about village life, restricting its plot to one year and one place? The titles of the various volumes signal a tetralogy in one vegetational cycle, which regulates the eternal and repeatable rhythm of village life. Parallel to that rhythm is a calendar of religion and customs, also repeatable. In such boundaries Reymont placed a colourful country community with sharply drawn individual portraits. The repertoire of human experience and the richness of spiritual life, which can be compared with the repertoire of Biblical books and Greek myths, has no doctrinal ideas or didactic exemplifications. The author of Chłopi does not believe in doctrines, but rather in his own knowledge of life, the mentality of the people described, and his sense of reality. It is easy to point to moments of Naturalism (e.g. some erotic elements) or to illustrative motives characteristic of Symbolism
. It is equally easy to prove the Realistic values of the novel. None of the "isms" however, would be enough to describe it. The novel was filmed twice (directed by E. Modzelewski in 1922 and by J. Rybkowski in 1973) and has been translated into at least 27 languages.
Reymont's last book, Bunt (Revolt), serialized 1922 and published in book form in 1924, describes a revolt by animals which take over their farm in order to introduce "equality". The revolt quickly degenerates into abuse and bloody terror.
The story was a metaphor for the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917
and was banned 1945–1989 in communist Poland, along with George Orwell
's similar novella, Animal Farm
(published in Britain in 1945). It is unknown whether Orwell knew of Reymont's Revolt of over two decades earlier. Reymont's novel was reprinted in Poland in 2004.
Kobiele Wielkie
Kobiele Wielkie is a village in Radomsko County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Kobiele Wielkie. It lies approximately east of Radomsko and south of the regional capital Łódź....
– December 5, 1925) was a Polish novelist and Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
. His best-known work is the novel Chłopi (Peasants).
Surname
Born Stanisław Władysław Rejment, Reymont's baptism certificate lists his original surname as "Rejment". He ordered the change himself during his published debut, as it was supposed to protect him in the Russian part of Poland from any trouble for having published in Galicia a work not allowed under the Tsar's censorship. Kazimierz Wyka, an enthusiast of Reymont's work, believes that the correction could also have been meant to remove any association with the word rejmentować, which in some local Polish dialects means "to swear".Life
He was born in the village of Kobiele WielkieKobiele Wielkie
Kobiele Wielkie is a village in Radomsko County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Kobiele Wielkie. It lies approximately east of Radomsko and south of the regional capital Łódź....
, near Radomsko
Radomsko
Radomsko is a town in central Poland with 50,618 inhabitants . It is situated on the Radomka river in the Łódź Voivodeship , having previously been in Piotrków Trybunalski Voivodeship . It is the capital of Radomsko County....
as one of nine children to Józef Rejment, an organist. He spent his childhood in Tuszyn
Tuszyn
Tuszyn is a small town in Łódź East County, Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland, with 7,201 inhabitants .-External links:**...
near Łódź, to which his father had moved in order to work at a richer church parish. Reymont was defiantly stubborn; after a few years of education in the local school he was sent by his father to 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...
into the care of his eldest sister and her husband to teach him his vocation. In 1885, after passing his examinations and presenting "a tail-coat, well-made", he was given the title of journeyman tailor—his only formal certificate of education.
To his family's annoyance he did not work a single day as a tailor. Instead he first ran away to work in a travelling provincial theatre and then returned in the summer to Warsaw for the "garden theatres". Without a penny to his name he then returned to Tuszyn after a year and, thanks to his father's connections, took up employment as a gateman at a railway crossing near Koluszki
Koluszki
Koluszki is a town, and a major railway junction, in Central Poland, in Łódź Voivodeship, about 20 km east of Łódź. Population: 13,331 . The junction in Koluszki serves trains that go from Warsaw to Łódź , Wrocław, Częstochowa and Katowice. Also, it is connected with Radom and Lublin by an...
for 16 rubles a month. He escaped twice more: in 1888 to Paris and London as a medium with a German spiritualist, and then again to a theatre troupe. After his lack of success (he was not a talented actor), he returned home again. Reymont also stayed for a time in Krosnowa
Krosnowa
Krosnowa is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Słupia, within Skierniewice County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It lies approximately west of Słupia, south-west of Skierniewice, and east of the regional capital Łódź.-References:...
