Maria Janion

Maria Janion (24 December 1926 – 23 August 2020) was a Polish scholar, literary theorist and critic, as well as a feminist. She was a professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, specialising in literary Romanticism.

Janion was also a member of the Polish Academy of Learning. She held an honorary degree from Gdańsk University.

Life and career She was born on 24 December 1926 in Mońki, Second Polish Republic, to father Cyprian Janion and mother Ludwika (née Kurdyk). Until 1945 she resided in Vilnius, where she graduated from secondary school and spent the years of the Second World War. She was a member of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (Polish: , ZHP), which was affiliated with the Home Army, and worked as a liaison officer. After the war, she and her family moved to Bydgoszcz as a result of the postwar population transfers.

In 1945, she passed the Matura high school leaving exam in Toruń. She studied Polish studies at the University of Łódź. Since 1946, she attended a literary criticism course run by Stefan Żółkiewski of the weekly magazine. In 1947, she started to publish her own articles and reviews and joined the Academic Union of Youth Struggle "Life". In 1948, she became a member of the editorial staff of the ("Countryside") weekly. In 1948, she was employed at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences where she worked until her retirement in 1996.

She became more critical of the imposed views and values in regards to Polish literature, both classical and contemporary, and to Polish views on war, soldiers, heroism, military uprisings and martyrdom. In 1976 she published a study on war and form, discussing the recently published Private Journal of the Warsaw Uprising by poet Miron Białoszewski. Because she described the journal as a work portraying war and uprising from a civil, non-mythological, non-heroic perspective, she was widely criticized. She was accused, like Miron Białoszewski, of disgracing Polish values. Her independent opinions, which won respect among students and academic members, as well as her connections to the opposition, caused her to become a potential enemy of the state.

When the Solidarity movement began, Janion signed the letter issued by 64 intellectuals supporting the strikes, yet calling for actions that would not contribute to bloodshed. In 1981 she made an appearance at the Congress of Polish Culture, which was interrupted by the introduction of martial law in Poland. She called for the huge national movement, which was so far mainly driven by passion, to be turned into an intellectual effort. Between 1997 and 2004 she served on the jury of the Nike Award, Poland's top literary prize, and from 2000 to 2004 she worked as chairperson of the jury. From 1992 until 2010, she continued to give open lectures at the Institute of Sociology and Philosophy of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Romanticism as a revolution of thought According to Janion, Romanticism is a revolution of thought which allows different insights into history, nature and humanity. She stressed that in Romanticism with time there is increasing importance of a sense of the absurd and grotesque with regard to existence, expressed in irony and melancholy. She traces the birth of Romanticism to the re-discovery of the modern "self", which in the beginning primarily manifested itself in individualism exploring the experience and the mystery of a particular existence. The Romantic imagination revealed a new reality: an inner world of dreams and phantasms. She introduced the idea of the "subconscious human" expressing previously hidden and repressed thoughts even though there still remained various spheres of suppression. The Romantic liberation was made possible thanks to the rejection of classicism and its dogmatic and one-dimensional understanding of tradition, which restricted imagination. The Romantic multilateral and pluralistic perspective on tradition became the basis for the new cultural paradigm. However, in her work The Romantic Fever, she demonstrates that Romanticism could not hold itself to a static and unambiguous system — not even among its epigones, since they merely reinforced its antinomies and transformed them into stereotypes.

In her books, she discussed numerous aspects of this new paradigm such as the new Romantic hero; a radical violation of the death taboo; re-exploration of the hidden and forgotten which led to the ennobling of vernacular cultures (folk culture in particular, but also pagan, Slavic, Nordic and Oriental cultures); the concept of nature as a model; a mode of existence which in an inevitable way identifies creation with destruction or even self-destruction and life with death; the understanding of history as a theophany; the dramatic philosophy of existence stretching from salvation to nothingness; as well as suppressed existential experiences (that of a child, madman or a woman).

Uncanny Slavdom In the book ("Uncanny Slavdom"), Janion deployed Edward Said's concept of Orientalism to prove that in the Middle Ages Western Slavs underwent colonization by Roman Catholicism. According to Janion, Poles entering the realm of Latin influence severed them from pagan tradition and has become for them a source of trauma, which continues to affect their present collective identity. This interpretation has been challenged by Dariusz Skórczewski as a misapplication of postcolonial theory and a misinterpretation of the role of Christianity in the Polish lands.

Personal life She publicly came out as a lesbian in book entitled . She actively promoted feminism in Poland and was known for her criticism of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and misogyny.

Awards and honours Award for the book ("Romanticism, Revolution, Marxism"), 1972 Polish Academy of Sciences Secretary Award for the book ("Romantic Fever"), 1977 Polish Academy of Sciences Secretary Award for the book ("Romanticism and History") co-written with Maria Żmigrodzka, 1979 Jurzykowski Prize, 1980 Honorary degree at the University of Gdańsk, 1994 Great Culture Foundation Award , 1999 Kazimierz Wyka Award, 2001 Amicus Hominis et Veritatis Prize, 2005 Golden Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, 2007 Paszport Polityki Award, 2007 Finalist of the Nike Award for the book , 2007 Splendor Gedanensis Award, 2007 Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, 2009 "Hiacynt" LGBT Award conferred by the Equality Foundation, 2009 Special Award of the Congress of Women, 2010 Ordre national du Mérite, (France), 2012 Jan Parandowski PEN Club Prize, 2018

Published works In Polish: Lucjan Siemieński, , PIW, Warsaw, 1955 Zygmunt Krasiński, , Wiedza Powszechna, Warsaw, 1962 , PIW, Warsaw, 1969 , ("Romanticism, Revolution, Marxism"), Wydawnictwo Morskie, Gdańsk, 1972 , PIW, Warsaw, 1974 , ("Romantic Fever"), PIW, Warsaw, 1975 ("Romanticism and History"), co-written with Maria Żmigrodzka, PIW, Warsaw, 1978 , ("The Refurbishment of Meanings"), Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków, 1980 , PIW, Warsaw, 1984 , ("In View of Evil"), Verba, Chotomów, 1989 , ("The Posthumous Life of Konrad Wallenrod"), PIW, Warsaw, 1990 ("The Project of Phantasmatic Criticism"), PEN, Warsaw, 1991 , Gdańsk, 1994 , ("Women and the Spirit of Dissidence"), Warsaw, 1996 , Warsaw, 1996 , Warsaw, 1998 , co-written with Maria Żmigrodzka, Aureus, Kraków, 1998 ("To Europe : Yes, but Together with our Dead"), Warsaw, 2000 , Gdańsk, 2001 , ("Living to Lose Live"), W.A.B., Warsaw, 2001 ("Vampire: A Symbolic Biography"), Gdańsk, 2002 , ("Romanticism and Existence") with Maria Żmigrodzka, 2004 , WL, Kraków, 2006

In English: Hero, Conspiracy, and Death: The Jewish Lectures, translated by Alex Shannon (2014) "Poland Between the West and the East", translated by Anna Warso (2014), in Teksty Drugie, 1, pp. 13-33. Special Issue – English Edition (https://rcin.org.pl/Content/51830/WA248_71041_P-I-2524_janion-poland.pdf)