Abstract:
The poetry of the Polish „Caucasians” of the 1830-50s is, for the
most part, the poetry of messages and epitaphs. Even devotion to a
woman often reminds us of a kind of epitaph of hope, of love, since
it is known from the beginning that a meeting does not take place.
The Caucasian branch of literature is uniquely a masculine world
that obeys the rules of exile and war. Topics, worldview, language
and even forms of expression are subject to extreme situations. This
is a kind of account of the fate of the soldiers and their movements,
it is a “military campaign writing”. In this highly masculine poetry we lack something important –
the existence of a woman. Of course, the faces of women appear,
but it is almost not a real object, which should be the main one in
“masculine” poetry.
Tadeush Lada-Zablotsky steadfastly avoids the reality of romantic
love in a dream world. We do not even know if he had a real
girlfriend in the Caucasus. We cannot understand this from poetic
messages. In the last, “Caucasian” period, this feeling deepens, but
with the complete unearthiness, it takes on a new, real basis: the
woman is far away and lost forever.
Stanislav Vinicki has a lyrical poem “Georgian Woman”. For a
man who catches the eye of a Georgian woman, this woman remains
an inaccessible statue, but a “statue of a Caucasian angel”, that is, an
embodiment of inaccessible values.
Xavier Petrashkevich praised the dancing Georgian woman. He
added detailed comments to the poem. Its lines show the specificity
of the scene, the materiality, although there is a deeper layer hidden
behind the appearance. Dancing Georgian woman is the embodiment
of femininity and at the same time, a symbol of the spirituality
of the Georgian people.
Thus, in the work of “Caucasians”, women live in the world of
dreams, dreams that have almost no hope of being realized. This is
another “voice to the end”, behind which is hidden personal drama.
It tones the whole literature of exile in a kind of “weakened” way.