near Lipce
Lipce Reymontowskie
Lipce Reymontowskie is a village in Skierniewice County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Lipce Reymontowskie. It lies approximately south-west of Skierniewice and east of the regional capital Łódź.The village has a population of 1,200.-References:...
and for a time considered joining the Pauline Order
The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit
The Pauline Fathers a Hungarian order of the Roman Catholic Church, are more formally known as The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit .This name is derived from the hermit Saint Paul of Thebes , canonized in 491 by Pope Gelasius I...
in Częstochowa
Czestochowa
Częstochowa is a city in south Poland on the Warta River with 240,027 inhabitants . It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since 1999, and was previously the capital of Częstochowa Voivodeship...
. He also lived in Kołaczkowo, where he bought a mansion.
Work
When his Korespondencje (Correspondence) from RogowoRogowo
Rogowo is a village in Żnin County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Rogowo. It lies approximately south of Żnin and south-west of Bydgoszcz...
, Koluszki
Koluszki
Koluszki is a town, and a major railway junction, in Central Poland, in Łódź Voivodeship, about 20 km east of Łódź. Population: 13,331 . The junction in Koluszki serves trains that go from Warsaw to Łódź , Wrocław, Częstochowa and Katowice. Also, it is connected with Radom and Lublin by an...
and Skierniewice
Skierniewice
Skierniewice is a town in central Poland with 49,132 inhabitants , situated in the Łódź Voivodship , previously capital of Skierniewice Voivodship . It is the capital of Skierniewice County. The town is situated almost exactly half-way between Łódź and Warsaw.Skierniewice gained municipal rights...
was accepted for publication by Głos (The Voice) in Warsaw in 1892, he returned to Warsaw once more, clutching a group of unpublished short stories along with a few rubles in his pocket. Reymont then visited the editorial offices of various newspapers and magazines, and eventually met other writers who became interested in his talent. On a Mr. Świętochowski's advice, he went on a pilgrimage to Częstochowa in 1894 and wrote a report on his experience there. The report remains a classic example of travel writing.
Stefan Zeromski
Stefan Żeromski was a Polish novelist and dramatist. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature". He also wrote under the pen names: Maurycy Zych, Józef Katerla and Stefan Iksmoreż.- Life :...
, Przybyszewski, Rydel, etc.).
His earnings did not allow for this kind of life of travel. However, in 1900 he was awarded 40,000 rubles in compensation from the Warsaw-Vienna Railway
Warsaw-Vienna Railway
The Warsaw-Vienna Railway was a railway system which operated in Congress Poland, a part of the Russian Empire, from 1845 until 1912, when it was nationalized by the Russian government...
after an accident in which Reymont as a passenger was severely injured. During the treatment he was looked after by Aurelia Szacnajder Szabłowska, whom he married in 1902, having first paid for the annulment of her earlier marriage. Thanks to her discipline, he restrained his travel-mania somewhat, but never gave up either his stays in France (where he partly wrote Chłopi between 1901 and 1908) or in Zakopane
Zakopane
Zakopane , is a town in southern Poland. It lies in the southern part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998 it was in of Nowy Sącz Province, but since 1999 it has been in Lesser Poland Province. It had a population of about 28,000 as of 2004. Zakopane is a...
. Rejmont also journeyed to the United States in 1919 at the (Polish) government's expense. Despite his ambitions to become a landowner, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to manage an estate he bought in 1912 near Sieradz
Sieradz
Sieradz is a town on the Warta river in central Poland with 44,326 inhabitants . It is situated in the Łódź Voivodship , but was previously the eponymous capital of the Sieradz Voivodship , and historically one of the minor duchies in Greater Poland.It is one of the oldest towns in Poland,...
, the life of the land proved not to be for him. He would later buy Kołaczkowo Gmina Kołaczkowo near Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
in 1920, but still spent his winters in Warsaw or France.
