Józef Ignacy Kraszewski was a 19th-century Polish journalist, publisher, and historian best known for his epic series telling the history of Poland. Credited with at least 240 novels, he is considered as the most prolific Polish writer ever. 

The young Józef grew up in a family of the Polish nobility. Following his studies of medicine and philosophy in Vilnius, he actively endorsed the November Uprising in 1830. His patriotic involvement led to his arrest by the Russian authorities in 1832, which kept him under police supervision even after his release. 

In the late 1830s, he married the niece of the former Bishop of Warsaw Jan Paweł Woronicz, Zofia Woroniczówna, with whom he had 4 children. In 1839, he published his first important novel, “Poeta i Świat” (The Poet and the World). 

He spent the next ten years writing a tremendous amount of works. He published the scientific and literary journal Athenaeum and later became a redactor for the Gazeta Warszawska.

In 1853, he became a school Superintendent in the city of Żytomierz (today’s Zhytomyr in Ukraine, editor’s note) as well as Director of the local theatre. He was an active member of the „Committee for the Liberation of the Peasant Estate” which advocated in favour of land grants. 

In 1859, he became the editor-in-chief of the right-wing Gazeta Polska. Two years later, he became a member of a secret organisation called Komitet Miejski (City Committee), fomenting the upcoming January Uprising.  

He spent the last 20 years of his life travelling across Western Europe in the hope of not being caught by the Russian authorities, who were looking for him as an influential troublemaker amid the Tsar’s expansionist policy on Polish soil. 

The 1860s were a period of aggressive Russification of Poland in virtually every major life department. It is the period when Russia even tried to replace the Latin alphabet used in the Polish language with the Cyrillic script, which was an unsuccessful undertaking, to say the least. 

Józef Kraszewski died at the age of 75, following imprisonment in the German city of Magdeburg. He left an enormous legacy of over 240 novels and short stories behind him. His best-known works are the „Saxon Novels„, which consist of 6 large parts telling the story of the Electorate of Saxony from 1697 to 1763. 

Image: Laski Diffusion / EAST NEWS
Author: Sébastien Meuwissen