Stanisław Brzozowski (writer)
| Stanisław Brzozowski | |
|---|---|
 Stanisław Brzozowski, 1878-1911 | |
| Born |
June 28, 1878 Maziarnia, Congress Poland, Russian Empire |
| Died |
April 31, 1911 (aged 32) Florence, Kingdom of Italy |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Occupation | Philosopher, writer, literary critic |
Stanisław Brzozowski (28 June 1878 – 30 April 1911) was a Polish philosopher, writer, publicist, literary and theatre critic. He is considered to be one of the most important Polish philosophers of all time and is known for his concept of the 'philosophy of labour', rooted in Marxism,. Besides Marx, among his major inspirations were Sorel, Nietzsche, Bergson, Carlyle, and Newman. Brzozowski's core idea was based on the concept of socially engaged intellectual (artist). Although he was in favour of historical materialism, he strongly argued against its deterministic interpretation. In his philosophical approaches, Brzozowski rejected all the concepts that were comodyfing a human being.
Polish intellectuals (Czesław Miłosz,[1] Andrzej Walicki,[2] Leszek Kołakowski[3]) have stressed that his widely unknown interpretations of Marx's early writings were to much extent anticipating those presented later by György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci.
Biography
Leopold Stanisław Leon Brzozowski was born in 1878 in Maziarnia, a village near Chełm. Despite ordinary background of his family (impoverished gentry), he attended to private schools which allowed him to apply for university place at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Warsaw in 1896. In 1897 Brzozowski was involved in students' riots against Russian professors teaching at the university. As the consequence of riots, many of the students (including Brzozowski) were expelled from the university for a period of one year. At that time Brzozowski was the chief of the student organisation 'Bratniak', designed to maintain financial support for the expelled students. In order to help his father who suffered from a fatal illness, Brzozowski decided to use organisation's funds. Although he had promised himself to give money back as soon as possible, his embezzlement was discovered. The arbitration panel of the fellow members excluded Brzozowski from the activities of the organisation for three years. In the same year (1898) he was imprisoned as the result of the investigations into the secret activities of the Society for People’s Education.[4]
Since Autumn 1898 Brzozowski suffered heavily from tuberculosis which was a consequence of the time spent in prison. For recovery reasons, he decided to go to the sanatorium in Otwock. In 1900 he met there Antonina Kolberg and they married the next year. In 1903 his only child, daughter Anna Irena, was born. His health problems accompanied him for the rest of his life. In 1905 for the first time he went to Nevi, Italy to receive more intense medical care. In 1906 he went to Italy again and resided in Florence until his death in 1911. Last few years of his life, although spent in gradually degrading material and health conditions, were the most productive period of his life. Brzozowski then wrote his opus magnum - novel Płomienie [Flames] - a response to Dostoyevsky The Possessed, as well as main books concerning his philosophical and cultural program: Idee. Wstęp do filozofii dojrzałości dziejowej. (Ideas. An introduction to the Historical Maturity) and Legenda Młodej Polski (The Legend of Young Poland).
Intellectual profile
Brzozowski was an influential critic of Polish social and philosophical thought, analyst of literature and piercing observer of Polish and European everyday life. He was an unambiguous critic of traditionalism and provincialism of main currents of Polish 19th century literature. In particular, Brzozowski was a strong opponent of historical novels, represented mainly by the Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz. Brzozowski's radical attacks on Sienkiewicz's works made him persona non grata in Polish artistic mainstream.
Brzozowski held a unique position as an astute critic of Polish contemporary culture, known as Young Poland (Polish modernism) or neoromanticism. His Legenda Młodej Polski represents the most comprehensive denunciation of those forms of the Polish mind, which, in Brzozowski’s words, represent "the delusion of cultural consciousness."[5]
Connection of Marxism and Catholicism
As for his philosophical heritage, Brzozowski tended to experience quite radical shifts in his world-view as the result of subsequent readings. His first important philosophical inspiration was Friedrich Nietzsche and his notion of historical sense which Brzozowski found particularly valuable. After focusing on Nietzsche, Brzozowski moved closer towards Kant which eventually enabled him to develop his philosophy on the Marxist ground. Besides having many vital inspirations, Marxism played central role in his intellectual biography and for the longest period of his short life, he was a Marxist thinker. His interpretation of Karl Marx's thought was anti-naturalist and anti-positivist. Brzozowski was an ardent critic of Friedrich Engels and his role in developing Marxist thought. He accused Engels of 'vulgar determinism' and leading Marxism towards naive and reductionist perspective of 'economic necessity'.[6] Finally, he developed his own philosophical program called 'philosophy of labour' that emphasized the role of human activity in creating and re-creating the reality. This was a concept rejecting reification and alienation of human acts and, in Brzozowski's notion, was the natural expansion of key Marxist ideas.