Nobel Prize
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
, Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
and Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
. Public opinion in Poland supported the Nobel for Stefan Żeromski
Stefan Zeromski
Stefan Żeromski was a Polish novelist and dramatist. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature". He also wrote under the pen names: Maurycy Zych, Józef Katerla and Stefan Iksmoreż.- Life :...
, but the prize went to the author of Chłopi. Żeromski, considered a better candidate,, was reportedly refused for his allegedly anti-German sentiments. However, Reymont could not take part in the award ceremony in Sweden due to a heart illness. The award and the check for 116,718 Swedish kroner were sent to Reymont in France, where he was being treated
In 1925, somewhat recovered, he went to a farmers' meeting in Wierzchosławice near Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, where Wincenty Witos
Wincenty Witos
Wincenty Witos was a prominent member of the Polish People's Party from 1895, and leader of its "Piast" faction from 1913. He was a member of parliament in the Galician Sejm from 1908–1914, and an envoy to Reichsrat in Vienna from 1911 to 1918...
welcomed him as a member of PSL "Piast" (the Polish Peasant Party) and praised his writing skills. Soon after that event, Reymont's health deteriorated. He died in Warsaw in December 1925 and was buried in the Powązki Cemetery
Powazki Cemetery
Powązki Cemetery , also known as the Stare Powązki is a historic cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. It is the most famous cemetery in the city, and one of the oldest...
. The urn holding his heart was laid in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.
Reymont's literary output includes about 30 extensive volumes of prose. There are works of reportage: Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry (Pilgrimage to Jasna Góra) (1894), Z ziemi chełmskiej (From the Chełm Lands) (1910 – about the persecutions of the Uniates), Z konstytucyjnych dni (From the Days of the Constitution) (about the revolution of 1905) and some sketches from the collection Za frontem (Beyond the Front) (1919). There are numerous short stories on life in the theatre, village life or work on the railway: "Śmierć" ("Death") (1893), "Suka" ("Bitch") (1894), "Przy robocie" ("At Work") and "W porębie" ("In the Clearing") (1895), "Tomek Baran" (1897), "Sprawiedliwie" ("Justly") (1899) and a sketch for a novel Marzyciel (Dreamer) (1908). Then there are the novels: Komediantka, Fermenty, Ziemia obiecana, Chłopi, Wampir (The Vampire) (1911), which was sceptically received by the critics, and a trilogy written in the years 1911–1917: Rok 1794 (1794) (Ostatni Sejm Rzeczypospolitej, Nil desperandum and Insurekcja) (The Last Parliament of the Commonwealth, Nil desperandum and Insurrection).
Major books
Critics admit a number of similarities between Reymont and the NaturalistsNaturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
, but they stress that this was not a "borrowed" Naturalism, but rather a record of life as experienced by the writer himself. Moreover, Reymont never formulated an aesthetic of his writing. In that, he resembled other Polish autodidacts such as Mikołaj Rej and Aleksander Fredro
Aleksander Fredro
Aleksander Fredro was a Polish poet, playwright and author.-Life:Count Aleksander Fredro, of the Bończa coat of arms, was born in the village of Surochów near Jarosław, then a crown territory of Austria. A landowner's son, he was educated at home. He entered the Polish army at age 16 and saw...
. With little higher education and unable to read any foreign language, Reymont realized that it was his knowledge of grounded reality, not literary theory, that was his strong suit.
His novel Komendiantka paints the drama of a rebellious girl from the provinces who joins a traveling theater troupe and finds, instead of escape from the mendacity of her native surroundings, a nest of intrigue and sham. In Fermenty, a sequel to Komediantka, the heroine, rescued after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, returns to her family and accepts the burden of existence. Aware that dreams and ideas do not come true, she marries a nouveau riche
Nouveau riche
The nouveau riche , or new money, comprise those who have acquired considerable wealth within their own generation...
who is in love with her.
