The Orient in the Work of “Polish Caucasian Poets”. A Case Study of the Poetry of Tadeusz Łada-Zabłocki, Władysław Strzelnicki and Michał Butowt-Andrzejkowicz

Abstract

This paper deals with the theme of the Orient in the creativity of “Polish Caucasian poets” (Tadeusz Łada-Zabłocki, Władysław Strzelnicki and Michał Butowt-Andrzejkowicz), as well as the causes of their interests in The East and The Caucasus. According to the author, it is connected with the blossoming of Romanticism in Europe and Russia in the first half of the 19th century. Romantic writers very often referred in their creativity to the themes of romantic love, knighthood, fight for freedom, nature and its beauty, spiritual essence, Orient, world of fantasies and imagination, as well as mythologism or mysticism. The theme of the Orient allowed them to combine all the above-mentioned themes. For “Polish Caucasian poets”, the Caucasus was the East, and romanticism in their creation contributed to view the Caucasus as a different (than ordinary) world offering other possibilities, a different degree and quality of freedom.Therefore, the romanticism of “Polish Caucasian poets” was closely connected with Caucasian orientalism, which enriched Polish literature with new contents. Orientalism in the creativity of “Polish Caucasian poets” acquired its specificity with the dominant motives  referring to freedom, descriptions of nature and beautiful Caucasian landscapes, Eastern (Azerbaijani) mythology, etc. In this way, “Polish Caucasian poets” brought to the Polish romantic literature hitherto unknown in it a new exotic Caucasian colouration and played an important role in the development of relations between the Polish culture and the cultures of Caucasian peoples.