Troubles with the Polishness : Boy and Mickiewicz

Tadeusz Boy Żeleński read Mickiewicz as if it were a complex depiction of Polish national soul’s meanders. Love for the motherland, patriotism and prophet’s mythology on the one hand, and concealment of facts, destroying historical documents and ordinary lies on the other. Boy’s criticism, developed on the basis of French rationalism, cuts this mishmash open, like a scalpel revealing areas affected with illness that need to be cured by enlightened reason. It would appear that these nearly a century old, perverse, and thus revelatory conclusions have become almost obsolete. Nothing could be further from the truth. In Poland they will never cease to be valid...