Jacobins, Communists, “Caretakers”

Manifestations of Revolutionary Activism as a main theme in Zbigniew Herbert’s Published and Unpublished Writings

Abstract

This article discusses Zbigniew Herbert’s writings in which the poet depicted episodes of three historical revolutions – the French Revolution of 1789, the October Revolution of 1917 and its historical consequence in the form of Polish Stalinism in the 1950s as well as the moral and cultural revolution resulting from the political activity of the New Left of the 1960s and 70s. The paper offers a comparative approach to the issue, comparing both the theories and practices characteristic of these historical events, as well as individual attitudes and behaviours, with particular emphasis on the involvement of artists and intellectuals in each of the aforementioned revolutionary movements. In describing  revolutionary  events,  the  poet  drew  on  both  historiography  and  journalism. The interpretative reflection presented here focuses on Herbert’s published lyrical works, essays and commentaries found in his correspondence and interviews as well as unpublished notes made in connection with a planned book on a representative of French Neoclassicism at the turn of the 19^th century, Jacques Louis David, and notes for a literary work, tentatively titled Rewolucja dozorców (The Caretakers’ Revolution).