“Historical” rivers in Polish mental geography during the fifteen-year period following the Congress of Vienna (1815−1830)

The geographical names of the rivers which occur in great numbers in Śpiewy historyczne (Historical chants) by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, represent some kind of imagined water circulation system. The idea of such a system, the one closely mingled with the past of the nation, was considered an important element not only of mental geography but also of national identity. The making of “ourselves” became a hot topic of public debate after the Congress of Vienna (1815), promising Polish people the right to cultural autonomy at least. Border rivers play a significant role in Niemczewicz’s work and they are recognized by the author as a basic element of natural, nonhuman world. They may also assume the role of state borders but only as a result of a combat. The riverbanks in Śpiewy historyczne are therefore frequently considered to be bloody battlefields. Getting across the river was a crucial moment in the biography of national heroes. On the map of Śpiewy two shared rivers, namely the Dnieper and Dniester, are conceived of as a boundary between the Western and Eastern world on the one hand, and between the civilization and barbarian people on the other. In view of the didactic and therapeutic functions of Niemcewicz’s work, all “historical” rivers mentioned in it play the role of the rivers of memory. They are thought of as instruments in remembering the lost homeland, by analogy to the rivers of Babylon, and envisaged as bedrocks of Polish self-consciousness and identity. The water circulation system in Śpiewy historyczne is similar to the images present in other works of the period, e.g. in the works of Staszic, Surowiecki, Woronicz. This idea and image would moreover be useful as a starting point to analyse the biographically and politically important phenomenon of “domestic” river in the works of Mickiewicz and Syrokomla