FROM BRAZIL TO POLAND PEASANTS, NATION AND LITERATURE IN PUBLIC DISCOURSE AT THE TURN OF 19TH AND 20TH C. (MARIA KONOPNICKA'S "PAN BALCER W BRAZYLII" ⟨"MR. BALCER IN BRAZIL"⟩)

The author interprets Maria Konopnicka's Pan Balcer w Brazylii (Mr. Balcer in Brazil) as a voice in public debate at the turn of 19th and 20th c. about the issue of nationalisation of peasants. The analysis of selected literary motifs which organise the poem's plot, as e.g. land (patrimony), religion, history, sacrifice, allow for discerning Konopnicka's key categories of the notion of nation. The work also includes a metaliterary reflection which takes up the problem of function of literature in the nation-formation process. Factors contained in the text lead to a suggestion that it was not much a record of existing national relationships, but rather a project of their creation. Konopnicka's poem is an example of the, invention" of folk tradition by the intellectuals at the turn of centuries. The author of the paper tries to settle the problem referring to the reasons of the phenomenon's intensification, and wants to describe its mechanism, circumstances, and meaning.