KRASIŃSKI, ZYGMUNT. – Polish poet, b. in Paris on 18 February 1812, d. there on 23 February 1859; he was one of the three greatest Romantics of his nation. He led an unhappy life from his earliest youth, tormented by the inner struggle between filial devotion and patriotic feeling: his father, a Napoleonic general who had entered the service of Russia, was a Legitimist; Z., on the other hand, suffered deeply from all the misfortunes inflicted upon Poland by tsarist oppression. Forced at the age of seventeen to leave Warsaw because of the hostility of his university companions, he went abroad, and his father did not permit him to return to his homeland when the uprising of 1830 broke out.
What renunciation of action cost the young man is expressed in a letter in which he invokes the mercy of Christ, who alone can understand him. Nevertheless, he did not rebel; he lived in exile in France, Germany, and Italy. At his father’s inflexible insistence, he married Isabella Branicka, while his heart was filled with love for Delfina Potocka; this saddened his life even more profoundly, already undermined by fragile health. The work of K., which he published under the pseudonym of “anonymous poet of Poland,” reflects his tragic inner experiences in the conflict between his feelings as a Christian and as a Pole. At a time when hatred and bloody struggles seethed alongside national aspirations, and everywhere lofty ends clashed with the brutal means that K. abhorred, he painfully sought his way, rising from the desolation of darkness to the light of faith and love. In Nieboska Komedja he describes with prophetic spirit the social struggles that were only just beginning to take shape; in Iridjon (“Iridion”), the Greek who hates Rome and has vainly conspired to destroy its power, he abandons his soul to the prince of darkness so that he may grant him one day the sight of Rome in ruins; when, after six centuries, he awakens, he understands that it was not hatred but the love of the Christians of the catacombs, who lived by prayer and martyrdom, that triumphed over that seemingly invincible power; through the intercession of a Christian virgin, his soul too will be saved, and Iridion will be reborn in Poland. A light of hope for the world oppressed by suffering shines in Przedświt (“The Dawn”), one of the most perfect poems in Polish literature, in Trzy mylły H. Ligenzy (“Three Thoughts of E. Ligenza”), in the Psalmy przys-złości (“Psalms of the Future”), and generally in his lyrics. K.’s work is extensive and also includes other poems and youthful novels. Niedoholszowy poemat (“Unfinished Poem”) was published posthumously; so were the Listy (“Letters”), of great beauty. K.’s writings, by turns dramatic, lyrical, and symbolic, possess a strong philosophical content inspired by the Hegelian Cieszkowski, who explained the history of humanity in a great commentary on the Pater.