The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [421]
the Italian war of 1859: the war between the Kingdom of Sardinia (supported by France) and Austria; a vital stage in the process of the unification of Italy.
Rakoczi March: a patriotic Hungarian march.
a Napoleon has turned up: the reference here is to Louis Napoleon’s attempted coup d’état in 1840.
The new Napoleon has been thrown into prison: Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état of 1840 proved unsuccessful. He was taken prisoner, sentenced to life imprisonment and on 7 October 1840 placed in the fortress of Ham in Northern France. Cham is Polish for ‘cad’.
Schublade: the Polish word for ‘drawer’ is szuflada, so Frau Mincel explains that Schublade means szuflada.
Andrássy: Count Julius Andrassy (1823–90), a prominent figure in the 1848 Hungarian revolution against Austrian rule. Andrassy became Prime Minister of Hungary after the formation of the Dual Monarchy in 1867.
a Turkish Wallenrod: an allusion to a long poem by Adam Mickiewicz, Konrad Wallenrod (1828). The poem tells the story of the medieval Lithuanians’ struggle against the Teutonic Knights. The hero, Konrad Wallenrod, a Lithuanian, joins the ranks of the Teutonic Knights and works his way up to the position of Grand Master, only to orchestrate their defeat. The implication is that Wokulski, as a Pole driven by patriotic motives, had some hidden agenda of undermining Russian success while supplying the Russian military in the Russo-Turkish War.
Fifteen years ago: an allusion to the year 1863 — the date of the abortive Polish uprising in which Wokulski participated.
Un-Divine Comedy: a Romantic play by Count Zygmunt Krasiński (1835). The play paints a catastrophic vision of the future bloodshed between the old aristocracy and the rebellious masses. In it, the Holy Trinity Fortress (a historic site in the Ukraine) is the last place on earth defended by the desperate aristocrats against the victorious, barbaric rebellion.
Repenting the enthusiasm of his youth: another allusion to Wokulski’s penal exile to Siberia after the defeat of the Polish uprising of 1863.
Czerski, Czekanowski, Dybowski: eminent Polish scholars exiled to Siberia after the Uprising of 1863. During their time in exile they conducted geographic, geological, biological and anthropological studies of Siberia.
The years 1846 and 1847 … people disappeared: the years 1846–7 brought an escalation of the activities of the Polish clandestine liberation movement against the powers occupying Polish territory. A general uprising was planned for 1846 in all three parts of Poland, occupied respectively by Russia, Prussia and Austria. In the event, uprisings took place in the Prussian and Austrian parts, while the wave of arrests and repressions by the Russian authorities prevented any further developments in the Russian part.
Our journey … October 1849: in 1848, about four thousand young Poles left the Russian-occupied part of Polish territory to take part in the so-called Springtime of Nations. About two thousand of them fought against Austria for the independence of Hungary. After the defeat of the Hungarian uprising, many of them emigrated to the United States, England and Turkey.
General Bem: Józef Bem (1797–1850), a Polish general; a participant of the Polish uprising against Russia in 1831; in 1848–9, the commander of the revolutionary forces in Vienna; later, the commander of the Hungarian insurgents in Transylvania and, in August 1849, the commander-in-chief of the Hungarian army. After the defeat of the Hungarian uprising he emigrated to Turkey.
Haynau: Julius Haynau (1786–1853): Austrian field marshal who quelled the Hungarian uprising in 1849.
Kossuth: Lájos Kossuth (1802–94): Hungarian politician and leader of the 1848–9 uprising.
I stayed over a year in Zamość: Zamość was the site of a large Russian prison. Prus indirectly indicates that Rzecki served a year as a political prisoner after his return to the Russian-occupied part of Poland.
Nalewki or Świętojerska: streets in Warsaw’s Jewish neighbourhood.
prikashchiki: