DOI Heft:
Nr. 2
DOI Artikel:Murawska-Muthesius, Katarzyna: The myth of bohemianism in nineteenth-century Warsaw
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51715#0195
3. Franciszek Kostryewski: Pr%e-
prowafka (The More). Repro:
KOSTRZEIFSK11881 (see in
note 31), p. 21.
conspiratorial activities, or chased by the Tsarist
police and forced to flee the country.13 14
And yet, in spite of the radicalism which was
found in the “young writerly culture of Warsaw”^ both
by Dembowski and by the Tsarist apparatus, the
group of Filleborn and his companions was identi-
fied by their contemporaries primarily, “not by what
they did, but how they lived and what tbey looked like”. Ina
striking analogy to the Parisian bohème of the 1830s,
almost parallel in time, they performed “their Identities
through outrageons gestures, eccentric clothes and subversive
life stylet, abolishing the boundary between life and
art.15 However, instead of Gautier’s famous “redsatin
waistcoat, meticulously tailoredforthe occasion) the Warsaw
cultural rebels were attracted to shabby black coats,
worn every day, as if prefiguring, already in the early
1840s, the codes of “sentimental bohemia) to be im-
mortalised soon by Henri Murger.16 * According to
one account, a largely unsympathetic one, Warsaw
bohemians “ were wearingtheirhair long, theirbeardswide,
13 Ibidem.
14 KAWYN, S.: Cyganeria wars^awska [The Warsaw Bohemia].
Wroclaw 2004 (1967), p. 262.
15 I am borrowing the words of Mary Gluck. - GLUCK, M.:
Populär Bohemia. Modernism and Urban Culture in Nineteenth-
-Century Paris. Cambridge - London, p. 27.
frock-coats ragged and shoes deformed. Onefrock-coat and one
pairof shoes served several companions. They took theirpride
in poverty, and in the same way in which plutocrats put their
riches on display, so they would show off their rags. [...] They
improvised while drinking, and they could raise their thoughts
high up while taking delight in living in apit? Or, accord-
ing to another description, they were “always ready
for any démonstration, either by takingpart in it, or through
their writings. They kept themselves intentionally dirty and
miserable, raising noise and tumult also in the Street?^
Indeed, amongst the most famous actions of the
group was a noisy parade of all its members through
the streets of Warsaw, which was vividly described
by the group’s “apprentice” Waclaw Szymanowski in
1855.18 It is worth having a doser look at this event,
as it encapsulâtes the major attitudes and strategies
adopted by the poets, which would later be emulated
by the Olszynski group, as recorded in a drawing
by Franciszek Kostrzewski [Fig. 3], Officially, the
literáti assembled to give a helping hand to one of
16 Ibidem, p. 28.
17 GOMULICKI 1964 (see in note 11), p. 25; KAWYN 2004
(see in note 14), p. XLIX.
18 GOMULICKI 1964 (see in note 11), pp. 119-130.
187
prowafka (The More). Repro:
KOSTRZEIFSK11881 (see in
note 31), p. 21.
conspiratorial activities, or chased by the Tsarist
police and forced to flee the country.13 14
And yet, in spite of the radicalism which was
found in the “young writerly culture of Warsaw”^ both
by Dembowski and by the Tsarist apparatus, the
group of Filleborn and his companions was identi-
fied by their contemporaries primarily, “not by what
they did, but how they lived and what tbey looked like”. Ina
striking analogy to the Parisian bohème of the 1830s,
almost parallel in time, they performed “their Identities
through outrageons gestures, eccentric clothes and subversive
life stylet, abolishing the boundary between life and
art.15 However, instead of Gautier’s famous “redsatin
waistcoat, meticulously tailoredforthe occasion) the Warsaw
cultural rebels were attracted to shabby black coats,
worn every day, as if prefiguring, already in the early
1840s, the codes of “sentimental bohemia) to be im-
mortalised soon by Henri Murger.16 * According to
one account, a largely unsympathetic one, Warsaw
bohemians “ were wearingtheirhair long, theirbeardswide,
13 Ibidem.
14 KAWYN, S.: Cyganeria wars^awska [The Warsaw Bohemia].
Wroclaw 2004 (1967), p. 262.
15 I am borrowing the words of Mary Gluck. - GLUCK, M.:
Populär Bohemia. Modernism and Urban Culture in Nineteenth-
-Century Paris. Cambridge - London, p. 27.
frock-coats ragged and shoes deformed. Onefrock-coat and one
pairof shoes served several companions. They took theirpride
in poverty, and in the same way in which plutocrats put their
riches on display, so they would show off their rags. [...] They
improvised while drinking, and they could raise their thoughts
high up while taking delight in living in apit? Or, accord-
ing to another description, they were “always ready
for any démonstration, either by takingpart in it, or through
their writings. They kept themselves intentionally dirty and
miserable, raising noise and tumult also in the Street?^
Indeed, amongst the most famous actions of the
group was a noisy parade of all its members through
the streets of Warsaw, which was vividly described
by the group’s “apprentice” Waclaw Szymanowski in
1855.18 It is worth having a doser look at this event,
as it encapsulâtes the major attitudes and strategies
adopted by the poets, which would later be emulated
by the Olszynski group, as recorded in a drawing
by Franciszek Kostrzewski [Fig. 3], Officially, the
literáti assembled to give a helping hand to one of
16 Ibidem, p. 28.
17 GOMULICKI 1964 (see in note 11), p. 25; KAWYN 2004
(see in note 14), p. XLIX.
18 GOMULICKI 1964 (see in note 11), pp. 119-130.
187