Author
Maurycy Mochnacki 1803-1834

He was born in Bojaniec, near Zhovkva, on the 13th of September 1803. During his studies at the Department of Law of the University of Warsaw he engaged in pro-independence activity. For his participation in the operations of the Union of Free Poles he paid with imprisonment in 1823-1824. Under the pressure of the Russian authorities, he then worked up a memorial including criticism of the alleged liberalism of the educational system of Congress Poland. Although he regained his freedom in this way, the paper proved highly controversial. In 1825-1829 Mochnacki edited ‘Dziennik Warszawski’. It was in that period that he established his reputation of the leading ideologist of the Democratic camp and influential theoretician of literature and literary critic associated with the nascent Romantic current in Polish belles-lettres. Towards the end of the 1820’s, he joined the conspirators from Piotr Wysocki’s circle. Then he took part in the November Uprising, working actively in favour of the predominance of radical elements in the rebel government. Later he dedicated to the uprising his work entitled Powstanie narodu polskiego w roku 1830 i 1831. He came out against the moderate policy of the Administrative Council and Józef Chłopicki, supporting instead the dictatorship of Jan Krukowiecki. During the uprising, Mochnacki co-founded the Patriotic Society, then the central organization rallying the Democratic, and insurgent Left, environments. He took part in the fighting as an ordinary soldier, too: he even received the War Order of Virtuti Militari, and was promoted to officer rank. After the fall of the uprising, Mochnacki resolved to emigrate. He published in the columns of Pamiętnik Emigracji Polskiej, though in the course of time he moved still further away from the main current of the political life of Polish emigration. He died in Auxerre on the 20th of December 1834.

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