Podróże literackie do Doliny Prądnika

Abstract

The interest of writers and artists in the Prądnik Valley dates back to king Stanisław August Poniatowski’s travels (1788). At the beginning, those were travels with the purpose of getting to know the country, its past and its present. Such travels were made by, inter alia, S. Staszic, J.U. Niemcewicz and K. Hoffmanowa nee Tanska. In the 19th century, together with the spreading ideology of Romanticism, more and more authors and artists visited Ojców, which epitomized the basic features of Romanticism, i.e. historism, folklore and faultless nature. The works of F. Wężyk – “Vicinity of Kraków”, Józef Łapsiński, the author of sonnets, and later on Adolf Dygasiński and Jan Lechoń, should be mentioned here. The Prądnik Valley became also an oasis of the Polish character, especially for the Congress Kingdom, because it was close to the border with Kraków, which recalled the former greatness and independence of Poland.