Maurycy Mochnacki

Maurycy Mochnacki (born September 13, 1803, Bojaniec, Russian Empire [now Boyanets, Ukraine]—died December 20, 1834, Auxerre, France) was an early Polish Romantic literary critic who passionately advocated Romanticism and was the first Polish critic to define the part literature might play in the spiritual and political life of society.

As a student at the University of Warsaw, Mochnacki became interested in theories of poetry and eventually headed the so-called school of Warsaw Romantic critics. In 1825 he published “O duchu i źródłach poezji w Polszcze” (“On the Spirit and Sources of Poetry in Poland”), a polemical essay attacking another writer’s essay on classical and Romantic writing. In it he set out a far-reaching program for Romantic poetry that gave him a well-established position as a leader of the Romantic critics in Warsaw.

Mochnacki took part in the insurrection of November 29, 1830, against Russian rule, was wounded, and became an exile in France, where he contributed political articles to Pamiętnik emigracji polskiej (“Memoirs of the Polish Émigrés”) from 1832 to 1833. His Powstanie narodu polskiego w r. 1830 i 1831 (1834; “The Insurrection of the Polish Nation in the Years 1830 and 1831”) is considered the best firsthand account and study of that period. Of his literary essays, “O literaturze polskiej wieku XIX” (1830; “On Polish Literature of the 19th Century”), in which he maintains that through literature a nation should recognize its unique characteristics, is considered the most important.