Piotr Chmielowski’s Outline of Polish literature during the last sixteen years as a generational work

The article deals with" Zarys literatury polskiej z ostatnich lat szesnastu" ("Outline of Polish literature during the last sixteen years"), the famous book by Piotr Chmielowski, the most representative Polish literary critic of the Positivism epoch. It was published in 1881. The au-thor tried to delineate the Polish positivist movement that appeared after defeat of the Polish insurrection of 1863. "Zarys literatury polskie"j is a representative example of the positivist criti- cal discourse. Chmielowski succeeded in constructing a model of history of Polish literature in the second half of the 19th century. Both esthetic and ideological values promoted by the crit-ic were undoubtedly significant part of the positivist world-view