Brzozowski in his philosophy focused on subjective factors of work; on the quality of human will and on cohesion and strength of live social bond determining this quality. He thought that examination of work from the perspective of experience acquired in the process of its performance, or its “internal” analysis, made it possible to prove that the ultimate basis of work and its products arising in human awareness as “objectively” given world, was subjective physical effort, maintained by the strength of human will. This effort, its appropriate level and progress, depends on other forms of labour, creating proper organization and culture of societies: work, its quality, amount, it is a subtle creation of will, maintained by entire customs, which in turn is a very subtle and complicated creation.
Brzozowski reaches the conclusion that an essential condition of the discipline of will is a strong, traditional moral bond. This results in recognizing religion as a valuable school of will and a precious element of intense social bond. The essence of work is therefore the inner life of a human being, spirituality, “willingness to work”, although strongly rooted in customs, in culture. This emphasis on roots indicates that community is of crucial importance for work continuity.
Contemporary significance in Poland
Stanisław Brzozowski has an established position as a one of the most important intellectuals in modern Polish history. His cultural and philosophical activity has been regurarly debated throughout the last century in Poland. He became the point of reference for subsequent generations of Polish intellectuals. Although identified mainly with the political left, the subtelty and open-endedness of his thought allowed some groups from the right to identify themselves with Brzozowski's ideas as well.
Since 2002 Brzozowski has been the patron of Krytyka Polityczna, a Polish left-wing intellectual society organised around a journal of the same title founded by Sławomir Sierakowski in 2002. In 2005 the Stanisław Brzozowski Association was founded and began to publish the journal. The Association's core idea resembles that of its patron: that intellectuals are public figure who ought to live a socially involved and committed life.
Main works
- Pod ciężarem Boga ("Under the Burden of God") [first published in 1901, novel]
- Filozofia czynu ("The Philosophy of Act") [1903]
- Wiry ("The Whirpools") [1904, novel]
- Kultura i życie. Zagadnienia sztuki i twórczości w walce o światopogląd ("Culture and Life") [1907]
- Płomienie ("Flames") [1908, novel]
- Legenda Młodej Polski. Studia o strukturze duszy kulturalnej ("The Legend of Young Poland. Studies on the Structure of the Cultural Spirit") [1910]
- Idee. Wstęp do filozofii dojrzałości dziejowej ("Ideas. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Historical Maturity") [1910]
- Sam wśród ludzi ("Alone Among People") [1911, novel]
- Głosy wśród nocy. Studia nad przesileniem romantycznym kultury europejskiej ("Voices in the Night. Studies on the Romantic Turning Point in European Culture") [1912]
- Pamiętnik Stanisława Brzozowskiego ("The Diary") [1913]
- Widma moich współczesnych ("The Ghosts of My Contemporaries") [1914]
- Książka o starej kobiecie ("A Book About an Old Woman") [1914, novel]
References
- ↑ Miłosz Cz., "A controversial Polish writer: Stanisław Brzozowski", in California Slavic Studies, vol. 2, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1963:53–95
- ↑ Walicki A., Stanisław Brzozowski and the Polish beginnings of >Western Marxism<", Oxford University Press, 1989
- ↑ Kołakowski L., Main Currents of Marxism, vol. 2, Oxford University Press, 1978
- ↑ Mackiewicz W., Brzozowski, Wiedza Powszechna, Warszawa, 1983
- ↑ http://danassays.wordpress.com/encyclopedia-of-the-essay/brzozowski-stanislaw/
- ↑ Brzozowski S., "Idee. Wstęp do filozofii dojrzałości dziejowej", Kraków 1990
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