Bolesław Prus

Bolesław Prus (1847-1912), pseudonym of the Polish novelist and journalist Aleksander Głowacki, leading representative of the antiromantic movement in Polish literature known as positivism (see Polish Literature: Polish Positivism). Together with the writers Eliza Orzeszkowa and Henryk Sienkiewicz, Prus created the modern Polish novel. He was born in Hrubieszów on the present Polish-Ukrainian border. After the death of his parents, Prus was cared for by an older brother and an aunt in Lublin.

In 1863 when the Poles were in revolt against Russia, Prus, then 16, joined the Polish army. He was wounded and imprisoned by the Russians for a short time in Lublin. Upon his release he returned to school to complete the lyceum education he had started earlier.

In 1866 Prus went to Warsaw to continue his studies at the Szkoia Giówna, where he was enrolled in mathematics and physics coursework. Because of his limited funds, he left school in 1868 and worked in a variety of jobs. In 1872 he began journalistic work for the Opiekun Domowy (Home Guardian), a Warsaw paper. Soon he was writing for the Przeglad Tygodniowy (Weekly Review), the chief periodical of the Warsaw positivists. He contributed satirical articles, sketches, and 'chronicles,' in which he discussed major social and political issues. His reputation as a publicist spread, and he became editor of his own paper, Nowiny (News).

Prus also wrote short stories and novels. Early in his career he experimented with a variety of short-story forms in a style noted for its precision, concreteness, and simplicity. His best-known short stories include the works “Kamizelka” (The Waistcoat), “Grzechy dziecigstwa” (Sins of Childhood), and “Powiastki ementarne” (Cemetery Tales).

In 1885 Prus's first novel, Placówka (The Outpost), was published, about a Polish peasant's heroic resistance to German colonists in Prussian Poland. This was followed in 1890 by the novel Lalka (The Doll), a vast panorama of contemporary Warsaw. Four years later he published Emancypantki (The Emancipationists), a novel in four volumes about the feminist movement in Poland. His other novels include Faraon (1897; The Pharaoh), Dzieci (1908; Children), and Przemiany (1912; Changes).

Prus never ceased publicist activity and wrote several important social studies. The most noteworthy are: “Szkic programu w warunkach obecnego rozwoju spolL eczegstwa” (1883; Sketch of a Program in the Light of the Conditions of the Present Development of Society), “Najogólniejsze ideaiy zyciowe” (1901; 'The Most General Ideals of Life'), and “Nasze obecne poiozenie” (1909-1910; Our Present Situation).