Ziemia Obiecana (The Promised Land), possibly Reymont's best-known novel, is a social panorama of the city of Łódź during the industrial revolution, full of dramatic detail, presented as an arena of the struggle for survival. In the novel, the city destroys those who accept the rules of the "rat race", as well as those who do not. The moral gangrene affects equally the three main characters, a German, a Jew, and a Pole. This dark vision of cynicism, illustrating the bestial qualities of men and the law of the jungle, where ethics, noble ideas and holy feelings turn against those who believe in them, are, as the author intended, at the same time a denunciation of industrialisation and urbanisation.
Ziemia Obiecana has been translated into at least 15 languages and two film adaptations—one in 1927, directed by A. Węgierski and A. Hertz; and the other, in 1975, directed by Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
.
In Chłopi, Reymont created a more complete and suggestive picture of country life than any other Polish writer. The novel impresses the reader with its authenticity of the material reality, customs, behaviour and spiritual culture of the people. It is even more authentic in that it is written in the local dialect. Not only did Reymont use dialect in dialogues but also in narration, creating a kind of a universal language of Polish peasants. Thanks to this, he presents the colourful reality of the "spoken" culture of the people better than any other author. He set the action of the novel in Lipce, a real village which he came to know during his work on the railway near Skierniewice, and restricted the time of events to ten months in the unspecified "now" of the nineteenth century. It is not history that determines the rhythm of country life, but the "unspecified time" of eternal returns. The composition of the novel astonishes the reader with its strict simplicity and functionality. What is easier than writing a novel about village life, restricting its plot to one year and one place? The titles of the various volumes signal a tetralogy in one vegetational cycle, which regulates the eternal and repeatable rhythm of village life. Parallel to that rhythm is a calendar of religion and customs, also repeatable. In such boundaries Reymont placed a colourful country community with sharply drawn individual portraits. The repertoire of human experience and the richness of spiritual life, which can be compared with the repertoire of Biblical books and Greek myths, has no doctrinal ideas or didactic exemplifications. The author of Chłopi does not believe in doctrines, but rather in his own knowledge of life, the mentality of the people described, and his sense of reality. It is easy to point to moments of Naturalism (e.g. some erotic elements) or to illustrative motives characteristic of Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
. It is equally easy to prove the Realistic values of the novel. None of the "isms" however, would be enough to describe it. The novel was filmed twice (directed by E. Modzelewski in 1922 and by J. Rybkowski in 1973) and has been translated into at least 27 languages.
Revolt
The story was a metaphor for the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
and was banned 1945–1989 in communist Poland, along with George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's similar novella, Animal Farm
Animal Farm
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II...
(published in Britain in 1945). It is unknown whether Orwell knew of Reymont's Revolt of over two decades earlier. Reymont's novel was reprinted in Poland in 2004.
Works
- Komediantka (The Deceiver, 1896)
- Fermenty (Ferments, 1897)
- Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land, 1898)
- Chłopi (The Peasants, 1904–1909), Nobel Prize for Literature, 1924
- Rok 1794 (1794, 1914–1919)
- Part I: Ostatni Sejm Rzeczypospolitej (The Last SejmSejmThe Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
of The Republic) - Part II: Nil desperandum
- Part III: Insurekcja (The Uprising), about the Kościuszko UprisingKosciuszko UprisingThe Kościuszko Uprising was an uprising against Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in Poland, Belarus and Lithuania in 1794...
- Part I: Ostatni Sejm Rzeczypospolitej (The Last Sejm
- Wampir – powieść grozy (The Vampire, 1911)
- Bunt (The Revolt, 1924)
See also
- FableFableA fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
- Young PolandYoung PolandYoung Poland is a modernist period in Polish visual arts, literature and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was a result of strong aesthetic opposition to the ideas of Positivism...
- List of Poles
External links
- "Death", short story at Gutenberg.org
- Peasants
- Reymont pages at University of Buffalo's Polish Info Center
- Nobel Prize in Literature 1924 for The Peasants
- Autobiography given at award of Nobel Prize in 1924
- Władysław Stanisław Reymont
- Autobiography
- Polish writer and novelist
- Wichtige Werke
- Władysław Stanisław Reymont, writer, Nobel Prize in Literature 1924
- Władysław Reymont (fragments)